This video was made to support the piece of music, which was a poem set to music, and written for choir and orchestra. Since it was mixed and mastered by computer there was no choir to sing the lyrics. I needed video to render the words. The images help to express the music but are not primary.
Lux Dei means Light of God. This is my imagining of the beginning of creation, before there was life. The music paints a picture of emptiness, then an explosion of energy and the sudden appearance of light–then the stars and the planets.
Zephan rolled his shoulders, trying to release some tension, and then rubbed his hands across his face. He didn’t know what to do now. Voices that called to him from flames! He must be crazy!
“Mom, please tell me everything you can about the house and that old woman who seems to run it. If I am to go back, I need to know who they are and what they want.” He spoke quietly, but with a firmness beyond his year
“Her name is Mrs. Stone. As far as I can tell, she is as old as the house and still going strong. She is solid as a rock, immovable in her opinions, flinty-eyed when it comes to mischief, but she has broad shoulders and a soft heart for the sorrowful. Go to her when you are in trouble, and you will receive unfailing aid,”
“But the house, Mom?”
“I don’t know, honey. All I know is that people staying there are given jobs to do, some of them pretty heroic. Like the time Lester led a herd of sheep down the mountain in a crashing thunderstorm at night. Good thing he and his dog know that mountain like the back of their hands, er, paws. I just had to learn not to feel sorry for myself, and one day to marry and have a son.” She sighed wearily. “I don’t know what else to tell you.”
“Can I trust them?” Zephan asked quietly.
“With your life, ” she said swiftly. “They saved mine, you know. I was a proud, heartless girl the day that fall blinded me, and drove the will to live out of me.” She reached out for him, and he took her hand. “Ask anyone who knew me then, and they will tell you that blindness was the best thing that ever happened to me. But I will add, no, it is the best only because of Mrs. Stone and the house.”
“Why do you say the house, Mom? Do you mean the people living in the house?” Zephan released her hand, frowning.
She smoothed her skirts, tilting her chin up a little. “No. Though they did help. It was the house.” Then she smiled. “It is alive, Zephan. It knows what you want and what you need, and when to give them both. It is like the world’s best parent, only it never speaks directly, only indirectly. And it is full of love, infinite love, for each one within it. You know, it’s funny, but there’s always room for one more. It always seems to know when someone’s coming. It’s the house that tells Mrs. Stone, you know.”
The snap of resin popping and wood burning was the only sound for a while. Both mother and son seemed far away in quiet conversation with themselves. Finally, Zephan roused himself. As he scooped up his backpack, it was apparent something had changed. He no longer looked like someone to be bullied; he had grown into a young man in an evening.
When a city starts out with a major energy deficit, there are two changes that should be made: to be really, and I mean really efficient at recycling the critical resource, or to buy more energy.
What about in biology? Cells are like cities, right?
We already know from the previous post https://anngauger.blog/2019/11/23/is-this-any-way-to-run-a-city/ that the cell has an energy budget that is out of balance based solely on biosynthesis and use of AT.P It is in a predicament. It has an extreme shortfall in ATP in its balance sheet, needing six ATP just to make one. ATP is a high energy molecule. All that energy has to be loaded into the molecule during its synthesis by using up other ATP molecules.
If chemical A is necessary for the synthesis of more chemical A, then A has the power of replication (such systems are known as autocatalytic systems). …We find that intermediary metabolism is invariably autocatalytic for ATP.
Kun et al., Genome Biology 2008, 9:R51
The cell needs to have ATP before it can make ATP, and it has to have more ATP than it can make. Can the cell rescue its metabolic state by bringing in ATP from outside? Sure, indirectly– if it eats biological material other cells have made, it can get ATP by breaking down glucose into pyruvate, and then pyruvate into citrate, and then ultimately, the energy is harvested and and a net gain in ATP is produced. The glucose to pyruvate digestion happens in the cytoplasm, but the citrate to final energy harvest all occurs in marvellous mysterious voyagers in our cells called mitochondria.
Mitochondria are the microscopic power plants of the cell whose purpose is to take citrate and convert it to ATP,
the cell’s energy currency. Resembling miniature blimps with corrugated double membranes, they carry out an interlocking series of chemical reactions that squeeze out every last possible ATP from the breakdown of glucose. It’s a highly efficient, environmentally friendly process. Everything is recycled — one part of the process is called the citric acid cycle because it regenerates itself with each new round. In fact, everything cycles.
Most cells have many mitochondria, whose characteristic wrinkled stroma serve to increase the interior membrane surface area. Think of a bag with a much bigger bag neatly tucked in folds inside. Embedded in that folded inner membrane are all machinery of energy production that makes life possible. And that machinery is considerable. An ensemble of multiple proteins come together to make 5 protein complexes, shown in the picture below. In complexes 1-4, energy in the form of electrons is received by them and cycled through and, then using some of that energy to pump protons across the membrane. As citrate is gradually broken down, compounds like NADH or succinate are produced, and shunted off to the electron transport chain, and they also contribute to the process.
Even the last high-energy electrons from the breakdown process are not wasted: a chain of proteins in the inner membrane passes these electrons like little hot potatoes from one to another, using the energy of each transfer to pump hydrogen ions across the membrane, so that a molecular machine called ATP synthase can take advantage of the hydrogen gradient to create even more ATP.
The protein complexes of the mitochondrial electron transport chain, showing the flow of molecules in and out of the mitochondrion at each stage. doi: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001129.g001
In the drawing you can see the direction of H+ flow out and then in again, and how many different proteins make up each protein complex. There are 5 complexes, whether in an animal, or a plant.
The fifth complex is ATP synthase. This is where the miracle happens that makes life possible. ATP synthase harvests the energy of the proton gradient to recycle ADP to ATP. Like a turbine in a hydroelectric plant, ATP synthase lets the hydrogen ions flow back across the membrane through itself, rotating as the ions pass through, and As it rotates it adds a phosphate to ADP at each crank, thus restoring ATP to use.
The engine ATP synthase is 98% efficient at what it does! Human machines can’t approach that. But this is what permits life. We burn through our body weight in ATP every day. Just breathing burns ATP.
Right now, within your bodies this little engine is cranking away. Without this machine, oxygen-dependent life could not exist. Strong statement, but I stand by it.
To put it all together, in all life’s glorious improbability and elegant design, will require another post. And I haven’t even gotten past the beginnings of biochemistry.
What star is this, shines clear and bright? Why come these shepherds in dark of night? From stable there shines a heavenly light— My heart it trembles at such a sight. A glorious King has come here to be born, A wonder of wonders on this Christmas morn.
The baby lies in a manger bare Joseph and Mary attend him there The shepherds kneel in wonder and awe The infant King born in a stall Come to take away our sin, Born that we might be born again
His star in the east the prophets foretold And wise men bringing wealth untold-- Frankincense a priest’s offering, Myrrh for burial, gold for a king. This King a priest born to suffer and die Then rise again, glorified.
The only wise God asleep on the hay Is Wonder Counselor born this day Mighty God become helpless for all This paradox brings a sense of awe. Prince of Peace, born to end all strife, He conquers death and brings new life.
Who could have foretold such a wondrous thing What once was hidden from prophets and kings? That God would take on a human form And be born among us on Christmas morn, Because he took flesh he knows the ways That sin and grief attend our days. His sacrifice took away our sin. Restoring the gift of His life within.
For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.
Niko edged through the door, hoping his mother wouldn’t notice.
“Zephan? Where have you been? I wanted you to go and get more goat cheese from Mr.Raintree before nightfall.” She spoke quietly, without reproach, but simply describing how it had been.
Zephan grimaced. He had forgotten. “I went to the old house on Hearthstone Hill. You know the one. Bruiser had dared me, and I thought you would rather have me go than have me come home with torn and dirty clothes again.”
She turned her face in his direction eagerly. “Really? You went there? Did you try the door?”
Niko followed silently behind Mrs. Stone, but his mind was agitated. He turned over her few words in his mind, much like a jackdaw would look for jewels among pebbles. What did she mean by saying only a fortunate few are welcomed here? Hadn’t he decided on his own to take Bruiser’s dare? No one invited him! Rather than get another beating, or worse, make his mother worry, he’d decided to just get it over a knock on the door of the strange old house. He didn’t really believe the stories that said people had gone in and never come out again. Did he?
Mrs. Stone turned in mid-stride, as if jerked around by Niko’s doubts and said, rather sharply, “I’ll not have you fretting, boy, for this house is a harmless as she comes. No one is ever held against their will. You are free to come and go as you will.”
‘B-b-but why am I h-h-here?” Niko managed to stutter.
“Well, I don’t know,” she said crisply, shaking out her skirts and turning to go on. “The house hasn’t told me yet. This way please.”
After a few more corridors (Niko had lost count) they stopped in front of a big black oak door with Niko’s name on it!!! This is too weird! I am outta here first chance.
Mrs. Stone swung the door wide onto a teen-aged boy’s Fantasy Island. Game consoles with comfortable swivel chairs, the best bluetooth head sets, game controllers and joysticks, mouse pads and and webcams. And one of his favorite games was already loaded and ready to play. He barely noticed the large bed and easy chair in the corner, but he did take note of the door and windows opposite their entry point. They didn’t appear to be locked.
“Well?” Mrs. Stone smiled.
Niko shifted uncomfortably. “I’m going to have tell my mom where I am. Then I’ll come back. For a while. To see.”
“So we’ll see you at dinner then,” said Mrs Stone, nodding her approval. “Just knock on the door and someone will answer and bring you to the dining room. You’ll get to meet the others then.” She turned backed and added, “Oh, and give my love to your mother, please. She was such a sweetheart during her stay here. Always looking out for other people. I expect she still is.”
A Psalm. A Song at the dedication of the temple. Of David.
1 I will extol you, O Lord, for you have drawn me up, and did not let my foes rejoice over me. 2 O Lord my God, I cried to you for help, and you have healed me. 3 O Lord, you brought up my soul from Sheol, restored me to life from among those gone down to the Pit.[a] 4 Sing praises to the Lord, O you his faithful ones, and give thanks to his holy name. 5 For his anger is but for a moment; his favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning.
I have come to a conclusion. Perhaps if I had thought about it more carefully at first I would not be surprised. But it has only recently occurred to me that a great deal of the disturbance about evolution—yes, no, theistic, atheistic, guided, unguided, young earth, old earth, Darwinist , near- neutralist, whatever! is about human origins. Where did WE come from? Are we descended from primates or not? And what did God have to do with it?
Christ_Pantocrator_mosaic_from_Hagia_Sophia Wikipedia Common; Angels at Mamre by Andrei Rublev, Public Domain, at Wikimedia Common; Vladimirskaya / Vladimir Mother of God icon taken by Jim Forest, at Flickr https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/
Homesick hungry weary lonely Hearts beleaguered, yet unbowed ‘Still we seek thee ancient beauty Shining prospect glimpsed through cloud. Bright horizon, distant city Where our joy cries out ,”Believe!” Where our hearts are stilled and gentled Love the atmosphere We breathe.
Hearts that long for such a morning Find no ease in emptiness— Ancient beauty sate our yearning Slake our thirst for holiness For with thee the new day dawning Soft and sweet all dread now ceasing Peace and righteousness shall kiss And joy will ring out love’s Great Feast.
Making Note of the Moments 