grafted in and on the journey

Hello Grafted In Readers, Today is Friday, January 24, 2025 in my corner of blog-land. For America, it has been a pretty full month of events. We have a former U.S. President back in the role and whitehouse as of this past Monday at noontime. Fires continue to roar and upend the lives of people in Southern California. They probably wish it would rain, pour, do something to quench the blazes. I saw this caption in an online version of the "Christian Science Monitor" email news highlight: Monitor Highlights LA fires claimed places of worship, but congregations still are helping others This story is about COMMUNITY Organized religion provides space for worship and spiritual study. Amid disaster, it can also provide a built-in system of caring and an active faith. Kudos to those in Spiritual communities who are loving their neighbor and themselves simultaneously! SideNote:  If you have access to a mobile device or desktop computer, are a lover of modern western music, check out t...

Hello Grafted In Reader, Today is Friday, January 17 in my corner of blog land. Most of this post will concern a request of me to you. Simply stated, If you are reading this blog for the first time, or the 100th time, would you please say Yes, or leave a sentence in the Post Comment? I recently learned that there are statistics and there are statistics. What that means is there are Google Analytics one can view for a more treu statistical report of blog readership. The statistics easily accessed include readers maybe, and bots that crawl the web and notice a given blog. So, one can have for example, eight readers and two bots for a total of ten. Only the analytics, as I understand all this, represent a more valid picture of the readership. Hmmmm. If you can do this at any time, or before February 15, 2025, fantastic, and a big thanks from me! On the lighter side, Just finished a rather dramatic title, "Ends With Us", author is Colleen Hoover. It's a story about spousal ab...

Hello Grafted In Reader, Today is January 7, 2025 in my corner of blog land. Winter is here. Some snow on walks, temps in the mid twenties and low teens, Fahrenheit, daytime, nighttime, respectively. Burr. For reading pleasure, I am embarking on a 1935 novel by Sinclair Lewis, "It Cannot Happen Here". It's 'political science' imagining democracy succumbing to a totalitarian regime. This happens over time in developed subtle ways via the author's construction. Well worth reading! This post,(The Israelites, its title) like earlier ones from some time ago, takes a brief look at the heritage Christians are indebted to Judaism for passing on to us. I am posting an online overview concerning the First Century existence of a movement known as the Pharisees. The "church" castigates them wholly, and pictures them by behavior and expression as ignorant, uninformed, self-absorbed, self-righteous unloving claiming to serve HaShem (God). Again, this is an overvie...