Deliberate

Another Thanksgiving has come and gone, rushed out of our minds and lives by the encroachment of the Black Friday phenomenon. I hope that the sales flyers, Christmas lists, and who-gets-what-where didn’t dampen the gratitude and family interactions that make Thanksgiving its own special holiday. And the food! Did you have way too much of way too many choices, and then follow it up with way too much of way too many dessert choices? I can’t be the only one.

One thing that was unique for us, this year, was that my son brought his smoker and smoked our two turkeys. Not only was that a wonderful taste experience, but it made it much less of a crisis when the oven element burned out. It was the larger, lower oven in our double oven. The top one is shallow with only a single shelf, so we had some delays and used some creative solutions to make everything come together.

Since we had the smoker here, we had also smoked a “Boston Butt” (upper part of the pig shoulder) a couple days before. Aside from the benefits of smoking the meats (tenderness, flavor, the chance to use “smoked butt” in every conversation), it isn’t the fastest cooking method. In fact, BBQ restaurants even advertise how slow they smoke their meats–slower always seems to be better. In our case, the extra time was definitely worth it for both the pork and the turkey.

But we don’t always associate “slow” with being better; there are alot more microwave ovens sold than smokers, for example. But there are situations where taking our time is absolutely the best choice. Being good at making quick decisions is usually helpful in sports, business, and life. But some decisions need to be weighed carefully and considered over a little more time. Those situations call for us to be deliberate. A root of this word is “libra”, which some may know as the zodiac sign represented by scales. The word, deliberate, is really talking about weighing carefully.

We can also walk in a deliberate way, which tends to be with a slow, even pace that one might employ while thinking more about a difficult decision than about hurrying to a destination. And another way to use deliberate is as a verb, such as what juries do to determine a verdict; the thoughtful, careful discussion, weighing each side’s arguments for the best chance at coming to the truth–and to unanimous agreement. And you probably know that when used as a verb, deliberate is also pronounced differently. This makes it a heteronym, since it is the same word, but sounds differently according to the meaning (such as bow or separate). Just a little extra info at no extra charge.

The well-known fable of the tortoise and the hare is actually a lesson in the value of being deliberate. Slow and steady yields better results than quick and inconsistent. Wait, you didn’t think it was about how to win a footrace, did you?