Note: I hardly ever, ever go into politics here, for reasons that are about to become apparent. This post is an exception. I feel like I should give warning, in the same way that some shows warn when there will be flashing lights or adult language… Be warned. Political anxiety ahead. ***

I don’t do horror movies. I find nothing fun about them, and I’ll even go so far as to call it a mental-health precaution that I avoid them. They mess with my head. I have enough of my own mental messes and PTSD that my long-suffering husband regularly has to wake me from wailing nightmares. “I’ve got you,” he soothes me. “You’re all right, I’ve got you,” repeated until my brain staggers OUT of its terrors.

Why would I add horrors to my mind’s film-bank, if I can avoid doing so?

You might scoff at me, but there are times (many, of late) when I feel I have to take that approach even a step further. There are periods of time when I avoid NEWS as a matter of mental health, as well.

If there are things I can be doing—if I have a vote, or an action to take—well, then I want to be fully informed. (I’m not, after all, a fan of ignorance.) But all too often the world’s doings are above my pay-grade, and I can’t pitch in to change them, and they’re distressing, and when I feel my mental health teetering out of whack, I choose to “ostrich” myself for a while, rather than inviting the anxiety.

Frankly, most of Trump’s presidency has fallen under this heading. Politics aside, I think he’s a wretched human being, childish and self-centered and power-hungry, with no regard for anything but what HE wants. A despot in the making. He has an astonishing capacity to ignore things he doesn’t like—whether those be manners or rules or court orders or laws or common human decency…

And my immediate difficulty, given those opinions, is that I’m planted firmly in Trump Territory. (Oregon may, overall, be a liberal state in its cities and population centers—but this rural eastern farmtown is as conservative as it gets.) A good friend downright hero-worships Trump—and it all comes down to what news sources you credit. She dismisses “mainstream media” because she has been told that they’re liars, and she believes everything the Trump Machine puts out. (Well, if I believed that stuff, he would look pretty good.)

I don’t like to talk about current events with her, because our viewpoints and our “trusted sources” of outlook-on-the-world are so diametrically opposite. It’s hard to avoid the topic, though, because she’s so caught up in Trumpness. She covers herself with Trumpification—stickers on her car, water bottle, notebook. Trump clothing, Trump pins, Trump purse! Almost everything she owns or displays shouts MAGA—and while I applaud the idea of keeping America a great place to live, I sure have a different idea of what that looks like.

No, I’m keeping my nose out of the news.

I’m aware of the government shut-down because it impacts people close to home—almost all of our staff members rely on SNAP to keep their kids fed. And here’s what I know: a federal court has ordered Trump’s government to fund food stamps this week—and it is unclear whether the White House will comply! There shouldn’t even be a question, when a federal court rules, but Trump continues to do what he feels like. Never mind that pesky separation-of-powers stuff, where legislative and judicial branches are supposed to keep the executive in check. There’s no checking an executive who ignores ALL of it.

See? Even that much of a peek into the news has me all tied in knots—and all the more so for my constant exposure, “on the ground,” to someone who lauds every move the man makes. It’s so near the surface—my utter inability to affect even one person’s thinking, let alone impact the actual things that are happening. So I pull back, and retreat to the care and feeding (literally, right now!) of my own little neighborhood.

What is MY sphere of influence? What is (to use the Hawai’ian term for which English has no direct equivalent) MY kuliana? What is my area of reponsibility? I can make sure my staff isn’t hungry this week. THAT is something I can do.

And I pray that Trump doesn’t roll over term limits the way he steamrolls everything else. I don’t want my head perpetually stuck in the sand. I want to come out and breathe again.

I wrote the above before church yesterday.

And then I found myself, full-voiced, singing that the name of the Lord is above all earthly dominions and all powers… And I felt a great sense of relief and comfort. As my husband repeatedly reminds me: “God is still in charge.”

Even so… the New York Times app on my iPad is just going to have to continue to languish. I’m just going to stick to uninformed prayer—I don’t have the emotional bandwidth to handle The News.