The Blaisdell Blog

This is Christmas week.    I have been helping to give Holy Communion at church this month, offering the chalice of wine behind the pastor.   I will do so on Christmas Eve as well.   Next month I will read the liturgy at First Lutheran’s services.   There was a time when a woman would never do either of these at a Lutheran service.   My religion has evolved just as the theological message has remained intact. That is certainly appropriate.   Religion as a practice is a living thing.    Theology as a belief is unchanging.   The words of Isaiah 9: 2-7 remind us of the story, message and reason for Christmas:   For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.             It is hard for me to read those words without falling into the lilt of the music of Handel’s Messiah with which so many of us are familiar.   For many of us that music represents Christma

Since we elect our President today (the Electoral College meets today, December 19, 2016) I thought I would re-run this column about one of America's better ideas.           If you are a woman of diminutive stature (I am only 5’2”) you appreciate the small advantage that comes from wearing high heels.   Wearing heels doesn’t make me as tall as everyone else, it just makes me a little more competitive in eye-to-eye conversations.    And that, oddly enough, explains why I love the Electoral College.   Every election cycle produces people who want to eliminate the Electoral College as if it were an inflamed appendix.   Yet the Electoral College has worked smoothly over 94% of the time.   If you want more faithful service than that you need a golden retriever.   Article II Section 1 of the Constitution is proof that the framers were intelligent masters of the concept of compromise.   There were some in 1787 who wanted the President of the United States elected by members o

Today I get to offend people from both ends of the political spectrum and, to my everlasting shame, I welcome the opportunity.   Blame the constant tattoo of articles about sanctuary cities and the constant use of the word “immigrant” when the writer is not talking about immigrants at all.   They are talking about illegal aliens.     Would you allow a rapist to refer to himself as his victim’s “lover?”   No!   “But,” the criminal might say, “the word ‘rapist’ is too judgmental.   It casts me in a negative light.   I want to be called her lover.” No sane person would consider this statement to be defensible.   But, let a person violate the country by entering it without permission or consent and there are legions of people who want to throw a gauze of legitimacy over the act through their choice of words.     The term “illegal alien” is not a pejorative; the denotation is specific and unambiguous.   But, to simplistically say we should find and deport “the lot of them” is as