Thanks to speaking of faith last week.

I’m really fascinated by this idea of Gödel's incompleteness theorems. Simply stated, he asserted that there are fundamental truths at the foundation of mathematics that cannot be proved.

I like the description here about the UTM machine. But, the easiest one to understand is the paradoxical “I am lying” statement.

So, even mathematics – pure logic and reason – rests on a foundation of unresonability. The simplest number system cannot be proved.

What I like about this concept is that it points to another way of arriving at truth: First, we must assume the basis of truth. Then, truth can build upon that basis.

I think this is a deal killer to the atheist debate.

If the number system of mathematics has no proof, and must be assumed, does that invalidate all of mathematics? Of course it does not. It simply means that a first assumption must be made to build on.

So, if a theist or spiritualist cannot prove the fundamental assumption of infinite intelligence or connectivity, does that invalidate all spiritual thought and discourse? Of course not.

An atheist cannot disclaim spirituality any more than I (using Godel’s theorems) can discount mathematics.

At my retreat a few weeks ago, the leader talked about atheists. Mind you, this guy spends an hour a day in prayer. He’s a very intelligent guy, a well-spoken guy, and a nice guy. But, his response to atheism was remarkably stupid. He simply said: “they have no idea how wrong there are.”

To him, who has assumed God as true, and built upon that foundation with demonstrable results throughout his life, questioning the assumption was ridiculous. It was like questioning the number system

Prayer journal entry 1/28/08

1/28/08 (Feast of St. Thomas)

Well, the format I spelled out before worked for the first week. But, once my house filled back up with kids and wives (OK, just one), it because less manageable.

I missed a few morning sessions. In those cases, I tried to add prayer times in the afternoons. But, this format is hard to do once the day is in full swing. So, I’ve been using the rosary for afternoon or mid day prayers.

I need to give credit to the rosary army folk. I put their “scriptural rosary” pages on my blackberry, and have used them to good effect walking in the park behind my house. I also got the mp3 files of the scriptural rosary, and prayed a rosary listening to them on Sunday after church in the Marian garden.

I’d never done the mysteries as part of the rosary before a few weeks ago. Using them really changes the whole tone of the rosary prayer to a more meditative one. I think the scriptural rosary works very well for me, since there is a “prompting” before each bead.

This morning, I was able to do the 10 min reading and quiet format. But, I think I was also falling asleep a bit.

Formula for Deepening Prayer

I'm going to bump up my prayer routine. My hope, oviously, is to get some benifits from increasing the quantity of time spent in prayer and meditation. The question of benifits is probably one for another day. Sufice to say that I'm anticipating some benifits from it, and am resolved to do so.

I've had somewhat of a hard time finding an action plan for prayer time. Nobody seems to like to write down a to-do list of what to do in x number of minutes of prayer time. Looking at the big picture, it makes sense. Any writer on the topic would be hard pressed to make specific recommendations about what to do, since it will vary from person to person. Probably, for each person, it will vary quite a bit from year to year.

In any case, as a remedial case study, I'll try to present my adgnda and track it here to see how it goes.

1. Time allocation and commitment.

I'm starting by committing to 10 min a day, every day, for the next 90 days, until 4/12/08.*. This morning, 10 minutes didn't seem like a lot of time. But, this morning was my first day home from a three day retreat at a carmelite facility! So, after a weekend of meditation and prayer, 10 minutes seemed like too small a time period to get anything done. But, at some point in the next 90 days, I'm sure I'll be saying that 10 minutes a day is something that is really hard to do!

2. The meeting agenda

Hey, when I meet with my boss, I have an agenda. When I meet with anyone that's working on projects for me, I have an agenda. Heck, when my wife and I want to get any real decisions made, we set a time and have an agenda. So, why not have an agenda? So, here is my proposed agenda:

a. Opening prayers - These are some memorized prayers that I'll use, that I've been using for some time. Basically, they are the three prayers on this page. I'd like to eventually graduate to a rosary. But, let's face it, saying a rosary takes 15 to 20 minutes. I might get there - someday, maybee - but, not just yet.

b. Read some "input" - I like to word "input", which comes from a book written by my retreat leader (which, despite it's name, didn't give an outline this simple). He says that "input" is most likley a scripture, or a meditation book, or some other spitual writing. There's a fine line here about what will work. I think that some spiritual books are less dense and more narrative, and probably won't work. Other books area really dense with insight and would work well. For example, I don't think that "The Way of Perfection" would really work. She takes a bit of paper to get around to what she wants to say. On the other hand, "The Imitation Of Christ" of pretty dense with insight.

c. Reflect in silence. - This is a new skill for me. I've done some meditation by Budahist instruction. (Which, by the way I learned almost entirely at Wildmind.) But, this is a litle different. Here, you are supposed to reflect on the reading somewhat, but not be too active in the mind. So, it's very quiet time, but not so quiet that some reflection isn't happening. Make sense? No? Well, I'll try it for a bit. More on that later, I guess.

*Special thanks to Manager Tools for their discussion on goals. According to those guys, a goal is not a goal until it has a date. And, a date is defined as "a number between zero and 31 with one of the 12 months next to it." I love that.

Pulled Pork Temperatures - A Report on My First Pulled Pork Success

I've finally done a successful preparation of pulled pork, and wanted to write about it to document the temperatures that newbies need to know.

First, i have to give credit where due. I read all the articles on pulled pork at about.com. The write ups there are great. I also used the mop recipe from there, and the "Memphis rub" recipe from Steven Raichlen's Barbecue Bible. I'm sure you can find it on his website. It's the same rub he uses for his beer can chicken.

OK, on to the critical information. The pork fat renders at about 172 degrees. After that, the collagen (that tissue that holds the meat to the bone) renders out at about 178 degrees. I didn't make these up, or even measure them. Rather, an old pro on smoking pork told them to me last week. And, in my first trial after hearing them, I feel they are reliable. At least, the results have been great.

My New Year's Eve pork was a disaster. Fortunately, nobody showed up at my hose to eat it. Karma seems to have smiled on me in that regard. My Christmas tri-tip was a roaring success and there was a house full of people to eat it. My new year's eve pork and brisket were horrible failures, and only one couple showed up. So, we tossed the meat in the garbage and filled up on salad and mashed potatoes.

For posterity, I'll document my failure. I ran the smoker cooler than I had in previous runs, and I didn't give them enough time.

See, on Thanksgiving I smoked a turkey - my first ever smoking experiment. Having read up as much as I could, I planned a six hour ordeal. I put the bird on the grille at about 9:30 in the morning. And, to my surprise (and my wife's stress) the thing was up to temperature in about three hours. So, I pulled him, wrapped him if foil and some beach towels, and stuck him in the oven at 200 degrees. It was excellent, but left me thinking that I'd over-estimated the time needed.

Next I smoked a chicken. No great story there. Honestly, I didn't like it. The meat was, as might be expected, still moist and soft. But, I didn't like the texture. It seemed too wet - almost slimy. Now, will say that after a disappointing meal, I put the leftovers in the refrigerator and ate them for the next week. chilled and reheated in the microwave - they were great! The microwave dried them out a bit more, and they still had that smoke flavor. So, the chicken experiment wasn't a total loss. Again, though, I brought that chicken to temperature in less than three hours.

So, then I set out to try pork butt (shoulder) and beef brisket. I set up for a six hour smoke, and consciously held my temperatures in the oven lower than I had before. My smoker has one of those thermometers on the barrel cover. And, in all my previous runs, I'd watched it at 200 to 215 degrees. Well, come to find out, that temperate is a bit cooler than the temperature at the cooking surface. I put an oven thermometer at the cooking surface and found it to be off by as much as 50 degrees.

So, for my new year's eve run, I tied to keep a cooking surface temperature (measured by my oven thermometer) of 210 degrees, which equated to a barrel temperature reading of 150 to 170 degrees. Well, I know now, that's not hot enough. After six hours in the smoker, my meats were at 150 degrees, struggling to get to 160. We were ready for dinner, so I pulled them and put them in the oven at 300 just to get them to a "safe" temperature of 165.

Well, eating a pork butt that's been cooked to 165 is, frankly, gross. The butt is a nasty cut. It's so marbled though with fat that it's inedible. It was disgusting. The brisket was about the same. We hated it.

Then, I talked to my uncle Mace, who's got the expertise. I've had his smoked ribs before, and know that he knows what he's doing. He told me those temperatures, and I came back ready to try again.

I didn't have a full day's worth of wood, today. So, my plan was to smoke the meat - at a cooking surface temperature of 250 - for a few hours, and then put it in the oven in foil and watch the temperatures. I had the meat on the grill by about 10 or 10:30 this morning. My wood actually lasted longer than I'd expected. I had a small bag of apple wood that I'd never used on Thanksgiving which lasted me over 5 hours. I pulled the meat from the smoker at 3 in the afternoon, and put it in the oven at 250. There it cooked for about four more hours!

All in all, it came out great. I let it ride up to 185 degrees before I took it out from the oven. I pulled the meat apart with two forks and we served it in sandwiches for dinner, lunch the next day, and beyond. I still think I can raise the internal temperatures, judging by the nearly 10 hour time. Gosh, I sure hope I'll be able to do it faster than that. One funny thing was the color. The center of the pork was white and the outsides were pink. Actually, about half way into the center it changed from pink to white. My wife and I suspected that this was due to the transition from the smoker to the oven. If anyone reading this can confirm or deny that, I'd be interested to know.