Intersections and Detours by Elsi Vassdal Ellis

This collection of 12 books and two boxes with images and stories that serve as a confession of faith and not faith. Stories speak to the matter of history, belief(s), nature and homo sapiens, of ritual prayers, personal rituals, a sacred art history pilgrimage. There are many Catholic references but there should be no assumptions made about my faith. I have come to the realization that my interest in and collection of the matter of faith expressed but especially of Catholicism lies in the desire to examine and explore the mysteries of faith, how beliefs are expressed through objects, a congregation of saints as intercessors that can ease the assimilation of one faith while secretly retaining original beliefs through substitutions, the significance the acts of lighting candles, polishing beads in recitation, remembering the dead. But what it comes down to for me is that the 12-year-old who never let go of the archaeological wonders and mysteries of the expression of beliefs via matter.