Bang

The Monkey is now 8 years old.  In celebration of the big day (which was actually Tuesday), we had a little ceremony tonight and moved his car seat to the trunk.  Because if you're 8, you don't have to use a booster anymore.  So he's not going to.  I swear his beam made the sun look dull as he pulled the seatbelt across himself...

Being 8 also apparently means we can have even bigger, more interesting conversations.  Tonight's post-ice-cream topic was The Big Bang Theory.  We talked about what scientists believe...and we talked about the counterpoint of religious views.  We talked about the fact that some people are firmly entrenched on either side of the debate about how the world began and completely unwilling to even listen to the other perspective.  After a reasoned discussion, my great big eight year old came to the following conclusion:

 
 

"I think maybe they're both right:  I think maybe God caused the Big Bang and that's what created the world."





And there it is.  Without any particular effort...without discussing this topic before at all...my son is already starting to allow for the fact that there are many possibilities in the world ...that shades of gray are all around us...and that the insistence on either/or thinking isn't necessary.  I'm increasingly of the belief that we need more of this kind of open thinking in the world if we're going to survive as a country....as a species.  We need to be able to see past the finger-pointing and blame spirals and arbitrary lines in the sand.  Until we can broaden our thought patterns, I'm not sure we'll be able to really solve the big problems that we're facing as a nation and as a world.


It's not about what caused the Big Bang...it's about the fact that there's room in the plurality...and value in the discussion.  We need science AND belief to see us through.  Here's hoping the Monkey holds on to both for the next 8...no, 80!, years.