Nature? Nurture?

We have always thought that everything we are is written in the code found in our DNA in the form of genes. I just recently read an article talking about epigenetics and the epigenome. The epigenome refers to the complex system of chemical switches and markers that live on the outside of our DNA and whose sole purpose is to turn genes on or off (through a process called methylation) at specific times depending on what instructions are needed (do we need to make a liver cell, brain cell, eye cell etc.). So it looks like DNA can’t do its thing without the epigenome. And scientists, as it turns out, are finding that the epigenetic structure can be handed down from generation to generation! So what does this mean? It means that not only do each of us have “say” over what genes turn on (or off) and when based on our diet, stress levels, environmental conditions etc BUT we can hand that on/off structure to our offspring. As Britt put it, “there is no longer a conflict of nature vs nurture…. It is BOTH.” !!!!!

Plodding Along

The trip home from Costa Rica on Dec 24th was uneventful. If anything it was extremely relaxed and exciting due to the fact that I flew back with Aria. I can't ever remember flying anywhere with her. We chatted about life and slept. I made it back at 3 am just in time to wrap a few gifts I had bought for our christmas exchange, get a few hour's sleep and wake up at 730 am for the exchange. The Alschulers were here plus Lise and Anne came in from Chicago. There was a lot of sledding, eating, giggling and some coughing with the colds running around. Yummy ham dinner yummmmm. Aria, James and Sasha came later on in the week. Sasha is unbelievably cute. We were able to spend quality time with her after she woke up from her nap and James and Aria were at the movies and the coffee shop on a date. Everyone benefited greatly from the afternoon. That weekend we went to NY to visit with Uncle Doug, Grandma, Husayn, Shamsi, Jamal, Janet and Dad. We were also blessed with seeing Heidi too. We hung, ate, laughed, annoyed Grandma with all the loud noise and frequent wrestling on the floor... I love you guys all soooooo much. Thanks for being there for us. The rest of the story is basically that the whole house got sick. One by one we each succumbed to a horrible stomach-focused influenza type bug followed by fluy achy, snotty basura for days. I had to take Wed and Thurs off last week and probably should not have gone on Friday. Aman succumbed to it finally this morning early at around 430 am. Our friend from Costa Rica Renee and a her two kids Aleta (9) and Bo (7) have been visiting since friday morning. We had a lot to catch up on and the kids didn't miss a beat playing as if they had seen each other last week. Pics to follow

Well ok, there it is... I think I have everyone up to date with MassRuhe happenings.

Compressed Air Car

Here is a little compilation I did on this car.

Well?... I am mad...

Mad and ready to do something. Please watch "Who killed the electric car?". Who_killed_the_electric_car? It has gotten me riled up enough to think about selling our cars and buying something that will get us more off the grid.

Trip Home

Jere, my step-dad, died 12-12-07. If you have been following at all this blog you will know that he had been battling prostate cancer for around 10 years now so his death was no surprise. He had a peaceful passing shortly after breaking his hip and started his journey in the next phase of his life. He was buried the next day in the very corner of the cemetery of Ciudad Colon, the town he lived in for 30+ years. I went down along with many of the other siblings to support mom and help plan a memorial service. We spent a week working around the house, cleaning, rewiring, rearranging and going through a lot of stuff of Jere's. It was a very therapeutic time in which we laughed and cried and raged at each other each dealing with it in his or her own way. The memorial service was filled with much of the same but this time with about 120 or so people who knew and loved Jere. It was amazing to hear the memories and stories ... all the different ways that people remembered this great man. He really had an amazing impact on many people's lives through his relentless service. In so many ways he was such an amazing example of taking the "me" and making it the "we". It seemed that he tended to put others ahead of himself most of the time and really focussed on other people and their needs and acted on what he saw. The result of that was clearly seen in the quantity of those who came to remember him and the things they said during the memorial. I was so honored to be a part of that. I/we have been very blessed to have someone that strong and caring in our lives...

Apocalyse? ... yes

Here's another piece I submitted (minus the pics) to the UPI Religion and Spirituality page that didn't get published. Let me know your thoughts... ___________________________________________________

“Will it be warm? Will it be bright? Will there be a flash of light?” These are the opening lines of a beautiful song my cousin wrote called End of the World. Actually I am not quite sure that is the title but it seems to be a love song written to someone at the end of the world. There seem to be many, many traditions around the world expecting some sort of end to the world, as we know it. And it is always some time in the future but always soon just around the corner. But why shouldn’t the “end of days” be happening now? Why can’t it be that we are living in the entropic soup of the long expected apocalypse right now? How many more horrors do we have to witness before it is actually counted as the “end of the world”? What is the correct number of atrocities that we have to be able to ignore or not feel because we have been too busy numbing ourselves to be able to say that we have now entered the time of “unimaginable horrors”? How could we not all be collectively nodding our heads in agreement that we are in fact, right now living through the apocalypse and all of its horrors?

I am not going to try to name these hideous things that happen daily all around us (Richard Hooper’s recent submission of Dec 6 had a paragraph that summarized some of these). I think we can all name quite a few even if it does take a few seconds to retrieve through each of our shields of numbness or justification. But the fact is that we escorted ourselves into this “time of the end” quite some time ago. It has crept in and caught us unaware, caught us sleeping, napping in the glare of our TVs. It is like we are all blindly standing in the middle of the once beautiful, shining city we built and which due to the decay of its basic foundation is crashing, smashing, exploding all around us taking some of us with them in the process. This must to be the time of the end referred to in traditions across the globe.

But now having offered this negative paint stroke, I would like to try and describe another process that is happening simultaneously. There is something else going on. Parallel to this decay is the incredible explosion of growth and renewal popping up from between the rubble and ruin of the crumbling we see all around us. The pain of the crumbling of the old structures is allowing us to attain to an incredible new level of awareness of those around us. This pain has thrown together large groups of folks who never had dealings and who have been forced to recognize each other and start addressing differences that had previously been ignored completely.

The freeing and recognition of basic rights of groups of people that have been beaten down, oppressed and denied equality for eons globally based on skin color, gender, ethnicity or religious convictions. Countless numbers of previously exploited groups of now at least have protection by law. This is something unheard of previously, laughed and scoffed at by their oppressors. It is happening now all around us.

Cooperation on a scale never seen before has been “suddenly” thrust on all of us. Our economic interdependence is obvious; a housing slump here in the US has affected banks worldwide. Oil prices go up and everybody feels the crunch. Increased cooperation is necessary. Natural disasters are events that know no borders and with the ability to instantly communicate through voice, images and video to any one on the globe we are made immediately aware of the pain and suffering caused by these events. Again, an increase in cooperation is necessary. More data and evidence is presented daily on global warming and again a solution to the problem requires more cooperation.

Technological advances are improving the quality of our lives and sculpting the earth, as we know it, into a whole new earth. These advances that are extending our lives, keeping our drinking water clean, allowing us to travel, freeing some of our time, and providing us with countless tools being used to better our lives has also increased the quality and frequency of the interactions with other people around the globe. This increase in interaction is allowing us to slowly realize that we are all undeniably part of one human family.

Of course the media will immediately remind us of all examples of bloody failures of this great coming together, but I think the successes far outweigh these failures. All these upheavals are just part of the collapse of old structures and the birth of a new awareness. It is an awareness that is slowly seeping into all of our lives whether we like it or not that we really are part of one human family and it really is one little planet we all have to live on and learn to share. It is the awareness of oneness.

In referring to this awareness, Baha’u’llah, the prophet founder of the Baha’i Faith said, “Blessed and happy is he that ariseth to promote the best interests of the peoples and kindreds of the earth. In another passage He hath proclaimed: It is not for him to pride himself who loveth his own country, but rather for him who loveth the whole world. The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens.” (Tablets of Baha'u'llah, p. 167)

So yes, I think we are all currently living through the apocalypse or “time of the end” predicted in traditions through out the world. And yes we are all in quite a lot of pain (or running from it) but this is all part of the process that ends a life as we have known it and ushers in the birth of a new world promised to us in those same traditions. We live on one globe and we are part of one, single human family and it is inevitable that we have some growing pains while trying to figure it all out.

Travelling

It is always amazing to me how I can climb into the innards of a big plane, go to sleep and wake up and in a completely and totally different place. So it took me basically 6 hrs to go from this.... To this.... (details from my trip to Costa Rica will follow)