Icons of a commercial cult?
I grew up in a protestant church in a protestant country, proud of its heritage. I grew up with the sense that when one went to church, church should be a place of intense sobriety, clean colour schemes (preferably white or whitewash), and lots of hymns by the congregation. There were also sermons, but small children are easily distracted by trying to make a boiled lolly last longer than that particularly boring part of the service *g*.

Then the family visited France and we discovered that the non-protestant churches that we were visiting for their historical importance were colourful galleries with their stained-glass windows and complicated murals and paintings on the inside walls. It made the prospect of attending a service in one of these churches a far from boring idea for this little pigeon. But we never did, because these were not ‘our kind of churches’ although I’ll bet my parents never thought of it that way, it was one of those “wrong end of the stick” things that children are prone to.

But all through my childhood, whenever the subject of the previous all-encompassing Church was mentioned in history classes or on programs on the television based on history (“The six wives of Henry VIII” by the BBC still is a favourite) the Church that coloured their lives then was the one I encountered that ‘wasn’t our kind of church’. It was full of saints and pilgrimages and weird imagery and knick-knacks all for sale at the door of the church, all of which was superstitious nonsense and had nothing to do with what going to “church” is all about (more “wrong end of the stick” things).

Coloured gee-gaws and thingamabobs that today would be marked “A present from Blackpool” rather than “A remembrance of Saint Winnebago” would represent a journey of spiritual importance. As well as a dangerous journey from one place to another and back for those that went on a pilgrimage. Similar to those still available in the foyers of those ‘foreign’ churches that I visited with my family as a child.

Anyway, that’s what “The Church” meant before the Reformation, to an English child raised in the all-pervading smugness of the knowledge that the Protestant way of life was just the right way to do things. Though looking back I have discovered that it probably wasn’t quite that black and white, but then ‘history-as-it-is-taught’ is not necessarily the same as the history one discovers by reading through books not on the curriculum and based more on what happened than what is acceptable to the educational authorities.

Nearly eighteen months ago the world was shaken by the attack on the World Trade Centre. Many things have happened as a consequence that are better addressed by others more capable; what fascinates me is the increasing commentary, and the range and diversity of the souvenirs of the WTC and the apparent need to purchase them, even when they are incredibly tawdry or kitsch.

In a strange way, there is a connection between the old centres of pilgrimage and the treasured souvenirs that pilgrims brought home with them as remembrance of their journey to a sacred place and the increasing number of souvenirs available to commemorate what happened in New York.
If one can accept the simile that our Western culture is seen to “worship” the concept of capitalism, then New York’s World Trade Centre could be seen as a site of pilgrimage for those belonging to the cult of “commerce” that seems to drive much of the creation of this new crop of pilgrim icons. Just as the purchase of relics and icons from the great pilgrimage churches in the past recalled the story of the saint the icons commemorated and the difficulties of the journey the pilgrim had made to obtain them, in a way there seems to be an echo of that historical need in the creation and purchase of these cultic icons.

Looking back on the history of the religion I grew up in, on one level I do not understand why one would buy some of these things in order to ‘remember’ such a horrible day. Even now, half a world and eighteen months away from the event, I am still confronting the occasional image from the television footage in my dreams.
But on another level there is a part of me that understands. It’s the part of me that needs a physical remembrance of something that is too big to otherwise understand, and finally I start to understand why ordinary folks would go on long pilgrimages in the Middle Ages and return home with a souvenir 'from Blackpool'. I may not actually make the trip to New York, but in a way, seeing the images as they happened that night (my time) I feel that I have made a pilgrimage of sorts via my television set, and I too feel the need to bring back a souvenir of the pain of that day to remind me of that journey.

Perhaps I am a commercial cultist, after all?

I’m including some links that got me started thinking about this …
The selling of 9/11
Forbidden thoughts about 9/11
Culture after September 11th
Imagining death - post 9/11 fiction
9/11 Television archive