For Memorial Day, T.M. Luhrmann on the spiritual power of place: Read it and think

Today's New York Times gives us an op ed piece by T.M. Luhrman titled "How Places Let Us Feel the Past"

As someone who has felt the mystical power of Our Lady of Vilnius, I continue to ponder its attraction:  its source, its nature, its reality.  T.M. Luhrman, through scholarship and contemplation has been able to illuminate and articulate these ponderings for me.  Salient quotes below:

"WHAT gives certain places their extraordinary power to move people so deeply?"

"Locations have always been central to human thought and feeling. Anthropologists have found that in traditional societies, memory becomes attached to places."

"They give an external presence to something that can only be imagined. They make that which has been imagined real, different and, at times, overwhelming. This is also true for places made holy in the imagination."

"It is easy in our individualistic culture to think of memories as private and selves as interior. That is an illusion. Our memories and dreams dwell incarnate in the world. Sometimes, they are too much to bear."

Attention materialists at 1011 First Avenue, especially those of you who have been ordained:  Please read this article, think and pray.   How can you sacrifice the sites that are the collected souls of your people made manifest?