Blog Archives - Page 8 of 11 - Dallin Malmgren
2020
My Bucket List
Lots of people have bucket lists. Some are quite obsessive about checking the items off. My approach is more casual. This bucket list is probably about ten years old. I used to do a Bucket List assignment in my Advanced Creative Writing class, so, of course, I had to do mine. I came across it […]
2020
Love in the Time of Corona
To my former students (and anyone interested): Do you remember the questionnaires, surveys, quizzes, etc. we used to take in Creative Writing as learning activities (amusements, if you prefer)? My contribution to the quarantine is resurrecting/updating one as a possible individual or group activity. Only rules are the answers need to come from your heads, […]
2020
Loving God (the first part of the sum of the commandments)
It is stated clearly in Matthew 22:37…love God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind…and love your neighbor as yourself. I’m using the Bible, but I want to take the broader perspective. If we recognize we have a Creator (no one has exactly the same perspective on that), […]
2020
Zooming with the Texas Malmgrens
It was such a pleasant evening…hanging out with my wife and my three kids and their spouses, having drinks. I had a cab and Karen a blush…Beth was having white wine…Nate and Annalisa went with margaritas…Zack and Kallie, Texas Whiskey. We talked about everything: our circumstances, our families, good entertainment, politics (Malmgrens always talk politics), […]
2020
Going out the door…
We are all going through it, more or less ( more, I pray). We’ve all got the same instructions. The heroes are the ones who have to go out there—answering the call of duty. They go out because they put the needs of others above their own well-being. We have to pray for them. The […]
2020
COVID-19: is there a positive side?
Please do not think I am making light of tragedy—this is a human catastrophe. Our world is suffering. If I know my Bible, this is not an uncommon historical occurrence. It is how we respond as a nation that determines the direction this country is going in. So how do we turn the corona virus […]
2020
My back porch
I love springtime. Since my boyhood, it has been my favorite. I like the other ones too, but, ah, springtime! I love it in the air, and in the blossoms, and on my golf course, and on the calendar (yahoo, spring break!), and at my barbecue grill, and in the behavior of the ducks and […]
2020
DM’s greatest hits — vol. II
All of the following are quotes from previous blog posts: So maybe I have to change the text of the lesson: what I meant to get across in my classroom is that life is meant to be good. That is the intention. Contrast the hurricane and the volcano with the morning dew and the evening sunset, […]
2020
In praise of family
We buried Aunt Faith yesterday. She was the last living direct relative of Karen and her three sisters. She was a fine lady who affected positively many people’s lives. I didn’t realize how much until I heard two of the nieces eulogize her at the funeral. That got me thinking about family. In praise of […]
2020
Global Consciousness (What the world needs now…)
It’s time to wake up. If you think that God cares more about the fate of America than He does the suffering children in Syria (or the children on the border), you have lost touch with your Creator. If you think certain people matter more than others, you have lost touch with your Creator. If […]
2020
Malmgrenisms
Okay, that is an egocentric post title, and not really accurate. These are things I said over and over in the classroom (and on the tennis courts), and I said them in order to achieve a certain effect. It wasn’t always noble, but I’m pretty sure it was mostly affectionate. Malmgrenisms is a misnomer—most of […]
2020
Slow Train Coming
I want to tell you about a miracle that happened to me. Well, it didn’t really happen to me, but boy was it a miracle! When I first believed in Jesus in 1975, I was full of zeal and enthusiasm. So I began to pray for Bob Dylan—I loved him in my hippie days, and […]
2020
Fear, Part Two
I wrote about fear in an earlier post (I will be brave…a meditation on fear, Aug. 25, 2019)), but I want to address it again. I have learned that walking with God does not mean that your fears will disappear. Walking with God will determine how you handle your fears when they arise. That applies […]
2020
Musings to my Lord on a Sunday evening…
–I think I get how infinite You are better than how personal You are…I want both. Come to think of it, I barely grasp how infinite You are. –My greatest fear is that I will let You down. –The only remedy for that fear is faith in You. –I used to worry that I would be the rocky […]
2020
Stormy weather
We’ve been having it all night long (witness my golf course in photo). Don’t let anybody tell you Dallas and San Antonio have the same climate. This seems to be the norm up here, December through February. I miss my old home. Which makes me one of the biggest wimps ever—the weather has almost zero effect […]
2020
My divorce from Hollywood
It might be another symptom of old age. It has become more and more difficult for me to sit through a movie, and to keep from wondering, as I am sitting through, how much longer? To watch a movie in a theater heightens the sense of discomfort. If I pause a movie on my TV, […]
2020
All as it should be…
Okay, that might just be a polite way of saying Adult Onset OCD. Honestly, I am one of the least compulsive people I have ever met. And yet, as I get older, I find that I like certain things to be a certain way. Has my wife infiltrated my inner being? (She read this and […]
2020
Sports (spectatorial)
I just made that word up! But you know what I mean—watching, not playing. This might not be as rosy as the last one. It’s so easy to get obsessed with a sport; a team; a player. Not in some psycho way—you just think about them a lot. You become emotionally invested in them. And then […]
2020
Sports (participatory)
The instinct to compete runs deep in the human condition. That is sometimes hard to reconcile with a vibrant Christian faith, knowing that our calling is to put others before ourselves…which is why God invented sports. Sports is one of the healthiest exercises we can undertake in our quest for character-building. Competition, in the best […]
2020
Regrets, I’ve had a few…
“We regret the things we don’t do more than the things we do.” –Mark Twain Well, it’s close. What about you? Do your “I wish I had’s” outweigh your “I wish I hadn’t’s”? My list gets pretty extensive on both sides of that coin. My wife’s view of the “hadn’t’s” differs from mine. If it was a […]
2020
The Haircut
After 41 years my wife decided she didn’t want to cut my hair anymore. I don’t blame her a bit—actually, I admire her decision. She had done it so many times over that period (I think I only went to a barber once, when she was away). Cutting someone’s hair is a thankless task, and […]
2020
Marital balance
“And the two shall become one flesh, so they are no longer two but one flesh.” (Mark 10:8) I think about this verse a lot…is it a promise? Is it a command? It is obviously not literal, since Karen and I are still walking around in our own skins 42 years later. This is what […]
2020
Snakes on a Brain
My granddaughter Edith loves snakes. She has a big stuffed one that she likes to carry around with her. She has a more realistic plastic one that she enjoys setting in strategic places. She has lots of snake books. She thinks it is hysterical that I am afraid of them. I believe I know how that […]
2020
Abiding
“Abide in me and I in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.” (John 15:4) I have often thought this verse expresses the key to a happy, victorious life. Happy? Victorious? I’ll bet that neither are words that […]
2020
Live music, then and now
I just finished watching Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorcese. O, what a role that man has played in my life (Dylan, not Scorcese)! I used to tell my creative writing students that someday our society would look upon Dylan’s body of work the way we do Shakespeare now. Hyperbole, certainly, […]
2020
Happiness is not a warm gun…
Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. I have been a hypocrite. I hold to certain beliefs and principles, and yet I have acted contrary to them for my own self-interest. I have no justification for my actions. It all started with two handguns. They were owned by my father-in-law. They came into my possession […]
2020
Closing out 2019.
Introspection and retrospection. There’s some value in both activities as long as it’s a pause, not a stop. Was there any progress? Where do my loose ends lie? Do I still believe in resolutions—if so, what shall I resolve? As I get ready to meet my old friend Dry January, these are questions worth considering. […]
2019
www.dallinmalmgren.com’s greatest hits (the early years)
I never even thought about my parents having sex. In retrospect, I’m sure they did—there are six of us children and only occasional suspicions about parentage. –from The Birds and the Bees…(7/21/2013) To make a resolution implies that one is capable of change in a positive direction. As long as we operate on that principle, […]
2019
2019
The Neglected Fruit
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such there is no law.” (Galatians 5:22–23, NIV) Talk about the forgotten step-child. Forbearance gets no hype whatsoever. Nobody talks about it. Love makes the world go round—all we are saying is give peace a chance—we practice […]