Multiplication Tables

James started clapping yesterday.  How the heck do I make a baby go to sleep who won't stop clapping in his crib, incredibly pleased with himself, radiating that smile of smiles, the smile that could end all wars and feed all the starving children in the world? 

Just when you think you're spending all the love you have on your bride and dog, along comes a tiny human to steal the show. 

I was watching a show on the Science Channel over the weekend narrated by Stephen Hawking (the ultra-famous physicist) debating whether or not there is a God.  Heavy stuff, indeed.  Most of it made sense.  I was able to hang on all the way through quantum physics, but then fell off the toboggan when Hawking began talking about black holes and how time does not exist in them. His point, when he finally got around to it, was to answer the question many Christians (myself included) always asks: What existed before the Big Bang?  

*Note that the Christians I refer to are the ones who believe in evolution, but that some divine force (God?) sparked it.  Genesis Christians need not apply.

So Dr. Hawking purports that nothing existed before the Big Bang because it originated within the confines of a black hole.  And if time does not exist in black holes then nothing existed prior to the Big Bang.  When asked why the Big Bang occurred, Hawking goes on to point to evidence on the subatomic level that particles appear and disappear seemingly randomly all the time.  Granted, there's math to allegedly back up these theories.  I'll have to take his word for it.  And although I know that given enough time science will eventually explain everything away, I can't stop seeing James clapping.  And waving.  And walking.

Science is amazing, no doubt.  Our biologies alone are nothing short of miracles.  Even though Hawking seemingly explained away the creation of the universe, I still wonder how the heart beats.  I'm humbled by emotions and the bonds I find myself intertwined in.  Hawking wasn't able to explain what love is.  I might believe the idea that time does not exist in black holes even though no one has ever been in one (or seen one, for that matter).  But there's got to be a reason for it.  No amount of math can explain away the weakness I feel in my heart when I have to make my son go to sleep when he'd rather stay up clapping into the night.