The end of an era

My son finally decided to quit gymnastics. He's been doing it for 6 years, and he is finally ready, although I am not sure that I am. I am so used to him doing it, and we had so much fun competing last year, that I am not sure that I want him to quit. But it is his decision, and he decided that practicing 4 times a week, 3.5 hours per practice is not the kind of commitment he wants to make.

I always knew that at some point this would happen. Every time the coaches increased practice time, my husband said that he was putting his foot down, it's too much and it's time to stop. I always said that it's not our decision, and if Mark wants to continue, we should go with it. Some day, I said, he will say that it's too much and he doesn't want to do it anymore. That day is today.

I can't help being a little disappointed. Even though you know it's the right decision, you can't help being disappointed when you invested so much time, effort and money in your child's activity. You can't help wondering what he could have achieved should he stay with it. But I always said it was going to be Mark's decision when to stop, and I am not backing out now, despite my own feelings. I am not pushing him. I am giving him a week to think about it, to make sure that's what he wants. If he doesn't change his mind before the week is over, that's the end of gymnastics.

I am sure he had a great time doing gymnastics, and it's done wonders for his health and strength. Now we have to find a sport that will be as satisfying and as good for him as gymnastics had been. I am sure in the back of his mind, my son has plans for his newly found free time - more playdates, more TV time, more computer games. I have other plans - more reading time, continuing with Russian grammar, alternative sports, more reasonable dinner and bed time, and of course some play time too. So long gymnastics. We'll miss you.

Can G-d tell time?

Science tells me there is a God,
my mind tells me I will never
understand God, and my heart
tells me I am not meant to.
--Dan Brown

Yesterday I was watching "Curiosity" program on Discovery channel with my kids. The point of the program was to prove that there is no possible way that G-d have created the Universe. So they involved arguments like negative energy, quantum mechanics and the fact that Universe once was an infinitely small black hole where there was no time, therefore G-d could not have existed because there was no time for him to exist in.

Anybody buying this? Don't get me wrong, it was interesting to watch, but not terribly convincing. For starters, even if we suppose that the Universe was once an infinitely small black hole (which they didn't bother proving, just threw it out there for the sake of argument) and there was no time, I don't think that would be a big obstacle for G-d to exist. As far as I am concerned, G-d doesn't need time to exist. People need time, but as for G-d I am not so sure. For all we know G-d might have created time before he created the Universe. Or after. Who knows?

I am curious at which point in time people started believing that they have it all figured out. They know how (and when) the Universe was created, they know when life begins (apparently after a child finishes medical school), they know what happens after we die (apparently nothing). People have no problem believing that a huge random explosion created something so complex and so perfect as the Universe but have terribly hard time accepting that there is something out there that is so intelligent and so powerful that they will never understand it. They are not meant to. Geniuses like Newton and Einstein believed that such power existed and they, the geniuses, were put on this Earth only to scratch the surface of understanding how this power operates. But an average Joe from San Francisco has it all figured out. Big Bang. Explanation over.

I am not anti-science. In fact, I am fascinated by scientific discoveries, especially in astronomy. I am just not a big believer in a Big Bang theory, as well as in Evolution theory. Theories that throw out the intelligence behind creation and building it on random events give me pause. The Universe is too logical and too beautiful to operate by random chance. And we, with all of our vast knowledge that we accumulated over the thousands of years, are only at the very beginning of understanding the intelligence behind the Universe. But we will never understand this intelligence until we are ready to accept it. Newton, Descartes, Einstein and Leibniz did accept it. Why can't we?