Some things God didn't create

People often say God created time, and was there before time. But isn't that an illogical statement? The concept of something being before time is a paradox. The idea of 'before' is to do with time, so it is not possible to be before time, it is only possible to have always been.

I don't think God created time. I think that God and time have always existed.
Other things that have always existed would include love, existence, and goodness.
God created every creature, but some concepts, such as these, can't have been created. Existence has been there for as long as God has existed, he can't have created existence because he would have had be exist to do that! Equally, God has always been good and loving (and just and faithful and merciful and holy etc.), so these things cannot have been created by him. Instead, they have always been, just like God has always been.

Pavement rage

I get pavement rage. This is a bit like road rage, but (you guessed it) on the pavement. It is caused by people, not who just walk slower than me (I admit I often walk quickly), but people who walk it a stupidly slow pace (like a quarter of my pace) and take up the whole pavement doing this.

I am not alone. The Facebook group 'I Secretly Want To Punch Slow Walking People In The Back Of The Head' has nearly 1 million members.

Edinburgh has a plan - the city council hopes to install a lane system on pavements. Read the full article here.

An interesting idea. But the bit that really caught my eye was that Nurofen, the painkiller company, did a survey about being irritated by crowded streets. How delightfully random.

Rob Bell – Sex God

In case you’re wondering, Sex God refers to a book by Rob Bell. It’s about 2 things: sex and God (and spirituality and marriage etc.). Most of it is quite good, but there was one thing I thought was crazy and one thing that was brilliant.

The crazy thing.
He bases the book on his idea that sexuality is our awareness of our disconnection (from God, each other, the world) and all the ways we go about trying to reconnect. Therefore, according to Bell, all human interaction and relationship is sexuality. I just don’t buy that. He say it comes from the fact that sex is from the Latin secare, meaning to sever or disconnect. Maybe the word does have this etymology, but to infer fro this that all relationships are about sexuality is going a bit far I think.
I would be happy to say that our sexuality is one way we try to go about reconnecting with people, but not all our interactions are sexual. I am a Sally, not a Harry.

The brilliant thing.
Bell describes the covenant between God and Israel and parallels it with the covenant between a husband and wife. He covers intimacy, commitment, rules, celebration and exclusivity. It is easily the best writing I have ever read on marriage and sex. This chapter (chapter 7) alone makes the book worth the price. It’s just awesome, and it’s probably the one bit of the book I’ll re-read again and again.

The rest of the book was good. Not earth-shattering, but well worth the read. Amazon has it for £5.24, or you can borrow it from me for free.