Today is Thanksgiving Day and because of the snowstorm, worse in southern Vermont than in the NEK, I am stuck at home.  By myself.  It has been marvelous.  I am with my two best friends: Peace and Quiet.  I saw several of my family members earlier in the week. They are surviving courageously without me.

     It has also been a day largely without technology.  I tell my students all the time that they need to get off their "devices" and read books more. It stimulates the imagination in a way that Youtube, TikTok and Instagram do not.  It also improves their reading skills, their vocabulary; and, not to mention, strengthens their ability to concentrate on something longer than 30 seconds. So, what did I turn off my phone in order to read? Three things:  John Henry Newman's  Parochial and Plain Sermons (dry as a bone); Colette, La Maison de Claudine (merveilleux, mais le vocabulaire était dificile pour un anglophone, du moins pour moi); and lastly, I picked up where I left off last summer with Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. (clever and witty). How refreshing to be turned off to technology for a day.  Now if I can only convince my students of the same pleasure...

Written By: Father Lance W. Harlow

Date Published: November 28, 2024