Sense of Association

I was listening to a knitting blog today. The speaker was talking about her "talisman scarf." This was a knitting project that she started during a vacation to Alaska, so as she looked at it, it reminded her of her vacation adventure. Just following vacation, she fell down her basement stairs, breaking her neck. The next several months were a time of healing, and as she slowly recovered her life, she received hope from knitting her on scarf -- that life would at some time return to normal.

The scarf, when she wore it later, reminded her of both of these times in her life.

I just finished knitting a scarf last month that I started on a youth retreat. When I look at it, I remember sitting in the living area of the cabin, early in the morning,, or later in the day, as youth walked around, knitting.

Objects, I think, become linked in our minds to events.

I wonder, as I think about it, if the same thing happens to churches. Is there such resistance to any kind of change to a church building because we relate some of our spiritual experiences to the physical place? Are members threatened, not by the change in the space, but by the loss of the association?

Image: Sky on the way to work