miracle of life

Thankful For The Gift Of Life

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In addition to the typical turkey dinner, with all of the fixin’s, Thanksgiving is a wonderful time to pause, reflect and give thanks for the unspeakably perfect gift of life. Without this, nothing else makes any biological sense.

Thomas Edison regarded himself as an agnostic, however he did concede that the universe was too amazingly complex to be the result of chance. Furthermore, he doubted that humans were capable of comprehending even 1/1000th of 1% of anything. Interestingly, Lewis Thomas (The Lives Of A Cell) agreed with the latter conclusion, but from a spiritual perspective. He suggested that God created living cells that are so complex that humans will never be able to fully explain the inner workings of a single cell. The chances of scientists being able to comprehend the physiological interactions of the 100 trillion cells making up a human being are beyond most rational thought. It is little wonder that Meister Eckhart (14th century theologian, philosopher and mystic) suggested that the ultimate answers to the mysteries of humankind will not likely be found in science.

The YouTube video “The Miracle of Life” traces the fantastic voyage of human sperm in search of an ovum. As many as 800 million sperm may be released during sexual activity and only one will succeed in fertilization. After fertilization is complete, the newly formed zygote typically has all the genetic information necessary to direct all the stages of human growth and development. This includes a journey into the mystical realms of Values, Consciousness and Free Will, a journey without precedent on planet Earth. How could we not be thankful?

Lowell H. Young
Author: Biodesign Out For A Walk

young.lowell@gmail.com

Tubbs Fire Reflections

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My heart leaps up when I behold

A rainbow in the sky:

So was it when my life began;

So is it now I am a man;

So be it when I shall grow old,

Or let me die!

The Child is father of the Man;

And I could wish my days to be

Bound each to each by natural piety.

– William Wordsworth

Laurie Shields (Biodesign ’80) sent this photo of a beautiful rainbow that seemed to be welcoming Calistoga residents back from their mandatory evacuation. Normally I am a big fan of rainbows, however, this one has me in a quandary. Was this a sign from God, a simple capricious act of Mother Nature or was there some other hidden meaning? It must have been a wonderful sight for Calistogans whose homes were spared, but little solace to the 1000s of people who have lost their homes, jobs and been displaced by the horrendous Tubbs Fire. Interestingly, Galileo kind of helped me out of my dilemma:

“Nature is inexorable and immutable and does not care one jot whether her secret reasons and modes of operation be above or below the capacity of man’s understanding.”

In other words, as horrifying as it might be, man is not exempt from the powerful forces of nature such as hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunamis, earthquakes, floods and fires. Therefore, I guess this means that we have to take the rainbow for what it is; a mysterious sign of beauty, hope and wonder in the midst of all the horror.

However, it dawned on me that humans are capable of creating invisible rainbows, connecting with each other.

Paraphrasing “Mr. Rogers;” when disasters occur, “look for the helpers” and you will see man at his finest. https://www.snopes.com/radiotv/tv/scarynews.asp

Our eldest daughter was recently at a north Santa Rosa grocery store that escaped the fire. A fire crew had just arrived for a generously offered free lunch. Through the soot, sweat-stains, grit and grime she recognized the familiar face of the husband of one of her teaching colleagues. He was absolutely exhausted and said that he was coming off a 100-hour shift. It began with 48 hours straight because replacement crews had not arrived. Since then, 100s of stories have emerged where people committed heroic acts to save others, their property and animals.

We watched courageous pilots fly helicopters and huge planes into heavy smoke in repeated attempts to douse the ravaging flames.

The damage will cost many billions of dollars and the Tubbs Fire (and surrounding Sonoma County fires) will surely go down in history as the most destructive wildfire in US history, however, without the self-less dedication of 1000s of firefighters, first responders, and law enforcement officers the damage could have been so much worse. Many of them continued to battle even though they were told that their own homes had been destroyed.

As awful as this experience continues to be, the responses of these men and women transcend normal human behavior and offer us hope for humanity that just last longer than a transitory rainbow.

Lowell H. Young
Author: Biodesign Out For A Walk

young.lowell@gmail.com

Tubbs Fire—Diablo Wind

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An old English proverb suggests:

“It’s an ill wind that blows nobody good”

The recent fires throughout Napa and Sonoma Counties qualify as Ill Winds.

It is common practice for California Dept. of Forestry officials to name fires by their place of origin. Ergo, the fire that destroyed over 3,500 Santa Rosa homes and businesses began near Tubbs Lane in Calistoga. However, it quickly exploded into a firestorm driven by a 70 mph “Diablo Wind.” The name of the wind could not be more perfect: Devil’s Wind.

Devil Winds are atypical winds that result when high-pressure builds over the Nevada desert and causes air to move toward a low-pressure zone over the Pacific Ocean. As the wind rushes down the western Sierra Nevada slope, it is compressed and gets hotter, drier and faster. This condition is the opposite of prevailing westerly winds that typically blow moist, ocean-cooled air over hotter California climes. Diablo Winds typically occur in the summertime when the combination of higher heat, higher wind velocity and extremely low humidity create a potentially disastrous formula for wildfires in California. In SoCal they are known as the Santa Ana winds.

The Tubbs Firestorm destroyed a several-mile-wide swath, devouring forests, vineyards, homes and ranches on its 15-mile rampage to the north edge of the city of Santa Rosa. Reaching the northeast outskirts of the city, it mysteriously veered south in a fiery inferno that consumed over 2,500 homes. Many residents had to flee with only the clothes they were wearing.

The fire is still active and along with several other fires in Sonoma County, the number of homes, structures and businesses destroyed has exceeded 3,500. It has the potential of being the worst wildfire in California history.

Although Sonoma County lies west of Napa County, Napa Valley has been covered in a thick blanket of smoke since Sunday night. The smoke has been bothersome, but a trifling inconvenience compared to the total devastation that 1,000s of Sonoma residents and business owners are struggling to cope with.

This all changed Wednesday. We thought we were safe until a spot-fire erupted 8 miles west of us, near the junction of St. Helena and Calistoga roads. It was headed in our direction and posed a threat to our home and the town of St. Helena. I drove 4 miles to the top of Spring Mt. Rd. where a Napa Co. Sheriff deputy had blocked the road. He described the fire and said that it was rapidly approaching upslope. He went on to say that pilots were desperately trying to suppress it with fire-retardant, but if they failed he would have to close Spring Mt. Rd. He didn’t have to tell me that if the fire crested over the ridge, its downslope path led directly to our home and the heart of St. Helena.

I was confident that if this happened we could pack up prized possessions and evacuate to our daughter’s home in Tiburon. My wife was not convinced and so we packed up and fled, not knowing if we would ever see our beloved home again.

Although our Tiburon family welcomed us warmly, the night was long and sleep was interrupted with images of our house going up in flames. Finally, morning arrived and we were able to call our neighbor, who opted to wait for the mandatory evacuation order. It never came. Evidently, the amazing pilots were able to stop the blaze on the Sonoma side of Spring Mountain and possibly save our home and the town of St. Helena.

Upon returning home, walking through the house was a surreal experience. When we left, we had to concede the possibility that it would not survive the fire. But it did and we felt a bit like we were in a “Twilight Zone.”

The horrific event has created a schizophrenic dilemma. Of course we are grateful that our home was not destroyed, but heartsick over the misery and trauma that so many have been forced to deal with.

Existentialists might dismiss the cause of the horrific conflagration as simply a capricious whim of Mother Nature, however, I suspect that poets, sages and seekers are more likely to describe the massive destruction as the result of the Devil’s Wind:

“It’s an ill wind that blows nobody good”

Lowell H. Young
Author: Biodesign Out For A Walk

young.lowell@gmail.com

A CHRISTMAS GIFT FROM e.e. cummings

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yosemite-chapelWatching the increasingly commercial emphasis during the Christmas Season, it is little wonder Albert Schweitzer described a kind of naïveté where people are unaware of the silent, spiritual battles within.  Although blatant commercialism was far less intense during the time Henry Thoreau wrote “Walden,” (1850) it probably contributed to his efforts to strive to avoid reaching the end of his life and realize that he “blew it” and would not get a second chance.

Advent can be a special time of the year when, along with preparing to celebrate the birth of Christ, people can look forward to the beginning of a new year of spiritual growth and renewal.

As a wonderful example of this, after much contemplation, e.e. cummings resolved that he was a “Little Church,” and offered his opinion of what that meant.

i am a little church(no great cathedral)
far from the splendor and squalor of hurrying cities
-i do not worry if briefer days grow briefest,
i am not sorry when sun and rain make april

my life is the life of the reaper and the sower;
my prayers are prayers of earth’s own clumsily striving
(finding and losing and laughing and crying)children
whose any sadness or joy is my grief or my gladness

around me surges a miracle of unceasing
birth and glory and death and resurrection:
over my sleeping self float flaming symbols
of hope,and i wake to a perfect patience of mountains

i am a little church(far from the frantic
world with its rapture and anguish)at peace with nature
-i do not worry if longer nights grow longest;
i am not sorry when silence becomes singing

winter by spring,i lift my diminutive spire to
merciful Him Whose only now is forever:
standing erect in the deathless truth of His presence
(welcoming humbly His light and proudly His darkness)

Perhaps Cummings is offering a common man’s interpretation of the bold proclamation that St. Paul made to the Corinthians over 2,000 years ago.

“Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own;”

Whether approaching the Christmas Story from an anthropological, historical or religious perspective, it is without a doubt the greatest human story ever told. It is childlike, welcoming and inclusive and offers every living human the challenge of accepting that they are living, breathing sacred events.

Volumes have been written about the story of the Magi carrying precious gifts to Bethlehem:

“And when they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. And they came into the house and saw the Child with Mary His mother; and they fell down and worshiped Him; and they presented to Him gifts of gold, and frankincense and myrrh.”  Mattthew 2.

The Bible (and other corroborating stories) indicates that the Magi returned to their respective homes, however, little has been written about how the event changed their lives. In fact, if they did create the original “Epiphany,” perhaps they discovered that spiritual awareness is the quintessential essence of being human.

The great irony here is that they presented gifts to the Christ child but, in return, received the unspeakably perfect gift of the Holy Spirit and the realization that they too were made in the image of God. If so, there is little doubt that their journey home was filled with joy, merriment and laughter and they rejoiced and were exceedingly glad.

Merry Christmas

Lowell H. Young
Author: Biodesign Out For A Walk

young.lowell@gmail.com

Miracles and Kidney Stones

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Screen shot 2014-10-07 at 4.59.10 PM“To me, every hour of the day and night is an unspeakably perfect miracle.” – Walt Whitman

Yesterday was a multi-miracle day. Waking up in the morning and going to sleep last evening were both mysterious miracles. Throughout the day I experienced many mini-miracles, in fact, if Walt Whitman is correct, there were too many to count. However, there were two that were extraordinary and stood above all the rest.

The second one involved a bad habit I have of creating kidney stones. My particular kind of rocks are composed of calcium oxalate which for unknown reasons forms in my kidneys. The stones increase in size until they erupt out of the kidney and into either the right or left ureter. Once in the ureter, they migrate down to the urinary bladder and eventually are passed from the body. The process of erupting and migrating down the ureter typically causes excruciating pain that is often described as going through childbirth without anesthesia. And this how the second miracle occurred. Medical technology has discovered a process known as “extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy (ESWL) “extracorporeal” means outside the body. This is done by a machine that generates shock waves that can be directed at the stones, blasting them into sand (or at least smaller fragments). If done successfully, the sand and fragments pass easily and almost painlessly out of the body. Lithotripsy has become highly successful and has replaced nearly all of the need for invasive surgery. I was in the O R at 8:30 AM and home resting at 11:00 AM.

But the first miracle was far more mysterious and dramatic. After I was prepped for surgery, I was transported into the O R. My anesthesiologist inserted a needle into the IV patch on my arm and said, “I am going to give you something that will make you sleep.” I was out like a light and had no idea of what else he said or did. The next thing I became aware of was the clock on the recovery room wall that indicated that I had been “out” for 1.5 hours. This raised some wonderful questions and reflections. I slowly realized that my“consciousness, values and free will” had all ceased for 1.5 hours. I saw no pink elephants or psychedelic visions. If the medical staff had a monitor for “V”-“C”-“F W” it would have been flat-lined at zero. I was dead to the world.

It wasn’t good or bad, I was simply in a state of infinite nothingness. If something traumatic had occurred and I died physically, I would never have known about it. And then, as my consciousness, values and free will returned, I had an epiphany moment. I realized that I had the freedom to choose what to believe. I could believe, that after my death, I would disappear into infinite nothingness. Or I could choose to believe in the endless possibilities of infinite somethingness. It was funny (and perhaps drug-influenced) but I decided that the choice did not necessarily involve faith, hope, a “tunnel of light” or even a Supreme Being. Actually, the choice was not that difficult because I can not comprehend infinite nothingness, but, looking at the stars at night I can comprehend the idea of infinite somethingness.

In Robert Capon’s book, “Hunting The Divine Fox” he wrote: “Theology, therefore is fun. The inveterate temptation to make something earnest out of it must be steadfastly resisted. We were told quite plainly that unless we became as little children, we could not enter the kingdom of heaven, and nowhere more than in theology do we need to take the message to heart.

”Taking his cue; It just may be that what we call life on Earth is nothing more than a biology project, conducted by a “high school” student, from a far-away galaxy, with an IQ of several millions times greater than that of Albert Einstein.

Celebrate Life

Lowell H. Young, Author: Biodesign Out For A Walk

Celebrate Your Spiritual Gifts of Mystery, Wonder and Curiosity

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Dance of LifeFacebook can be a source of mental pollution, inane noise or clatter; it can also be a vehicle for sharing breathtaking mysteries. This video shared by Giovanna Brimlow-Tuccori is about as close to providing a miracle as you can get through the internet.

Excerpt: Biodesign Out For A Walk, Chap. 26, “Soul Medicine.”

“How many of you guys had to have your mom or dad teach you how to have an erection?” The girls giggled nervously; the guys looked shocked, but quickly broke into laughter. No hands were raised.Rachel raised her hand and said, “My mom is in charge of the imaging laboratory at the hospital, and she performs sonograms. She has a picture of a six-month male fetus playing with his hard little ‘you know what.’”

In his book, “The Lives Of A Cell,” medical doctor/author Lewis Thomas suggests that a single cell is so complex that it is possible that man will never be able to unravel all of its mysteries. He does a beautiful job describing some of the physiological stages of embryonic development and states that because of this we should all live in a daily state of awe and wonder. Furthermore, he offers, if we fully understood the miracle of life, we would live each day congratulating each other in a never-ending state of ecstasy.

Whether conceived in a grass hut, the back of a Chevy, or in the bridal suite of Balmoral Castle, each human results from the union of one out of 600 million sperm cells and one out of 300,000 ovum cells. The numbers are even more staggering when we learn that sexually healthy males generate about 1 billion sperm cells per month and embryonic females contain 7 million egg cells; 300,000 of them typically remain through puberty, and 300-400 will eventually be ovulated. The odds against our being are cosmic which results in each person being a “once-in-a-universe” creation of genetics and environmental stimuli. Little wonder Lewis Thomas thought we should dance the dance of joy for being alive.

Antonio Cano begins his video where we all began; two haploid cells that join into one in an unfathomable process called fertilization. The two cells, now one diploid zygote journey into the uterus and find a suitable place for implantation. The next nine months will be spent in a symbiotic relationship between mother and embryo. e.e. cummings understood this relationship in his verse:

we are so both and oneful

night cannot be so sky

sky cannot be so sunful

i am through you so i

During the embryonic process the zygote eventually divides into 100 trillion cells that differentiate into 11 systems that include many organs, various types of tissue and billions of cells that function as interdependent individuals.

Loren Eiseley understood this concept when he tripped on uneven sidewalk, fell against a building drain pipe and split his forehead. He apologized to his red blood cells as they dripped onto the concrete. He was being facetious of course, knowing full well that red blood cells have a short lifespan and all of them would have been replaced in 4-6 weeks.

All of this creates several awesome/ awful questions for humans to contemplate.

1. Is every human being merely the result of a soul-less accidental accumulation of organic molecules?

2. Is each person predestined to live as an automaton, in a manner similar to a witless, finely crafted watch?

3. Do humans actually have free will and share in the process of striving for full personhood?

4. Is it possible that each human has been physically and symbolically created in the metaphorical image of a Supreme Being?

It seems clear that if man does not have free will, than the answers to these questions are irrelevant and unnecessary. If, however, each human has been conceived with free will, then his answers will have a profound impact on the quality and direction of his life.

Albert Einstein never saw a video like this one; however, he practiced the art of celebrating mystery:

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.”

Lowell Harrison Young, Author: Biodesign Out For A Walk