I recall when growing up seeing a small print of “The Angelus” by Jean-Francois Millet in my grandma’s house in Delhi, CA, about 20 miles south of us. The subjects of the painting are praying and giving thanks for the bounty of the land that they hold so dear, and that is essential to their own nourishment and survival. 

 

The trees, meadows, and marshlands tell stories of the people that came before us. Our landscape connects us to past and future generations, ever changing, but always providing a point of reference. 

 

And as the steamrollers and backhoes push the outskirts ever further beyond reach, they promise us convenience and instant gratification that always rings hollow. This leads to a profound loneliness that only a debased population detached from its land and sense of self could understand. Here in suburban, parking lot America, we are merely vassals to a tyranny of the present, that shills to us a false dogma of post-historic finality, denying us reference to any past or future.