Christine Ellis- Sacred Place is Storied Place

It seems every time I visit my Uncle Jimmy, he has some sort of travel story to re-tell over dinner, during football games, and generally anytime he can get a word in. He's told me about his trips along the Appalachian Trail, the road to Santiago, to Stone Henge, and any number of places I can't even spell. I began thinking how in every family there is at least one "talker", one attention-hungry beast that must be listened to at all times. Now, I love my Uncle Jimmy, but he is that "talker". In ancient times, before anyone had discovered papyrus, most history was passed down orally. I guess someone has always had to take up the mantle in every family. It must be some evolutionary fail-safe in case another asteroid hits and we are left in a second ice age.
One of Uncle Jimmy's favorite topics to talk about, as you might have guessed,is pilgrimage and how it changes you. He can go on for hours about how seeing some rock formation in Colorado stirred within him feelings he can't describe (though he will always try to). Its not that I don't understand. When I went to the Vietnam Memorial a few years ago, it was the first time I'd ever seen that many names carved on a wall; the first time I had seen such tragically tangible evidence of a war that took 50,000 young lives. I stared at the rows of American flags, hallmark cards, and teddy bears. I closed my eyes and I tried to imagine the souls of all of those soldiers lined up in perfect formation above the memorial. I touched the wall and for a minute, I could almost feel a steady heart beat, like the place had a life and memories of its own.
I think on that moment now and I realize that without stories I had heard about the wall and what it meant, about the soldiers' wounds, about the metal bracelets with names of P.O.W's carved into them, and about all of the families that would never be the same, I would have never felt the way I did. Sacred place is nothing without the experiences of others tied to it. Without all of the surviving veterans to tell the story of Vietnam and all of the people who have visited it like me, the memorial would only be a block of stone in the ground.