Category: Status

Ark Moments

The Beatles arrived in NYC for the first time 61 years ago. I’ve been a big fan since I was a young person in rural South Carolina, intent on making my southern accent disappear by listening to too much of their music (along with David Bowie, Led Zeppelin, and Tom Petty’s Florida / California twang). I miss that accent now and wonder what I would sound like had I not tried to match McCartney’s pitch or Lennon’s subtle phrases all those hours in my bedroom with a ceiling that I painted black (thanks to the Stones).

It’s also the re-release of Wilco’s album a ghost is born. I was 25 (almost 26) when the album was released in 2004. The songs sound much different now than they did in my hazy memories of 25. Now, as the dad of five young people and after a 20 or so year stint in the classroom as a Middle and High School Teacher scattered with some adjunct university teaching, there’s an earnestness of trying to preserve something that comes through. Tweedy called the album an “ark” (in the Noah or Utnapishtim or Atrahasis sense) of such as he was in a bad spot at the time and thought it might be his goodbye. He wanted to preserve some of his better parts for his children. There are panthers, hummingbirds, a muzzle of bees, spiders, a fly (and he re-explores Noah’s ark in his future as well),

I didn’t pick up on that as a 25 or 26 year old. I get it now as a 46 year old.

I like to stand outside with a black walnut tree on the property we share and reflect on things after getting the little ones off to school. I’m thinking of ark moments this morning and wondering what the black walnut will take with it after our human family here has moved along down the paths of life and death. I wonder why or when it had a few of its limbs chopped off to afford a powerline that runs adjacent to our property. I wonder if any other children have ever climbed the walnut or hung a tire swing on its limbs before. I wonder what it thought of Helene or if it even did.

All of these ark moments that we hold dear ebb and flow with time and yet we say that our souls remain.

Or as Tweedy sang, “theologians, they don’t know nothing about my soul…”

Take Care of Your Tiny Notebooks

I like to think every time I open up Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations that I’m peering into something I shouldn’t be privy to… as I would always tell my students, he didn’t write those words for me, but only for himself. Yet, here we are. 

I gave away little composition notebooks to my students that we called “Tiny Notebooks.” I’d like to think some of them still are tempted to use them!

Take Care of Your Little Notebook | Charles Simic | The New York Review of Books:

I very much hope these notebooks I see in stationery stores, card shops, and bookstores are serving similar purposes. Just think, if you preserve them, your grandchildren will be able to read your jewels of wisdom fifty years from now, which may prove exceedingly difficult, should you decide to confine them solely to a smart phone you purchased yesterday.

More Reasons to Rethink Social Media

Some good points here about social media from The Generalist…

When you are bathed in a monoculture, even one warring with itself, you begin to adopt its stances as your own.

The more your data and algorithm adhere to the dominant monoculture, the less you will have to offer.

Some self-experiments for the start of 2025
— Read on thegeneralist.substack.com/p/monk-mode

Thanksgiving Leftovers Sandwich

I have my own spin on this that I’ve made for years, but the NY Times version isn’t too far off (I like the idea of creating a “cranberry mayo” by combining the ubiquitous cranberry sauce with a bit of mayonnaise!)…

The sandwich you make with all the prized leftovers the day after Thanksgiving might be even better than the main event. Assembling this leftover Thanksgiving sandwich is easy, but the details matter. The white and dark turkey meat each get special love and attention: The breast is warmed in butter, while the dark meat is shredded, then warmed in gravy. This club ditches the usual third slice of bread for a slab of crisp, fried stuffing instead. When heating the stuffing, make sure your pan is good and hot so the stuffing fries up fast without falling apart in the skillet. A generous swipe of cranberry mayo brings the whole thing together.

Source: Best Thanksgiving Leftovers Sandwich Recipe (gift article)

Reblog of Merianna Harrelson: The Screen Between

Reblog via Merianna Harrelson

Fifteen years ago, when I pursuing a Master’s in Literacy, we wondered and pondered about the impact of screens for readers. We questioned and discussed how literacy needed to be taught differently because of the availability of so much content and with so much reading occurring on a screen. I attended and participated in professional developments centered around “the screen between.” We discussed and debated how the screen between eliminated so many of the social cues and nonverbal communication that takes place between two people in person in conversations and in classrooms.

These discussions were way before so many people had a handheld device with a screen that fit in their pocket. Now as a minister, I find myself in conversations and debates about that same “screen between,” and how emboldened people feel to type something in a comment thread or text that they would never say to a person’s face.

And that’s just it. We don’t see each other anymore. The screen between us disconnects us from our joint humanity even as it advertises more connections and connetions from around the world.

As I have tried to be more intentional about my own use of screens, especially around our infant, I’ve noticed just how prevalent screens are. There is no small talk in the elevator or grocery store anymore because we are all looking down. Even restaurants have started to put screens on the tables and in their wait staff’s hands which I am sure streamlines the ordering process, but also interrupts the connection that you make with the person who is taking their time to serve you.

I can’t help but wonder when like Dorthy and her followers, we will discover the man behind the curtain or rather the fellow humans behind the screens. While these devices may seem just as great and powerful as the Wizard of Oz, there’s something missing and something we are all longing for. Eventually we are going to have to decide whether we want a screenshot of life, a projection of what appears to be or whether we want to live life with and among those that surround us.

We all want to be seen. We all want to know that we aren’t on this journey alone. But in order to do that, we are going to have to put away the screen between us and look each other in the eyes and say, “I am here. You are here. And here we are together.”

The post The Screen Between appeared first on Merianna Neely Harrelson.

Mr. Harrelson (Again)!

Got my classroom name plate for my new classroom and teaching position at Wilson Hall today. I’m teaching 7th grade science, Environmental Science, and Physics. All three subjects should be a blast.

I look forward to this being the last classroom name plate I collect to finish out my career here at Wilson Hall in the next few decades (I still have my others from previous schools)! So exciting!