~This week’s list of things worth reading, watching, listening to, contemplating, and sharing.
1. Trump’s neofascism is here now. Here are 10 things you can do to resist by Robert Reich on The Guardian, (maybe my favorite source for all my general news). “America has deep problems, which is why we can’t give up. Protect the vulnerable, organize boycotts and keep fighting.”
2. Good stuff on The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz: How to Mentally Survive America’s New Great Depression, and MAGA Christianity is Anti-Jesus. Just ask Jesus, and Don’t Let Bishop Budde Stand Alone: A Challenge to Every Minister in America, and Defeating the Cancer of Trumpism, and Don’t Gaslight Yourself. You’re Right To Grieve What’s Happening to America.
3. No, you’re not hysterical, “And that was a Sieg Heil salute” from Patti Digh.
4. KNOW WORRIES #10 – “A No Good, Horrible, Very Bad Week” from Jonathan Edward Durham’s Substack. “I just want to nap and eat and cry and fight everyone all at the same time, and everything is awful and I hate it.” Same, Jonathan. Same.
5. The Art of Protecting Your Peace by Courtney Carver. Also from Courtney, on her website Be More With Less, 7 Daily Habits That Are Causing 90% Of Your Pain and Digital Sabbatical: 5 ways to unplug and recharge.
6. Poetry: Wildflowers Rising From The Ashes and When You Go by Julie Barton, and Instead of Losing Faith by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, and This Beautiful, Broken World and Only Kindness Makes Sense from Julia Fehrenbacher, and Holding Vigil by Alison Luterman, and One Art by Elizabeth Bishop, and When People Ask How I’m Doing by Rudy Francisco. In related news, I just finished Dead Dad Jokes by Ollie Schminkey, and it was SO GOOD. And this one, from Mary Oliver.
7. Not giving up by Jenny Lawson. “Don’t let the world burn you to ashes. Protecting your fragile heart can be an act of rebellion. Don’t be afraid to love and laugh and find joy and silliness even in the hard times. Especially in the hard times.”
8. Against Motivation by Laura Van Den Berg. “Routine is a scrap of stability in an unstable world.”
9. The Power of Writing in a Harrowing World from Jena Schwartz, whose new book, Fierce Encouragement: 201 Writing Prompts for Staying Grounded in Fragile Times is now available, (I just ordered my copy).
10. Connective Tissue by Julie Lambert on ShortReads. “Trying to forgive.”
11. Recipes I want to try: Orange Chicken Meatballs with Broccoli and Brownie Bread and German Chocolate Sheet Cake.
12. I’ll Meet You in the Outfield. “An invitation to broaden our definition of resistance” from Sara Saltee. “In the outfield, we have to trust our guts, our intuitive knowing, our preoccupations and obsessions. We have to have faith that the story demanding to be told through us will find its way to the people who need it to keep their spirits alive. We have to trust that the songs or poems or images we create speak in a language that will someday fall like medicine on a far away broken heart.”
13. Micro dosing peace from Amy Marie Turner.
14. ICE Watch Programs Can Protect Immigrants in Your Neighborhood — Here’s What to Know. “Immigration enforcement doesn’t happen in isolation. When ICE agents stake out our neighborhoods, it affects everyone — the families living in fear, the businesses struggling to retain workers, the schools wondering why children are missing class, and the communities watching their social fabric fray. The grassroots response we saw in the first Trump administration shows that communities have the power to respond with humanity and practical solutions. As deportations ramp up again, we have a choice: We can watch as our neighbors disappear or we can build on these proven strategies to protect the diverse communities we’ve built together.”
15. 2025 Trans Girl Scouts To Order Cookies From! An act of resistance AND cookies?! Seems like a no-brainer to me.
16. 5 Signs a Relationship Might Be Toxic for Introverts.
17. On This Birthday from Frederick Joseph. It’s his birthday and you can now preorder his new book — I just ordered my copy. “Perhaps that’s what writing is, in the end: a quiet rebellion against forgetting. An attempt to press the fleeting into permanence, to take a moment that once was and make it live again, if only on the page. In This Thing of Ours, I wrote my mother and grandmother into the spaces between the lines. Folded their laughter, their stubbornness, their love—complicated and messy and real—into the story. Not because I planned to, but because I had to.”
18. You’ve always wondered, here’s the answer: do dogs actually watch TV?
19. Journaling as Resistance… from Rowen White. “Writing as writing. Writing as rioting. Writing as righting. (~Teju Cole)”
20. If Google Was A Guy, a video series from Dropout (formerly CollegeHumor). These made me giggle.
21. We Only Have Ourselves: The How-Tos and DOs and DON’Ts of Mutual Aid. “Kim Kelly Offers Advice and Reading Suggestions for How We Might Survive the Depredations to Come.”
22. The Eightfold Path, a short concise description of the Buddhist path on Facebook from Sharon Salzberg.
23. Dude. I’m pissed. from @iampoliticsgirl on Instagram. (reel) Dude. Same. Me too.
24. The Great American Protest on Reddit.
25. The muffin man, one of my favorite reels.
26. Who is Rev. Mariann Budde, bishop who drew Trump’s ire at prayer service. “There are times when taking a side, and a stand, is precisely what’s needed from people of faith.”
27. I attended Trump’s inauguration yesterday, U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders sums up his thoughts. (Facebook video)
28. Indivisible: A Practical Guide To Democracy on the Brink. “Strategies, Tactics, & Tips For How Everyday Americans Can Fight Back Together Wherever We Live.”
29. Mel Robbins and Plagiarism. “Meet Cassie Phillips, the original author of Let Them.”
30. Should I stay or should I go, “the urge to leave social media platforms” by Casey Brown.
31. Reen Barrera’s Expressive ‘Ohlala’ Characters Evoke Emotions and Empowerment. “Sporting colorful garments and richly patterned faces, Reen Barrera’s doll sculptures evoke an expressive, make-believe world. Often dressed in striped tops and hand-stitched hoods with animalistic ears, his imaginative Ohlala characters represent the universality of human emotions while emphasizing every individual’s unique qualities.”
32. And finally, this collection of things I saved on my phone last week.
Open Space Practice, (AKA: A Thousand Shades of Gray) 