Food for Our Minds and Spirits: Crawford Notch

Thomas Cole’s painting from the early 19th century vs. a picture from someone on the internet.

If you are from New Hampshire, maybe you know this already. Maybe this is old hat, because you already live in the early American naturalist painters. Maybe the Husdon River School has been your backyard and its no big deal to you…

Or maybe you are me and you can’t believe that this is a real thing in the world. I’ve known about Cole and his paintings and I’ve marveled at the romanticized beauty of work that always feels like a predecessor of Whitman and Emerson and other Northeasterners who were trying to figure out what America meant. But somehow I never thought about seeing the perspective of one of those paintings from today, just with a cellphone camera, with cars in a parking lot and a two lane road in view. 

This image is from an online message board meant to put historical images in parallel to images that capture the same scene today. Mostly its black and white photographs. This is the first I’ve seen that includes an oil painting from an American master. Its an arresting reminder that wherever we stand, we are in the footprints of our ancestors

Allan T. Georgia, M.Div., M.T.S., PhD

Sometimes it is hard to tap into our spiritual selves or find time to nurture our intellectual curiosity. Here is a section that reflects on some nourishing materials from around the web and related media channels in order to get us thinking, get us feeling, and get us reflecting on the lives we are living in this big, beautiful world. **Some Adult/Mature Themes May Appear in Links and Other Attached Material**