An Attempt to Speak Truth

The Patience of Smoking Meat

2011-01-24T17:19:00.011-05:00

Smoking meat, or barbecuing, is an endeavor that teaches patience, sometimes by trying your patience. At the very least, it requires setting aside hours for cooking even a small piece of meat and it can (and should) entail more preparation than that. For pork, you should give it a dry rub or a marinade the night before (or earlier); for poultry or salmon, you should brine it for at least a day (and maybe soak it in water afterwards to pull out some of the salt now that it has done its moisturizing job) and then rub, marinade, or inject it with seasonings. And these are the things you hot smoke, which is faster than cold smoking (as you would for bacon or cold smoked salmon).

As you might imagine, the work that I recently put in to make my own smoker and the subsequent time dedicated to the art of smoking has given me some time to think about patience (and some exercise in practicing and trying it). Patience is part of the fruit of the spirit (fruit is singular in Galatians and denotes that all those things listed are part of one thing that should all be present in a persons life). As our pastor noted in a recent sermon, we shouldn't confuse a natural inclination toward a particular aspect of the fruit of the spirit with the work of the spirit itself. The distinction should be that the work of the spirit manifests itself to some degree in all the things listed as part of the fruit of the spirit.

I tend to be a pretty laid back and pretty patient person by nature, which makes me well suited to the art of barbecue. I hope part of that is the work of the Holy Spirit in my life producing fruit, but a significant (and probably larger) part of it is a natural aversion to conflict and confrontation, rooted mainly in a desire for acceptance. That's the part of me that sees my rising temper and says, "Getting angry or frustrated will not help me achieve the selfish desire for which I am striving, so I better cool off." This is not altogether a bad inclination and it is certainly not an illogical one, but it is rooted in selfishness. If the spirit is working in me to increase my patience, it is by teaching me to that I don't need to get angry or frustrated because God works all things to the good of those who love him and by the grace of Christ, I am included in that category. That kind of teaching will also increase in me the tendency to love, joy, peace, kindness, gentleness, and self-control in addition to patience.

In smoking, experience teaches patience by a very practical method: The longer you smoke the meat, cheese, fish, or whatever else you're smoking, the more the smoke flavor permeates the food. There is a natural satisfaction in saying, "I cooked this pork shoulder for 10.5 hours and boy does it taste like it." I just need to keep reminding myself that the time I am spending is not just for making good food (though to be honest, that is much of my motivation), but also that I can spend my time freely knowing that God will give me the time I need to do the things that I need to do. Now I just have to remember that I shouldn't confuse the things I need to do and the things I want to do . . .

Here is a snapshot of things that I have smoked. As always, pork tenderloin is small enough to take only 3 hours or so to smoke:

That pink area is called the smoke ring. It's cooked (the inside is white), so there's no danger in the pink.

A good friend helped me pick up the applewood in his truck, so I promised him some smoked salmon. We smoked two so we could have one too. It was hands down the best salmon I've ever eaten (only slightly photoshopped to remove the glare of the flash).

After this I apparently decided to go into the catering business. Some college students decided to host a barbecue for the entire church at their house (across the street from the high school where we meet) and I let it be known that I had a smoker and could cook enough pulled pork for the entire congregation. So here's 63 lbs of pork shoulder that smoked for 10.5 hours (before and after). We counted around 140 people and we had about 1/4 of the pulled pork left.
That blackened part isn't burned, it's delicious, spicy bark. You cook the pork shoulder until it flakes apart with the turn of a fork.

Of course, we had to smoke the turkey since we were hosting Thanksgiving dinner.
We also smoked some salt in the tin foil pan you see pictured (which we'll keep smoking whenever we smoke so that it eventually is smoked for days and will have a wonderful smoky flavor).

We have also smoked cheese. This obviously requires much lower temperatures, so it helps if there's snow on the ground. Cheese only takes 45-60 minutes to get a good smoky flavor as long as you leave it out in the air for an hour or two prior to smoking to develop a rind that will take the smoke.
The reddish block in the back right was rubbed with paprika for added color (there was some mention of doing this online, but I'm not sure it was worth the trouble).

We subsequently waxed and labeled the cheese (including nutrition facts on the back). We gave some of it as gifts for Christmas and kept some for ourselves. You can clearly see the paprika block that we kept for ourselves.
There will be much more to come. In addition to other meats that I have yet to smoke, my wife has started making hard cheese and as soon as we can dig the smoker out of the snow, we'll be smoking some of that.

Building a New Meat Smoker

2010-12-22T14:32:00.032-05:00

Brief update on my life: Since I last posted I got a new job in railroad consulting and bought a house. Although we didn't buy a "fixer-upper", we have stayed busy with the house. Our projects to date include spackling two entire rooms (to cover textured walls), painting four rooms, adding electrical outlets, wiring overhead lights upstairs, replacing a hot water heater, raising the attic floor by eight inches, blowing eight inches of additional insulation under the newly raised attic floor, and replacing a couple interior doors, among other things (including a ridiculously large garden that my wife tends). As such, I've neglected my writing.

Luckily, my lovely wife helps me chronicle my adventures in pictures, so all is not lost as to this busy time in my life. One of my many adventures has been, now that we have our own place, to build a bigger and better meat smoker.There were many considerations that led to this project. First, my previous homemade smoker has some shortcomings, both is size and in reliability (I was rewiring it almost every time we used it). Second, I had long toyed with the idea of building bigger and better smokers of various kinds whose designs can be found all over the internet. Third, I came across someone on Craig's List who had downed a very old apple tree and was looking to get rid of about a cord of apple wood for a good price (for the uninitiate, a cord is the amount of wood that would fit in a stacked pile with dimensions 4'x4'x8'). Fourth, I came across someone selling food grade 55 gallon drums for $8 each (both steel and plastic) and was able to convince my wife that I could get a couple of plastic drums to make her a pair of rain barrels (which I did) and also get a couple of metal drums to make a meat smoker.

Having found a couple of steel drums determined for me the type of smoker I was to build: The Big Baby. The Big Baby uses a couple kits that are designed to turn a pair of steel drums into a cheap woodstove for camps and workshops (they're not the prettiest stoves). Here are a couple of other people who've documented the idea and here are some pictures of the progress.

First came the platform, made from a couple of pressure treated deckboard (1.25"x6"x8') with a generator wheel kit adapted to give it wheels on one side and some short legs made from 1" square aluminum tube with rubber feet.

Then the bottom barrel goes on a pair of legs and serves as the firebox. The bottom is lined with fire bricks to keep the bottom from quickly rusting out.

Then the top barrel goes on and serves as the smoke chamber/grill. There is a hinged door cut with some metal riveted around 3 sides of the doorway to catch the door and reduce the amount of smoke that gets out through the cracks. There is also a homemade handle made from a 1"x1" pressure treated board and some square aluminum 1" tube. Next to the door you can see a pair of grill thermometers stolen from my old smoker. The grill is just some expanded metal grate sitting on top of pieces of angle iron riveted along the inside walls of the top barrel.

The 3" vent pipes coming out of the both sides of the top barrel came from the old hot water heater. On top of these smokestacks there are homemade chimney caps made from some scrap metal found in our new basement. Also made from that scrap metal was a baffle, that sits in the top barrel (just above the bottom of the barrel, suspending by a pair of threaded rods that run across the drum for that purpose) to disperse the heat and smoke from the firebox, but there is no picture of that. The baffle also serves to have a flat place under the grill to put a water pan and/or catch the drippings.

Obviously, God has been gracious to us in giving us the creativity with which to build such things, as well as the room to keep such a large contraption and the friends and family with which to share the wonderful food we can cook on it (and have cooked on it already, but that is a topic for another post . . .).

Some notes on the process for those who are interested:

The barrels were sandblasted inside and out by a local guy to remove the existing paint and interior coating (and some rust), then they were repainted with stove paint that's made to take the heat.
I added some makeshift dampers on the back of the bottom barrel by drilling holes in circular pieces of metal and riveting them to the drum and then drilling holes in the barrel to match. With a little wooden handle, the riveted circle spins and allows more air into the firebox. Before doing this, I had some trouble keeping the fire going since the only other air inlet is a small damper built into the stove door. Even now, the fire doesn't rage, but that's a good things for smoking.
Some stove cement was used around the collars, stove doors, and vent pipes, but I never was able to get it to cure properly and most of it has cracked and fallen away. The directions on applying it tell you to spread it on and "slowly heat the cement to 500 degrees". It doesn't specify exactly what it means by "slowly" or exactly how to heat it.
If I were to do it again, I'd probably put another pair of wheels on the other side of the platform (ones that could rotate, like the ones on those deck mowers) since it is a little heavy to lift and shove around the yard. Maybe next year I'll make some modifications
In this same vein, I added a pretty heavy duty hand made with 2x6 boards and heavy lag bolts for lifting the side without wheels. It also serves as a small platform to set things when smoking, but I usually also bring out a folding tv tray. In the future I may build a better platform around the smoker for staging.
I would also make the platform a little wider. It has once blown over and required a little banging to get the door back in shape. We've also turned it so that the normal wind direction doesn't hit it broadside.
I would be remiss if I didn't also mention the cover that my wife made for it by sewing together three small tarps to fit. You can see an image of it on her blog here. I did well in finding a wife, but I'm sure you knew that already.

My Homemade Meat Smoker Part Deux

2009-04-21T15:20:00.007-04:00

In response to some interest over the smoker, here's a picture of the resulting pork tenderloin (you can click on the image for a larger, more mouth-watering version - my wife took the picture). I marinated it overnight, then put a simple rub on it (black pepper, salt, cayenne pepper & onion powder) and rolled it in crushed cashews. Unfortunately there was a little too much cayenne pepper in the rub and it overpowered the marinade and the cashews too (you could still taste the cashews just a little once you got used to the spiciness). It was still delicious, just spicy and delicious. God is indeed very good.

And it's no use asking for leftovers: There aren't any.

My Homemade Meat Smoker

2009-04-18T16:40:00.018-04:00

This is another post in a similar vein to the one before it. That is to say that it is a post about creativity. In this case, the creativity of myself and some friends in building a meat smoker. In case you missed the previous post and are too lazy to go back and look at it, the summary is that we are creative because God is creative and we are made in his image. I thank God for his creativity not only in my own case, but especially for the creativity of the man who came up with the supremely God-like idea to smoke meat (and I think that the odds are pretty good that it was a man).

A while back (a couple of years ago now) some culinarily adept grad student friends of mine and I came up with a somewhat harebrained scheme to build our own meat smoker. The basic idea is that you take a metal trash can (new, not used), put a hot plate in the bottom with a box of hardwood chips on it (soaked in water so they last longer and steam as well as smoke), put some meat near the top, and let it cook for several hours (ideally somewhere around 215-225 degrees Fahrenheit). I think it's just about the best way to cook meat. After building it, I sort of inherited the smoker and have used it periodically to cook ribs, pork loin, and several turkeys.

Of course, the details are a little more complicated than the simple picture painted above and over the course of the years, there have been some necessary adjustments to the smoker. Here are two pictures of the smoker (top on and top off):

Some of the first things to notice are the temperature gauge on the top (you need to know how hot it is in there - there is a second thermometer on the side), the door at the bottom (for adding more wood chips without lifting the lid and losing all the heat and smoke), and the wood blocks on the side (they are attached to the screws that hold the brackets that hold the grill grate - otherwise there would be screws sticking out of the side of the can). You can also see those brackets and the hot plate in the second image. There are two levels of brackets so that you can put a pan of liquid underneath to keep the meat from drying out or to put the meat closer to the heat if need be (the temperature is usually 20-30 degrees warmer at the lower brackets).

Warning: From here on out, the post may get a little technical. If you're not interested in the details of how to make a smoker or the technical challenges involved, you can just stop reading.

Now that we've lost all those boring, non-technical people, lets get to the interesting part. All of these things were in the original smoker design. The changes have all happened to the hot plate. It turns out that hot plates are not designed to be kept on for long periods of time in enclosed spaces. In fact they are designed to shut off if the temperature gets too hot (this is also how our hot plate was designed to regulate the heat). This is, in general a good thing. For a meat smoker, it is a bad thing. There were a couple of different variations we tried on bypassing the switch before settling on the simplest solution of directly wiring the plug to the hot plate with no other internal components whatsoever. This means that to "turn on" the smoker, you plug it in and to "turn it off" you unplug it. One of these days maybe I'll put in a switch. We also took out the body of the hot plate and mounted the heating element onto one of those metal wiring boxes (the kind that light switches are mounted on) just to make sure that there was no plastic to give off strange fumes.

This was more or less the way the smoker stayed for a couple years with one small, recurring problem: The wires just underneath the hot plate would periodically get brittle and break from the heat, effectively turning off the hot plate. If you really care to know, copper wire apparently has some oxygen in it (unless you pay a lot of money for pure copper wire). This oxygen when heated, reacts with the hydrogen in the air to form water which in turn evaporates into steam, leaving behind small holes and weakening the copper wire (end science lesson). It was never a huge deal, but whatever I would be cooking at the time would have to be finished in the oven. Now that I have time on my hands, I decided it was time to solve this problem. Being unemployed and on a tight budget, I also decided to solve the problem with whatever I had on hand.

So here is the task: I need to get the electrical current from outside the can to the hotplate without using copper wire (at least inside the can). My solution: use steel bars instead of wires and connect it using the wiring used for electric fences. Of course, this creates some other complications, mainly keeping the steel rods from blowing a circuit by touching the metal trash can (or each other). The only steel rods I had were rectangular (about 1" x 1/8"), so I had to cut away some of the metal box on which the heating element is mounted to give the rods a little room. I also ran them through a couple of pieces of wood (hardwood so that any smoke won't hurt) so that they wouldn't touch the bottom of the can or each other. On top of those pieces of wood, we placed a piece of glass to shield the bars from any dripping that might cause similar problems, (my father-in-law cut the glass for me). Here you can see some of that work (the slant of the glass is intentional to keep the drippings away from the steel):

On the left you can see through the door of the smoker to the hot plate and the pieces of wood and glass behind. You can also see the bar magnet in the foreground that keeps the door shut (it's sticking out of the right side of the doorway). On the right, you can see the underside of the hot plate where most of the electrical box has been cut away to make room for the steel bars.

Now that I've got it back together and working, there's a pork tenderloin in the fridge that's just asking to be smoked. We'll see how the new wiring holds up.

On Creativity

2009-02-09T15:15:00.009-05:00

So it’s that time of year that we are still trying to remember not to write the previous year on the checks when we pay the bills and hoping that spring will be coming soon. It's also the time of year in Northern New England where the excesses alternately of salt and snow turn driving and parking into exercises in modern relativism: We are free to interpret lanes and parking spaces for ourselves as long as our interpretation doesn't directly contradict someone else's. And like modern relativism, it is just a practical implication of there being actual lanes and parking spots, which just happen to be difficult to see in the present circumstances. To see the underlying reality, it is only necessary to see what happens when trying to find your own lane where the snow plow hasn't defined it or where someone else is trying to find their own lane in the opposite direction.

Of course, it's not only a good time to make fun of modern relativism; it's also the time of year that my research appointment comes up for reevaluation. This time around, as I've known for a while, the project is coming to a close, which means I'm looking for a job. Of course, it's not the best time to be out of a job, but I'm not in charge of those decisions and not too worried about it. God has provided in the past and He will provide in the present and the future. As an interesting coincidence (if you believe in such nonsense), we just found out that we're done paying for our heat for the winter. Since we're on the budget plan that budgeted for oil to cost about five dollars a gallon for the year, we have enough money paid to the oil company that we're set until July. In fact, their note says "We only wish Wall Street and the investment bankers had been as smart as our customers." That makes me smile.

In the meantime, I have some time off to be a househusband and to be creative. In my first week off I made a light box for photography (shown below, think of it as a miniature photo studio), not only having fun with power tools, but spending almost no money (if I had had enough clip lights I wouldn't have spent anything). The next week I made some garlic-herb baguettes and it was the first time I'd made bread without the assistance of a bread machine (it turned out very well). Last week I made a rather experimental recipe of Apple Strawberry Nut Bread (which was delicious). I'll probably post more on some of those later, but I thought it was a good time to talk about creativity.

So why am I creative (or anyone else for that matter)? The short and glib answer (which is in this case also true) is that "God made me that way." In Exodus 35, the Bible speaks of a particular artist, saying "[God] has filled [this artist] with the Spirit of God, with skill, ability and knowledge in all kinds of crafts—to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, to cut and set stones, to work in wood and to engage in all kinds of artistic craftsmanship." So I create because the Spirit of God is in me; because I was created in the image of God. To make my point a little clearer: I create because God is creative; the overflowing love of God has created a world in which his creativity is on display not only in the beauty of creation, but also in His ability to create creative beings.

To this end, our church just had an art display with pieces from a handful of artists in the congregation to celebrate the creativity that God has given us. I had some photos there and so did my lovely wife. We'll post pictures online soon, when I get around to making the page.

A Review of the Lord of the Rings movies

2008-10-13T11:20:00.001-04:00

      I have to confess that I never thought that I'd actually be heckled for not updating my blog more frequently than I do. Apparently I was wrong; the world is indeed stranger and more fantastic than I ever imagined. Now that I've been heckled by a certain Tim, who shall remain nameless (no, not you, the other Tim). I have waited a couple months longer to update my blog to prove that such heckling is fruitless. You have to be firm with these Tims (not you either, the other other Tim). In keeping with my theme of procrastination, I am going to talk about a subject that is more than a little overdue: The Lord of the Rings movies. My wife and I recently watched through the extended versions of all three and all the special features as well (it has taken a couple months). Then I recently had a discussion with a friend who is a self-proclaimed Tolkien snob. On the heels of that, I want to put down where I think the movies went right and where they went wrong. In the end, I'll argue that when they went wrong, it was because they didn't understand Tolkien's Christian worldview.

      First, they did a great job on a number of fronts. Obviously, the special effects were amazing. The battle scenes (and the software written to do the big battle scenes) were phenomenal and all the orcs, fell beasts, oliphaunts, and the rest were marvels of modern digital wizardry. Similarly, the scenery, sets, and music were perfect and made amazing backdrops for the story. In terms of characters, they nailed several: Sam, Gollum, Boromir, Merry, Pippin, Gimli, etc. They made appropriate cuts in the story to fit it to film (Tom Bombadil, the burning of the shire) and interweaving of the many divergent storylines (especially in the last two movies). Watching the special features made me appreciate that in many ways the making of the movie was nearly as epic as the story itself.

      There is more to say about the things that they missed and I will do so by starting with how I think the writers misunderstand Tolkien's Christianity. First I think they miss the hand of divine providence and Christian unity and leadership. In the books, there are many providential moments. Merry & Pippin stumble upon the Ents who then take it upon themselves to attack Isengard; Frodo & Sam stumble across Faramir and gain help and counsel. There are also several points where "the good guys" band together to do what must be done. Aragorn leaves Rivendell with the sword of Isildur with the intention of eventually claiming his rightful throne in Gondor. The people of Rohan hole up at Helm's Deep to weather the onslaught of Saruman upon the advice of Gandalf; Faramir sends Frodo & Sam on their way with no desire for the one ring; Gondor lights the beacons and Rohan comes to their aid; Frodo & Sam never lose sight of their agreement that the ring needs to be destroyed.

      Instead of emphasizing the providence of circumstances, the fellowship seems to be fighting the circumstances to bring about the desired result. Merry & Pippin have to trick the ents into attacking Isengard and Frodo & Sam have to convince Faramir that the ring needs to be destroyed. These instances rob the ents of their wisdom. Merry is right in his assessment that the ents are part of the world and that being neutral is being on the side of the enemy. It also makes Faramir turn a second Boromir who can't see the truth of the deception of the ring. There are those over whom the temptation of power has no influence and Faramir should be one of those.

      Similarly, there is much discord about what to do and much questioning of leadership. Aragorn runs away from his claim to the throne of Gondor; Gandalf, Aragon, and the rest try to talk Theoden out of taking refuge at Helm's Deep and then grumble about the choice constantly in front of Theoden's men; Faramir uncharacteristically lusts after the power of the ring; Pippin has to light the beacons behind Denethor's back; and Aragorn has to convince Theoden to answer the beacons; Frodo sends Sam away childishly.

      Most of the time, this is done for suspense, but at what cost? Aragorn becomes a man who has commitment issues; Gandalf becomes a bumbling advisor without insight (Helm's Deep) or respect for authority (Theoden & Denethor); Aragorn, Gimli, & Legolas uncharacteristically undermine the authority of Theoden before a major battle; Theoden becomes a stubborn, crotchety old man; and Frodo becomes a whiny addict without perspective. Gandalf openly mocks Pippin's selfless oath to Denethor, ruining the beauty and innocence of the act and then shows no restraint in arguing with Denethor. In general, few of the characters are able to keep the big picture in mind that there is an evil that needs to be fought that is bigger than any one person's ego.

      Aside from those big thematic issues, I also wanted to mention a problem in a very particular scene: The Mouth of Sauron. Aragorn's response to the taunts of the mouth of Sauron in the movie is to kill him in cold blood. Now Aragorn is no different than Sauron himself who kills because he is displeased. They went through all that earlier with Frodo and Gollum and now they carelessly miss their own point here with Aragorn. The bad guys are bad for the means they use to get to their desired ends as well as for the ends themselves (perhaps even primarily so). My friend the Tolkien snob also argued that they missed the wisdom of Gandalf and the others in seeing that Sauron must not have the ring, even if he did have Frodo since he had not yet taken over the world. I am not convinced that they didn't realize this in the movie, but they certainly didn't make a point of it.

      There are more issues, but these are the biggest in my mind and very Christian in their nature. God doesn't call the equipped, He equips the called; sometimes Christian action means acting taking up the authority that God has given you and sometimes it means submitting to the authority of another person, but it never means grumbling about it or running away from it; contemplation and good counsel lead to wise action; stick to your principles because they may be able to kill you, but only you can lose your soul. As Dr. John Hannah recently said, "I used to think that bad people did bad things for bad reasons, but now I realize that good people do bad things for very good reasons."

To my devoted reader

2007-11-29T08:52:00.000-05:00

      And I do mean that in the singular, though there is the outside chance that I am underestimating my readership by a factor of 2. I have realized that the longer I procrastinate from writing a blog post, the harder it is to sum up all that has been going on in my mind. So in order to update you on the last six months or so of my life, let me do so in a literary sprint for the sake of space and time (and space-time):

      I got married on 7/7/07 and spent a lovely honeymoon with my lovely wife on the coast of Maine. I moved into a lovely stone house (that we are renting) in a historic neighborhood with my lovely wife and got a new car. We had an amazing time in Michigan with family and an adventure or two getting there and back. We saw Nickel Creek in concert on their “Farewell for Now” tour and it was pretty awesome. My wife went back to school (she teaches first grade) and we settled down into a wonderful married routine that is rather predictable, but not at all dull. We bought lots of furniture, spent a weekend in the wilderness of Northern New Hampshire, and hosted our first Thanksgiving for her parents, her sister, and about 8 college students from at least 5 foreign countries (Singapore, China, Swaziland, Russia, Texas, and North Dakota). I do know that those last two are not foreign countries, but each is more or less half of a foreign country and together should make a whole one. After Thanksgiving dinner we took a walk and then watched “The Russians are Coming! The Russians are Coming!” That next Saturday we cut down our first Christmas tree and decorated it. Now I’m in New Orleans for a conference and staying in a nice hotel just outside the French Quarter. That is the last six months of my life in a paragraph.

      Of course any one of the above sentences is plenty of fodder for an entire blog post (especially the first one, which could probably be several), but you’ll just have to ask for more details (though I will tell you that the thanksgiving menu included brie cheese & mango chutney, raspberry pepper jelly & cream cheese, Vermont cheddar cheese, crackers, cranberry & pear sauce, salad, green beans, carrots, stuffing, cornbread dressing, blue mashed potatoes, smoked turkey & gravy, pecan pie, apple pie, pumpkin pie, and homemade vanilla ice cream). In addition to the many things that have happened in my personal life, there have been many blog posts kicking around in my head (“all of them so much more brilliant and convincing than the [blog posts] that I have written” to slightly misquote G. K. Chesterton). In similar fashion to the summary above, I will elaborate on a couple of them, but give each a paragraph rather than a sentence as above.

Blog Post 999 of those I have never written:

      For this post I have to beg the forgiveness of those who don’t live in the shadow of the new black hole at the new center of the sports universe (by which I mean Boston). Between the Red Sox, the Patriots, the Celtics, and the Bruins (though I confess I don’t care at all about hockey), sports in the New England area has become the focus of much national attention and even more local pride. The specific controversy (or controversies) I have been pondering is the phenomenon of the New England Patriots football team. The bare facts run like this: After the first game of the season, the Patriots were accused of videotaping defensive signals of their opponents and fined seriously for it. This year they have been dominating opponents regularly by 40 points, leaving their starters in until almost the very end of the game, going for it on fourth down when up by 30+ points, and generally breaking just about every offensive record known to football scorekeepers. Of course, there is much speculation on what causal connection there might be between the two previous sentences and I don’t want to indulge in any of that. There are two points that I want to make, the first being the most off topic: Most of the talk is gossip created by the media. The Patriots are very professional, play very well, and have said nothing at all about trying to humiliate their opponents, run up the score, or get back at the league for the punishment and the subsequent ill comments thrown in their direction. The media has painted them as a team with an overdeveloped sense of vengeance, a hulk-sized chip on its shoulder, and a burning ambition to be the best football team ever. With this as their literary assumption, the media has taken turns vilified and praising the Patriots for their tactics (“Don’t run up the score on Joe Gibbs, that’s unsportsmanlike” turns to “there’s no crying in professional football, if you don’t want them to go for it on fourth down when they’re up by 37 points then stop them”). The second point I would like to make about the Patriots is that they are to a man unconcerned about what the media or anybody else says about them. They are always respectful of their opponents and yet defeat them with an air of methodic humility that the scoreboard hides very well. I find that a very challenging example. Maybe they do leave their starters in a little longer than other people think they should and score an extra touchdown or three when they’ve got the game pretty well in the bag, but they have a faith in themselves and their coach that affords them a very humble outlook and they do their very best regardless of what other people think. I must confess that I often get by with enough effort to please others when I could easily do better. I also have to confess that I don’t have that much faith in God, though I profess him to be much more in control than the Patriots think Bill Belicheck is. I pray that I can fight my enemies with such calm assurance and humility.

Blog Post 42 of those I have never written:

      I have come to the somewhat obvious and probably misunderstood revelation that I am slow. Before you misunderstand my meaning, let me explain. I don’t mean that I am unintelligent (in fact I have a pretty high view of my own intelligence). Perhaps a better way to say it would be to say that I think slowly. John Steinbeck once wrote that he couldn’t just sit down and write about his experiences, but that those experiences had to simmer and stew and ferment in his mind before he could make sense of them on paper. That is what I mean. I mean I am not good at debating or impromptu speaking; I would not make a good politician or courtroom lawyer. In that vein, I have been stewing a couple of thoughts for a while. One such thought I think came from my pastor and it went something like this: “One great misconception that drives our culture today is that the universe is a closed system with a limited amount of resources. The practical effect of this is that there may not be enough to go around, so you’d better get all you can, can all you get, and sit on your can.” The last part I think came much later than the first, but in a relevant context. The obvious application of this principle is in the material realm. We are not generous with our money and possessions because we don’t really believe that God can or will shower his blessings on his people. The less obvious application is that the same idea applies to time and our safety or wellbeing. We act as if God has not put enough time in the day or that he will not work everything for the good of those who love Him. We are so enamored will all the many “opportunities” that we have that we do not trust God to give us the opportunities that we really need; we are practical atheists. Despite the many ways that He has provided for us (from our existence to our talents to our salvation in Christ), we still cannot bring ourselves to trust Him. God is the “I am” not the “I might be” or “I could be.” We need to trust God to be God and to unclench our fists and let go of all those things of which we don’t trust Him to give us enough, whether it be material wealth, time, or choices.

Blog Post 43 of those I have never written:

      If I were to make an entire blog post out of the previous paragraph, I would probably connect it to this other thought that is newly fermenting in my mind: We as a culture think that freedom consists entirely of a lack of all restrictions. There is some truth in that thought in the human sense; we can (wrongly or rightly) restrict and repress our fellow humans and take away their freedom. But I think we wrongly take that small truth and apply it to bigger things than it can rightly handle. We put our freedom in opposition to God’s conquering love and forget that our “freedom” has bound us in sin; we put freedom up as a divinely ordained right and forget that God gave us our freedom by restrictions and separations (we are no longer free to be the dust of the earth, but by insisting on our freedom we will get exactly that). We have forgotten the pleasure and joy there is to be found in the restrictions that God has given us and that rightly define who we are. As Chesterton put it:

      “It is plain on the face of the facts that the child is positively in love with limits. He uses his imagination to invent imaginary limits. The nurse and the governess have never told him that it is his moral duty to step on alternate paving-stones. He deliberately deprives this world of half its paving-stones, in order to exult in a challenge that he has offered himself. I played that kind of game with myself all over the mats and boards and carpets of the house; and, at the risk of being detained during His Majesty’s pleasure, I will admit that I often play it still. In that sense I have constantly tried to cut down the actual space at my disposal; to divide and subdivide, into these happy prisons, the house in which I was quite free to run wild. . . . This game of self-limitation is one of the secret pleasures of life.”

      Of course, there is much more to the quote about pretending the couch is an island and other such self-limiting activities, but if I did not stop there I might just go on quoting the whole of his autobiography. I think Chesterton is exactly right that children enjoy restricting themselves because such restriction is a mirroring of divine creativity; by restricting ourselves with such seeming arbitrariness, we are taking part in the divine activity of creating by separation. If there is that much joy and pleasure in the seemingly arbitrary restrictions, how much more will we find in those that God has built for our pleasure and existence?

Suffering & Miscellany

2007-06-06T00:49:00.000-04:00

      Well, it’s been two months since my last post. “Not a little negligence” indeed. As an excuse, it turns out that there is a little bit of planning that goes into a wedding. That is especially true when one’s fiancée is a schoolteacher and not able to do any of the things that have to be done during normal business hours. It is even further complicated if your wedding is nowhere near either set of parents and so they are similarly excluded from much of the business end of things. It is a good thing that God is in charge and I am not because I would be much lazier than I can afford to be nowadays.

      On the other hand, I get to be lazy this week. Somewhat. I am out in Salt Lake City for work, going to the Acoustical Society of America spring conference. There are morning and afternoon talks and poster sessions every day this week and a couple of social functions designed to keep us scientists from being so antisocial, but I am free to do what I want. Yesterday afternoon, after I checked in too late to get into any of the sessions, I found a cute little sandwich shop and had a late lunch, then returned and did some work on wedding stuff before going to dinner with my supervisor and a collaborator of his. This afternoon there were no sessions that piqued my curiosity, so I walked around downtown, saw the temple square, ate at Carl Jr.’s, and took lots of pictures and detours. Now I’m back in my hotel room on the free wireless, keeping up on my email and online comics and writing a new blog post. Also on the to do list for the next couple of days are thank you notes, some reading, and perhaps even fixing my photo slideshow on the right. I did send my lovely fiancée some flowers today since it is her birthday and I’m so insensitive as to be out of town on such an occasion.

      All that is, however, beside the point. What I really wanted to flesh out is only tangentially related to my aforementioned trip and not at all related to the fact that I haven’t posted in two months. While on my 3 hour flight from Chicago to Salt Lake, I pulled out and read a recent publication called “The Dartmouth Apologia” which is a new academic journal put together by some Dartmouth students (a few of which are friends of mine) as “A Journal of Christian Thought.” It was entertaining reading; very well thought out and put together, so I highly recommend it (you can find it online here). It was a pair of those articles and a book that I have been reading and discussing monthly with some of the men in my church that got me thinking.

      The articles are the last two in the Journal; an interview with Baroness Caroline Cox and “Final Thoughts” by my good friend Nate (or Nathan as they call him). Baroness Cox is a humanitarian in a way that few are. She uses her position to go to where people are suffering from injustice so that she can better understand their plights and how to fight for them. She is also an evangelical Christian. When asked about how her humanitarian work has challenged her faith, she told of seeing the murdered corpses of women and children being eaten by vultures in Sudan. She wept and cried out to God, but upon thinking about it, found that this isn’t anything new or unaddressed in the Bible. While Mary and Joseph were rejoicing in the birth of Jesus, hundreds of mothers were weeping as King Herod murdered their sons. Then at the end of Jesus’ life all Mary could do was watch and weep as the Romans hung her son on the cross. This “puts the fact that evil is a reality right back into the center of theology.” She also astutely points out that the very fact that God is love is the reason that this evil is possible. Love allows freedom and the possibility for evil.

      The other article is a story that hits close to home. Almost a year and a half ago Nate’s brother fell off a cliff in India while biking and broke his neck. As a result, his legs are paralyzed, he has limited use of his hands, and he cannot move his fingers independently. This hits home because last summer my older brother, a missionary in inner city LA, had a stroke and was in a similarly life threatening situation. I can identify with the rush to get airline tickets and having family thousands of miles away. Because he had been in India just weeks before, Nate accompanied his mother halfway around the world to be with his brother. I didn’t have that option, nor did my parents need me there, so my siblings and I kept a website with updates and prayer requests.

      Now both of our brothers survived their harrowing ordeals, but the outcomes seem painfully different. My brother is almost back to full strength and is off the blood pressure medication; we suspect the tumor that caused the problems is gone. Nate’s brother is learning to see life from a wheelchair. There is a large part of me that wants to scream, “UNFAIR!” They are both Christians with remarkable attitudes. They both had people praying for them around the clock and around the world. They both had supportive families and amazing witnesses in the hospital. I can understand at least part of why they went through that part of the process, but why does one of them get to regain their physical mobility and the other not?

      There is another part of me that knows I am wrong. The question is not wrong because God certainly has his reasons, but I am wrong to ask it in such a loaded way; it is wrongheaded. The book that I am reading is called “50 Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die” by John Piper. It is a book about how God himself came with the express purpose of suffering and dying. What is wrong about my question is that I don’t understand the implications of the suffering of Christ. In my head I can begin to grasp it, but I cannot get my heart around the fact that when Christ suffered, he not only paid for my treason and redeemed me, but his suffering redeemed the very act of suffering itself. Now suffering has been elevated to a divine activity worthy of the creator of the universe; now those who suffer have a better understanding of God himself.

      Baroness Cox tells another story about an Anglican bishop in Nigeria. His village was attacked, his sons beaten, his wife raped and beaten blind and made to walk naked through the town. If this story ends here it is a horrific tragedy, but it does not. The bishop and his wife praise God that they were found worthy to suffer. They understand the truth that I cannot accept. I cannot convince my consumerist, American heart to admit that all the toys and riches and security and fulfillment that I desire God tossed aside as rubbish compared to a horrific death on a cross. Maybe that is one of the myriad of reasons that God has for allowing such unequal treatment.

Stewardship and TVs

2007-04-05T09:22:00.000-04:00

      This is a story I shared with a good (atheist) friend of mine and it's an interesting story, so I decided to post it here. Weekend before last, Emily and I were at Walmart and they had a DVD player for $30, so we got it. Her old television has been sitting unused at my house for a while and we were kind of tired of watching movies on her laptop or my desktop (neither of us have or want cable). When we got home we discovered that the DVD player won't plug into her old TV since it only has a cable connector. Then we thought that maybe we could use her old VCR, which has cable connectors and others. It won't play videos, but if it let us run the dvd through it, the old thing might be worth keeping. So in the middle of the week, she brought it up for me to try fit into the system. It did have the right connectors, but apparently won't transfer between them (cable in goes to cable out, rca in goes to rca out).

      We looked into getting a box that would convert the signal, but it wasn't cheap and would lower the quality of the video, so we started looking into TVs. We also contemplated just taking the dvd player back and continuing to watch movies on the laptop, but wanted to see if we could find a better TV.

      Now at church we've been talking about stewardship and something that the pastor said stuck with me. His reasoning was something like this: If God created everything, including the resources from which we get money and possessions, then it's all ultimately His. So when we encounter unexpected expenses (for which God is also ultimately responsible) then we should let God spend his money or resources how he apparently wants to spend them rather than grumble about "wasting our money" as if it we really had control over things.

      With that in mind, I prayed about it and Emily looked on Craig's List and sent me a couple of ads. There was only one that was listed anywhere nearby and it was in my town, so I gave the guy a call. It turns out he lives in the apartment complex right behind me. In fact, when I walked into the apartment, I could see my bedroom window out their back door and it would have been about the same distance to carry the TV out their back door and to my house as it would be to carry it to my car. We did carry it to my car since there is a small embankment and a sizeable brush pile out the back, not to mention a deck railing to climb over. In any event, I figured that if God made it that easy to get a TV, that must be how he wants to spend his money (and I'm certainly not going to object to His buying me a television).

Disappointment

2007-03-21T11:41:00.000-04:00

      Disappointment is a strange thing. Our church is seven years old and seeking to build a building (currently we meet in the local middle school) and recently had some major setbacks with the town. We have a contract on a piece of land, but needed to get a zoning variance from the town to put a church there since it is zoned “office/laboratory”. We pursued both a variance to allow us to put a church in this specific location and a zoning law change that would let a church be a permitted use in that zone. A couple of weeks ago, the zoning board denied the variance and last night the planning board voted not to recommend the ordinance change to the town. I was at the planning board meeting last night and was surprised at the opposition to our proposal. The board itself did not seem overly opposed to it, but there was some very vocal opposition about putting a church on that particular property from several members of the community. In retrospect, none of their arguments were very good and all very site specific (traffic concerns, environmental concerns, obscuring the scenic view of the neighbors). All of these concerns would be things that would have to be addressed much later in the process by our church anyway and a church certainly wouldn’t be any worse (and in many cases better) than an office building or a laboratory of a similar size. In any event, I think what the board found persuasive (aside from the fact that there was loud opposition) was that there is a traffic problem in the area that is currently being investigated and that investigation might shed further light on the development potential of that area.

      I was pretty disappointed. I wish I had had more presence of mind to say the things that I think now and to clarify misconceptions about the size of the church. I wish someone else had spoken in favor of our church (a couple did, but certainly not as vehemently or eloquently as the opposition). I wish someone could have given our reasoning as persuasively as I can now that I have time to think about it. I think disappointment is in large part also a sense of betrayal. I feel betrayed by myself because I wasn’t able to stand before the board and clarify our arguments. I feel betrayed by the town for opposing it. I feel betrayed by the planning board for not seeing through their poor arguments. I feel betrayed by our church and pastor for not representing our church better and for getting our hopes up about this piece of property. I feel betrayed by God for the very same reasons.

      Ay, there’s the rub, as Hamlet (3:1:73) would say. I feel as if our church has a right to that property; as if I had the right to hope. A moment’s thought would render absurd the idea that I might have any right to even suggest to God how to do his job (even something as small as who should get a little plot of land in New England). As for the right to hope, “I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious, with more offences at my beck than I have thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them shape, or time to act them in” (Ibid. 134). Property and hope are not rights; they are gifts. This whole world was created through Christ that He might give it to us as a wedding present, not because it was ours by right. On top of that, Jesus died so that He could purchase hope for us to add to that already abundant gift. I guess that is something that we need to be reminded of now and again.

Famine, Persecution, and the Like

2007-03-08T22:18:00.000-05:00

I know it's been a while since my first and only post, but life is busy, especially while planning a wedding. In any event, I thought I'd put up a quick post on this chilly New England night. Every other Wednesday morning I meet with some guys from my church to pray. And before we prayed, we talked about the end of Romans 8, where Paul about writes tribulation, persecution, famine, and sword. These were probably pertinent issues for the church in Rome to which Paul was writing and that seems a little foreign to us in our safe little New England world. Yet we know that there are still those in the world for whom those issues are very much a reality on a daily basis. When we started praying, we prayed for those Christians and other people who find themselves in places where they have to deal with hunger, war, or persecution. And what I want to encourage you to do, is to pray for the church in such places and for those people. A couple of places that spring to mind quickly are Iraq and Sudan.

There is something simultaneously terrible and divine in hunger, pain, and persecution. It is terrible for the obvious reason that it is hurtful, damaging, and evil. It is divine because God himself subjected himself to it and so clothed that evil with grace incomprehensible. Now He invites his church to participate in the divine activities of being hungry and yet fighting against hunger, of battling with weapons and yet laying aside differences, of being persecuted and yet opposing persecution. God took on pain, hunger, and persecution so that even though these things are evil, they now have divine significance. If Jesus Christ is found in these things, then there really is no separating us from Him.

Confession and Concession

2007-02-06T00:38:00.000-05:00

      I did not want to start a blog. I didn't want to start a blog in the same way that I didn't want a cell phone and I am giving in to blogging for much the same reason that I gave in and got that first cell phone. It's not that I am wary of technology; I love tinkering with computers and electronics and anything else I can take apart. It's not even that I don't like accessorizing (in a manly sort of way of course); anyone who has seen my camera bag with its lenses and filters, my homemade meat smoker, my pair of guitars hanging on the wall, or even my very full clothes closet and shoe rack will know that I like my toys. The best way to explain my ill feelings towards blogging is to say that I don't like fads. In fact, I would probably go so far as to say that I hate them to a fault. I will often do the very opposite of what is currently "in" for the very reason that "in" is "in." However in some rare cases, I will eventually discover that the object of some fad is actually a useful thing and will begrudgingly concede the fight. Such was the case with the cell phone and such is the case with this blog. I will probably use this blog with much the same attitude as my cell phone; with a very slight disdain and not a little negligence.
      Now I want to make it clear that I have no problem with blogs or bloggers. In fact, part of the reason for this acquiescence is the number of my friends and my family who have good blogs, from my fiancee to numerous aunts and uncles to my grandmother. It is mostly that I don't want to do anything that might make me look unoriginal: It's a pride thing, really. At some point in school I realized that as a redhead, fitting in was too hard. So, being the somewhat apathetic and more than slightly lazy young man, I decided to be different. I wore goofy t-shirts and suit coats over them to high school; I spent a large portion of my time in college barefoot, wearing a fedora or golf cap; in grad school I decided to start wearing dress shirts and vests most days; twice I grew my hair for two years and donated it to "Locks of Love;" I did not want to start a blog.
      C'est la vie (that's "this is life" in French or your cue to say "la vee," your choice). I am starting a blog for three reasons. First, it has been far too long since I had a good outlet for creative writing. My parents are both writers and many forms of communication run in my family (writing, preaching, teaching, etc). I grew up in a house full of books and pencils and imagination and I have long enjoyed reading and writing. However, as God would have it (and perhaps partly as a result of my principles of nonconformity), I am not a writer by profession, but rather a scientist, and a government scientist at that. This is not a profession that is conducive to creative writing. In fact, it is pretty blatantly hostile to it. It is a profession in which A is done, resulting in B, as prescribed by C and D, respectively. No intricate syntax. No ambiguity. No artistic license. Even though I know this is how science works, I have to cringe every time I have to repeat my pronouns again and again in the same sentence structure with so many passive verbs. In fact I am often tempted to dangle a participle or preposition just out of spite (and to see if anyone would actually notice). This blog will be that creative outlet that I need to keep me from such temptations to poor writing.
      Second, this blog will serve as a welcome distraction from the regular internet procrastination to which I am prone. I have realized that I spend a lot of time in front of this computer screen, much of it just down time for me to rest and relax. It is a good and healthy thing to have some down time to relax and rest, but I don't really need to be ogling over classic cars on eBay or watching yet one more Arsenal-Liverpool highlight reel on YouTube. It is better to be tinkering with something at least potentially useful.
      Lastly and most importantly, growing up in a house full of writers, I learned to process my thoughts in words on paper or a computer screen. Typing these words out helps me clarify my thoughts and ideas and prayers. In reality, there is one great thought, idea, and prayer that I am forever trying to work out: The meaning of the full deity and humanity of Christ as it should play itself out in my life. Now mind you I don't mean that I am trying to figure out the details of how Jesus could be both God and human: I don't really think there is any understanding that. I mean rather that I am trying to figure out how that mystery can be applied to my life. The more I think about that mysterious fact, the more I am convinced that really applying it to my life is the single hardest yet most powerful thing I can do in life.
      Now this isn't something that I have dreamed up on my own. It comes from many sources in Christian literature, family, history, and personal experience. Most notably is the fact that the church spent the first several centuries struggling with, arguing about, and excommunicating heretics over the issue of what it meant for Jesus to be both fully God and fully human. They didn't seem to spend much time debating anything else and yet they transformed their culture in an unprecedented way. The last of the pagan emperors of Rome wrote these two things about the early church:
      "These impious Galileans not only feed their own poor, but ours also; welcoming them into their agape, they attract them, as children are attracted, with cakes."
      "Whilst the pagan priests neglect the poor, the hated Galileans devote themselves to works of charity, and by a display of false compassion have established and given effect to their pernicious errors. See their love feasts, and their tables spread for the indigent. Such practice is common among them, and causes a contempt for our gods." (reference)
      It's true that you won't really find the early church discussing how to care for the poor, how to set higher moral standards, or how to transform the pagan world around them, but they certainly did these things with remarkable success. I would argue that they did this by really grappling with the humanity and deity of Christ and what that meant for their lives and that is the greatest purpose of this blog.
      The word "alethinologia" means, "to speak truth" in Greek (from aletheia, truth and logos, word) and that is what I intend to do here. I chose this word partly because all the other names/words I thought of were already taken, but also partly because a linguist friend of mine once gave a talk about truth. In it he said that in Greek, truth could be an active verb, yet we do not have that option in English. The closest we have is to "be true" or to "act truly." This blog is an attempt to be truth in an active way. Perhaps it is a lofty goal, but it certainly isn't "in."