Give It A Rest

Making conversation after the morning service, I looked quizzically at a fellow parishioner when he asked, "Did you hear about the terrorist attack in Sweden?" No, I didn't. "President Trump said there was." Oh, he was making a joke about another of the President's apparent gaffes. I chuckled, and I changed the subject to the discovery of the underwater continent Zealandia (my friend was born in New Zealand).

Everyone wants to talk about the President, though no one I know voted for him (including me, which I have to repeat endlessly lest I be suspected of racist, sexist, deplorable heresy).

When I got home I had to look up what provoked the latest contretemps ("contre-Trumps"?). In a Saturday rally the President said:

"You look at what's happening last night in Sweden," Trump said. "Sweden. Who would believe this? Sweden. They took in large numbers. They're having problems like they never thought possible."

If only he had not said "last night", because nothing happened on Friday. The rest of his statement does have merit, because some Swedes are having second thoughts about the correlation of higher crime and the immigration of "hundreds of thousands" of refugees into their country of 10 million.

But the bigger story to me is how Donald Trump's words pre-occupy the waking moments of so many people who didn't vote for him. You're letting him make your lives miserable, people.

Sunday is the day of rest for your benefit, not God's, so for your sake, not for Donald, the Republicans, and their supporters, please give it a rest.