Today's New York Times has an article on roadside memorials and the growing effort to regulate them.
These memorials, known as descansos in Spanish-speaking communities, are often much more than just a sign, a cross and flowers. They also provide a place for remembering the deceased through the display of religious jewelry and other meaningful icons.
For example, wrapped around the cross above is a St. Christopher's medal. St. Christopher was a saint who somewhere in the third supposedly carried an infant across a river, only then to discover that it was the baby Jesus (like the ever-popular Footprints in the Sand, except in reverse).
Thus St. Christopher (in Latin, Christ-bearer) became the patron saint of travellers, leading millions of people to where his medallion to secure a safe journey. Unfortunately, the Vatican decided a few years ago that St. Christopher probably never existed, and so in 1969 he was delisted from the roll of saints. Which probably explains the medal's rather dubious rate of success.
Here, the memorial features a rosary, buddha and Tweety. In the remix culture that is American religion, "God is a DJ" indeed.
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