Rainy Sunday

Yesterday was chilly and rainy, a perfect day for making chowder.  So, I dropped my college roommate and spouse at church for their pre-service practice, and I headed to Doris' Italian Market.  I bought the various ingredients and came back to church.

My pastor had changed the service at the last minute to respond to President Trump's recent decisions about immigrants and refugees; for more on this service, see this post on my theology blog.  Even before the service started, I had the Sanctuary Movement of the 80's on my mind.

While I am pleased with the protests and the actions of judges and lawyers, I am deeply disturbed by this first week of Trump's presidency, especially with the promotion of Steve Bannon to the National Security Council.  While others have been sounding the alarm since election morning, I've been saying "Let's wait and see." After this past week, I am convinced that Trump meant every word he said (I was hoping he just said stuff to get elected and would spend 4 years being ineffectual), and perhaps worse, and that he is a true danger.

I want to post this meme that travelled around the Internet last week so that I remember it, and because we talked about it on the way to church when my college roommate read it to us: "First they came for the scientists…  And the National Parks Services said, 'lol, no' and went rogue and we were all like 'I was not expecting the park rangers to lead the resistance, none of the dystopian novels I read prepared me for this but cool.'”

We talked about forest rangers making so little money that they weren't easily controlled, unlike some of us.  Plus, they had thousands if not millions of acres of land into which to disappear if necessary, and many of them know how to do so.

We were talking quite seriously, on some level, even if we were laughing.  Our discussions of refugees at church and afterwards were also quite serious.  I keep thinking of resisters of past years, especially Bonhoeffer and the sanctuary churches of the 80's.

I had expected that much would be required of people of faith/good conscience, but I wasn't expecting to have these conversations in the first week of the administration.

Despite our heavy conversations, we had a pleasant Sunday afternoon, making not one but two kinds of chowder (dairy based and tomato based).  Our houseguest took a nap, while my spouse started a great discussion thread, based on Bonhoeffer, with his blended class.  I took care of my online classes and then did some writing.

My college roommate decided she wanted to go to Ikea, so late in the afternoon, off we went.

A rainy Sunday afternoon is a great time to go to Ikea--it wasn't as crowded as I feared.  I remember when this kind of furniture seemed the height of sophistication to me.  In the late 70's, my parents loved Scandinavian furniture, and we'd go to showrooms in Atlanta, which would inspire me to dream of a future day full of modular shapes and straight lines.

Yesterday, as I looked at all these pieces of furniture and accessories designed to store other stuff, I thought, I don't want more storage packets/pockets/drawers--I want less stuff.  Plus, I don't want to assemble the stuff.

I did buy 2 folding chairs for outdoor use--they were already assembled and both sturdy and cheap.  In early April, we'll have a few days when we'll need them as various family members arrive.

I kept thinking that if I was in my younger years and just starting out, more of this stuff would appeal to me.  But it takes hours just to circle through the store, or at least it felt that way.

Here we are, week 4 of Winter quarter, week 2 of the Trump administration.  I wonder what the week will bring.