Most people don’t think of cast iron skillets, calendars, reins, or shoes as holy objects. Laurie Brock, however, definitely does.
“Items of sacredness carry the story of how we are as humans, the stories of relationships with God and each other," says Brock, author of Souvenirs of the Holy: Encountering God Through Everyday Objects (Broadleaf, Oct. 21). The step that people miss when they look at those old skillets, according to Brock, is "also seeing the great aunts who cooked with them.”
An Episcopal priest who ministers in Lexington, Ky., Brock talks of how objects are memory keepers, allowing us to hold memories via the object that we can’t always hold ourselves. “Memories are sacred things and make up the fullness of who we are,” she says.
Souvenirs of the Holy moves beyond objects into the ways these things can speak into our lives. Chapters have titles such as: "Bread Crumbs: Things That Speak of Worth"; "Garden Shears: Things That Speak of Pruning"; and "Portraits: Things That Speak of Melancholy."
“Not all the things I talk about bring back good memories,” says Brock. “That’s part of sacredness, too. Jesus never says ‘Follow me and everything will be great.’ He says, ‘The truth will set you free.’ We can celebrate, mourn, and learn from objects.”
Brock is quick to note that not every object is sacred; sometimes a thing is just a thing—and there is nothing wrong with that. But then, we might ask ourselves why we’re holding on to particular things.
“Are we letting a thing hold something it doesn’t need to hold? When we keep things, what are we trying to keep?” she asks. “Someone gives us a gift, but it isn’t who we are. But we keep it. What are we letting that thing represent?”
Brock remembers her Southern Baptist upbringing and how that tradition had a “clear delineation on what was sacred and what was secular.” During college, she became disenchanted with the Southern Baptist religion. Then, during law school, she visited an Episcopal church and talked to the pastor who said he didn’t know the answer to her question about where Satan came from. She had never heard a church leader admit to not knowing such a thing. She became an Episcopal priest in 2002 and never looked back.
“There’s not a day goes by that I don’t appreciate that I’m a priest,” she says.
Ultimately, Brock finds those things that point to some part of God such as mercy or grace—which can be 60,000-feet high concepts—and turns them into tactile learning opportunities. “I want to empower readers to know they have permission to look around home or workplace and be in dialogue with items they hold dear, to recognize they have power and permission to engage in the dialogue of faith,” she says, adding, “We are tangible critters. Sometimes I just need to hold something in my hand.”
