I invite you to pull your horse up to this stream of thoughts and insights and relax a moment from your travels. I hope you find salient information and inspiration in the essays, sermons and book reviews below. Enjoy! (Image Credit: “Around the Bend” by Tim Solliday.)
Continue Reading →Some of the most gnarly, weather-beaten trees I’ve seen are in Palisades Park, Santa Monica, California . Like some people, the Australian Tea trees found in that park get more twisted, and yet somehow more beautiful, with age. Their tree trunks crawl along the ground, ebb up and down (sometimes high enough for a homeless person to sleep under), and wind their way through fences before finally looking up to the sun.
This mirrors the life ...
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A college freshman dealing with physical and emotional struggles is not unique. Where those struggles take Hannah (Rachel Hendrix) in her search for answers is captivating as the plot in October Baby unfolds. Her medical history is a puzzle with missing pieces. Her emotional fabric is torn and she doesn’t know why. After a collapse on stage, Hannah is finally told she was adopted after a premature birth. She survived a botched abortion.
Feeling like her whole life was ...
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Blue Like Jazz, the movie, is set for release on April 13, 2012. It is based on a semi-autobiographical book by Donald Miller with the same title, published in 2003 (a New York Times best seller). I read Blue Like Jazz ...
In The Wizard of Oz, the Tin Man, Scarecrow and Lion are all defined by their deepest desires (a heart, a brain and courage respectively).
Did you catch the classical Greek philosophy there? In his book, The Republic, Plato (424 – 348 BC) outlined the three parts of the human soul thusly:
Some translate the three parts as appetite, reason and spirit, but ...
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Leonard Franklin Slye was born on November 5, 1911. If you’re over fifty, you know him by another name. Need some clues?
1. Leonard grew up in Cincinnati where Riverfront Stadium (later Cinergy Field) was built. He once joked that he was born at second base.
2. He worked during the Great Depression as a transient fruit picker in California before forming The Rocky Mountaineers.
3. Seeing his singing bring joy ...
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After an extended transition, I have accepted a call to serve at the Lewiston Church of Christ as their minister. This faithful family of God has welcomed me warmly, lifting my confidence without expanding my head. To learn more about my new church family, link to:
The confluence of the Snake and ...
“Love” has so many different meanings in English; it’s easy to get confused. To cut through the fog, let’s distinguish the greatest love of all so we can lift it above the many lesser forms of love that attract our attention.
Here is one attempt, captured in the lyrics of a hit song in 1986, titled, The Greatest Love of All:
The greatest love of all is happening to me.
I have the greatest love of ...
President Barack Obama, using the full power and prestige of his political high office, issued the following signed declaration on June 1, 2009:
Now, therefore, I, Barack Obama, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim June 2009 as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month.
He does this every year ...
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The Western movie is a uniquely American invention. I like them, in part, because I like sermons. In their own way, most Westerns preach on such themes as justice, courage, right over wrong, manliness, protection and a pioneer spirit—qualities we see in decline today. They honor the rugged individual, but often in ways the call that individual to self-sacrifice for the good of the family or community. The selections below are merely my own favorites, in reverse order. Some gems ...
Continue Reading →Joel Solliday
E-mail: joel@solliday.org
302 Southway,
Lewiston, ID 83501
