Parable of the Sower Chapter 3 Summary

Lauren writes about an astronaut who died on the latest Mars mission. People in the neighborhood say traveling to Mars is a waste of money when people on earth can't afford basic necessities.
Lauren also writes about the cost of water increasing. It's fashionable to be dirty since no one can afford to clean their clothes.
Here's another tidbit of neighborhood news that Lauren writes about: the last big Window Wall television in the neighborhood has gone dark. It was operated by the Yannis family, who charged admission for people to watch it.
Most of the neighborhood's news now comes from radio.

The dead astronaut, a chemist named Alicia Catalina Godinez Leal, wanted to be buried on Mars, but the Secretary of Astronautics has decided that her body must be brought back to Earth. Meanie. Lauren's father says space is a distraction and a waste of money, but Lauren argues it could be humanity's future.

Mrs. Sims' body is discovered: she committed suicide a few days prior. Yikes. She was robbed in the last month, and just one week before her death, her son, grandkids, and some other relatives were killed in an arson fire, perhaps started because of a new illegal drug that makes people become pyromaniacs.
Lauren is surprised at Mrs. Sims' suicide because the woman believed suicide would be punished by eternal condemnation in hell. Lauren wonders if Mrs. Sims really believed anything at all.

Our narrator finds herself still thinking about Mrs. Sims and the dead astronaut. Lauren says she needs to compile the verses she's been writing about God since she was twelve.
The verses say that God is Change. They also say that God exists to be shaped and isn't to be prayed to.
Lauren feels she has to do something to spread her religion.

The new president-elect, Christopher Donner, says he'll dismantle the moon and Mars programs and privatize near-space ones. In hopes of getting more people employed, he also plans to suspend regulations protecting workers.
Lauren's father, despite his earlier support of Donner, doesn't vote for the president-elect, saying instead that politicians make him sick.