thoughts out !oud

a Christian’s news, views, opinions and occasional poetry …

When have you simply just trusted in God?

Posted by Mathew| 25 September 2008

This post of mine is nothing overly profound. But I read a post over at Dead Theologians that discusses the topic of fakeness - the ability to be someone in one instance, but then be able change your spots in another circumstance. In his post he mentions waiting nervously for the guest speaker who was running late and had not contacted the church that he was running late. Not knowing whether or not the guest speaker was going to turn up, and not having a backup plan in case things go pear shaped, is quite a pickle to be in. I’ve been in that situation a couple of times, which is what I’ll share here, and I believe it be one of those moments when… Continue reading When have you simply just trusted in God?

{ Filed Under General, Opinion | }

Quote: Denying God Imprisons Man

Posted by Mathew| 11 September 2008

Whoever strikes against God strikes down himself. The atheist denying God degrades himself. The atheist exalting himself above God sinks below the level of animate and inanimate beings. Liberation from God is enslavement in creatures. Absolute humanism is the sure road to absolute despotism. Denial of God as truth begets the imprisonment of man in the self-imposed darkness of his own myths.

Vincent Miceli (priest, theologian and philosopher), The Gods of Atheism, 1971… Continue reading Quote: Denying God Imprisons Man

{ Filed Under Quotations | }

Poem: Touches in the dark hours

Posted by Mathew| 3 September 2008

touches in the dark hours

what’s desired
the most
we deserve
the least –
that’s biblical, that is –

to be left
to hurt
is worse than being left to die –
or is it there being no hope
for atonement?
or redemption?
no soft touches
in the dark hours
when your spirit has no words
to speak
because they’re empty
and so there’s a guttural
yelp
a vacuumed cry for help
followed by the mind burst
that the worst
is yet to bear its teeth
expectation can be equally painful

trickery is at work
in these dark hours
thoughts jump over balcony railings
to fall
lazily
into foul language in a foul world
rushing upwards
with greetings of a sudden kind
so much for civilities

but we have no Superman
nor Spider-man
nor least of all good ol’ Captain America
just a man –
weeping
offering
the soft touches
that we need
in these dark hours
he’s been through them too

© 2007 mathew hamilton… Continue reading Poem: Touches in the dark hours

{ Filed Under Poetry | }

Your love is like a beetroot stain

Posted by Mathew| 2 September 2008

There are many grand, romantic, humorous and satirical quotes on the topic of love that anyone could find nowadays. It seems that we toss the word ‘love’ around quite freely – perhaps we have even diluted it to an extent – so that it becomes just something that is so abstract as to be almost meaningless or at least devalued. We say things like ‘I love Nutella’, or ‘I love my cat.’ What we really mean, of course, is simply that we really like the object of our ‘love’. Yet scripturally, love means something much, much stronger than for what we give it credit. Truly, there is no greater love, as the Lord Jesus says, than to give up one’s life for another.

CS Lewis wrote… Continue reading Your love is like a beetroot stain

{ Filed Under Christianity | }

Quote: to love is to be open to hurt

Posted by Mathew| 28 August 2008

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless–it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.

C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves (1960)… Continue reading Quote: to love is to be open to hurt

{ Filed Under Quotations | }

Thoughts out !oud and the middle eastern Oud

Posted by Mathew| 28 August 2008

I have felt that I need to blog an apology to the many, many enthusiasts who are scouring the internet for information about the Middle Eastern instrument, the Oud (a guitar-like instrument, pronounced ud, I believe), and who are ending up at my blog: Thoughts out !oud.

Monitoring the free blogging stats tool for my blog I have noticed with interest that my blog is ranking reasonably well in searches for the Oud, turning up in search strings such as: Oud, Oud for sale, Ouds for sale Sydney, thinking out oud, Oud built, stand for Oud, out Oud, Oud Cartoons, playing the Oud, all about the Oud, Oud poetry, etc. It became obvious to me that, so far as Google and other search engines are concerned, Thoughts out… Continue reading Thoughts out !oud and the middle eastern Oud

{ Filed Under General | }

Lazy Myth: Christianity oppresses scientific truth and is closed-minded, aka the Galileo case

Posted by Mathew| 26 August 2008

As Christians, it seems we are forbidden to ever broach the topic of who the Western world’s fathers of science were. Heaven forbid, especially, that we mention that many of them were faithful, Bible-believing Christians and then follow this up with the bold (but factual) claim that the methods employed by modern science today, and that science as an established and sustainable institution, happened within only one period – and in one part of the world – in history: that of Europe, in the period then known as Christendom.

I made the fatal mistake of dropping this claim into a little discussion on a related topic and it wasn’t long before someone piped in with their contrary piece of wisdom: “Just ask Galileo what he thought about Christendom [sic] great… Continue reading Lazy Myth: Christianity oppresses scientific truth and is closed-minded, aka the Galileo case

{ Filed Under Apologetics, Christianity | }

Forgetting about the man in the mirror

Posted by Mathew| 20 August 2008

Those of you with children or adolescent teenagers or those of you married to big kids (I pity my wife!) will no doubt know that it is frustrating when they don’t follow through on a commitment or a task that they promised. Look no further than me - guilty, your Honour. Well, there’s a great many more of us who do the same to God. Imagine what God feels like when we say yes to His face, but then go away and immediately fail to follow through or run in the opposite direction?

Take Jonah, for instance, whom God charged to preach repentance to the people of Nineveh. And what did Jonah do? He ran away, defying God Himself. Futile, Jonah. Futile. When… Continue reading Forgetting about the man in the mirror

{ Filed Under Bible devotionals | }
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