Miriam McElvain is a graduate of Patrick Henry College and a doctoral student at the University of Dallas. Before pursuing her doctorate, she spent five years as a Litigation Assistant at HSLDA. Miriam is passionate about pursuing “the good life” (as you’ll read below!) and particularly enjoys Augustine’s perspective on government and politics.
HSLDA Online Academy: What’s a typical Saturday night like for you?
Miriam McElvain: Rather boring. I might be working on my dissertation (on Augustine) or taking a walk in the neighborhood, or watching my chickens in the backyard.
HSLDA Online Academy: What are your must-have smartphone apps?
Miriam McElvain: I’m self-confessed, proud Luddite. I think technology destroys our souls as it encourages us to act according to our baser nature, and not our virtues.
It is good to wonder about things and not just immediately look up answers. It is good to be comfortable with silence and not need to constantly have music or a podcast playing. It is good to neither blurt out nor read the minutia of one’s day or thoughts and opinions on whatever topic on whatever social media platform, thoughts that are (likely) not well considered or worked out.
The good of each of these states of being is related to the integrity of the soul, and the soul’s self-collection. By the soul’s self-collection, I mean the soul’s attentiveness to itself and its inner dialogue. As the soul has time with itself, it starts to think clearly and has time to wonder and reason through ideas on its own. It can’t do this with the confusion that technology, specifically smartphone technology, brings.
Augustine makes the case for the soul needing to “habituate itself to be alone” so clearly, as a minor theme in his famous work, the Confessions, but particularly in a delightful dialogue of his called “On Order” that I’m currently reading.
All that being said, I do have a smartphone, I do use apps, most frequently to text and look up Bible verses on Google, and I also hope to get a non-smart phone as my next phone.
HSLDA Online Academy: What can you cook to perfection? Are you willing to share the recipe?
Miriam McElvain: I love cooking! I can make an excellent beans and rice dish (surprisingly!), a sweet cranberry bread that has never failed, a perfect focaccia (but not because of my work, just because it is a great recipe), an excellent Jambalaya (the secret is homemade seasoning), a fantastic chickpea curry, and more. I would be happy to share recipes! Cooking is my happy place. In fact, I’ve just made up my mind to cook that focaccia as soon as I finish answering these questions.
HSLDA Online Academy: If you won the lottery and decided to give up teaching, what would you do instead?
Miriam McElvain: If I was independently wealthy, I would still use my time to study and teach. I get excited about learning the truth that underpins creation, and so I study and teach true things in my area of expertise, politics and political theory. (That being said, there are many things that require prudential knowledge in politics—let me know if you have questions about the role of absolute truth and prudential knowledge in the political realm.)
HSLDA Online Academy: If you could pass on any wisdom to your students, what would you share?
Miriam McElvain: Seek the Lord with everything that you are. Seek his face, his presence, his love, his ways, his righteousness, his heart. Pray to seek him more. God has plans and purposes for your lives, and callings for particular seasons. But what never changes is our calling to be united with him, both in eternity and in the present time. So, seek him in family relationships, in studying, in work, and whatever else you do here on earth.
Thanks for participating, Miriam! If you want to learn more about our government and politics courses, click here.
