Uncategorized Archives - Dallin Malmgren
2020
A message to all my former students: vote
I just figured it out—if I was your teacher my first year of teaching, the oldest you would be now is about 59. (whew!) If you had me my last year of teaching, the youngest you could be is about 20. That means every kid I ever taught should be eligible to vote. So do it. […]
2020
Things I don’t understand
Perhaps this is an effect of pandemic fever. I am becoming increasingly aware of how much I don’t know. –How “reality” television became so popular. –How any race or ethnicity of people can think themselves superior (or inferior) to any other race or ethnicity. Different, I get. –How people can go their entire lives without acknowledging that […]
2020
Pandemic Fever
It’s getting to me—I find myself sinking—my quiet times are labored—my golf game is muddled—my irritability quotient is on trigger-finger mode—The Sameness (see blog post 6/7/2020) is more deadening—the evening news is more depressing—the national leadership is more absurd—my escape valves are less satisfactory. Of course, I have a built-in excuse: the unrelenting, oppressive, step-into-a-furnace-when-you-step-out-the-door, […]
2020
The Stuck Nut
I got this from my quiet time earlier this week: “The main thing about Christianity is not the work we do, but the relationship we maintain and the atmosphere produced by that relationship. That is all God asks us to look after, and it is the one thing that is being continually assaulted.” –from My […]
2020
Raspberries
I’m running about 5–6 pounds heavier than usual since the time of corona. I’m not thrilled about it, but it could be worse. I’m definitely not getting as much exercise as I used to. My diet is more depressing than my weight. There are certain positives that I can’t seem to incorporate and certain negatives […]
2020
Senior changes, part II
As I explained in the last essay, choices look different as we age—especially in light of the virus. Every one of them, whether simple or huge, has more gravitas. The desire to appreciate life sweetens. The realization that we have a responsibility deepens. Then there’s that hope to leave a mark, which flirts dangerously with […]
2020
Senior choices
I was going to say elderly choices, but I dislike the word elderly. I think of someone who can no longer take care of himself. I prefer to be old, which I am. There are a lot of choices to be made regarding a number of topics at my age. I tend to be one […]
2020
Dowanee from scratch
She floats in and out of the vagaries of my childhood memory, omnipresent but insubstantial, a towering phantom. But she was always there. She lived in our house from the time I was born until we moved from Drexel Hill to Florissant, Missouri when I was seventeen. For all intents and purposes, she seemed to […]
2020
The Covid War
You hear that phrase frequently, but do you extend the metaphor? We use war as a metaphor all the time—football games, pricing competitions, political issues, even family squabbles. This is one time I like the metaphor. We are truly in deadly combat. We need to come together and present a united front against an enemy […]
2020
Family Ties
Loving one another in the time of corona presents some unique challenges. I know my operating instructions: love God and love one another. The loving God part demands its own essay—except for this reminder…He is with us always, and we express love by enjoying Someone’s company and responding to Him. But let’s focus on loving […]
2020
RoomSJ
(Recent observations on my Spiritual Journey) The movie thing was fun, but I’ve been thinking more about the previous post regarding all of us being on a Spiritual Journey. Isn’t it cool that they all begin in the same way—with a first breath somewhere on the space/time continuum of planet Earth and with a final […]
2020
My Best Movies Ever
I have a long history with movies, but a terrible memory for them. Realizing this, I have for many years written down every movie I watched and given it a grade. I can tell anyone if I saw a movie and how much I liked it. For one span of my writing career, I gave […]
2020
A letter to my fans (haha)
Dear fans (haha): Yes, I realize the ridiculousness of it. As if there are people out there thinking Go, Dallin—write away, big guy—knock one out of the park! And yet, I find it almost impossible to write without thinking of an audience (usually God or Bethany), so this one is for you, the reader. As […]
2020
Puzzling
Let’s face it, we’re battening down the hatches for Covid-19 again. That means more time at home—and probably more time for puzzling. I read somewhere that jigsaw puzzle companies are enjoying a greater economic boon than grocery stores! And crossword puzzles are blowing up too. Even Doonesbury (my favorite comic) had a crossword puzzle for […]
2020
My anxiety provokers
These are anxious times, no doubt about it. The world is in trouble. On the national level, the news is almost never good. On the local level, dissension and fear seem to dominate our consciousness. On the personal level, even a phone call can instill dread—is it bad news? A stiff upper lip can only […]
2020
“…all I have to do is believe?”
After two straight posts revolving around my misspent youth, I thought I’d try for something more redemptive… Although I probably would have denied it, I wasn’t in very good shape in the spring of 1976: living alone in a small apartment…separated from my first wife for over a year…smoking pot every day, usually several times…in […]
2020
Carl
For most of my life I had a rocky relationship with my father. My brother was a paragon of virtue (that’s how I learned the word paragon–having it ascribed to my brother). I floundered in his wake academically, and I never could find another channel that would win my dad’s approval. In fairness, I probably […]
2020
Those were the days…
Did you have that period in your life when you were on your own and you didn’t have a plan? While it might not be the norm, the norm being college—job—marriage—stability—get your adventure where you can find it, it must be fairly common. Those Days where you were still figuring out where you were going […]
2020
Breathe, Part II
Breathing is the clearest channel on which we can apprehend God. Breathe (part I) was on December 6, 2017—it was reassuring to find I am on the same path. Breathing is the most elemental thing we do—even more so than eat or drink or anything else. We take breathing for granted, just like we take […]
2020
God as a live oak
I don’t write much about prayer. Certainly, I’m an advocate. But it’s hard to mention your prayer life without sounding sanctimonious. Jesus said something about praying in secret. God has shown me a thousand times that whenever I start thinking about how spiritual I am, I have turned in the wrong direction. Still, I’ve been […]
2020
The Sameness
One major effect of the quarantine: The Sameness. It was unavoidable—your options have been severely reduced. When getting in your car involves a decision to risk your life and endanger others (it really does), The Sameness of staying home doesn’t seem like such a bad decision. Of course, the re-opening of our country greatly diminishes […]
2020
Golf is a spiritual exercise
Yep. I’m sticking with my premise, even with my wife rolling her eyes some of the time. If there was no God, I would not play golf. Even if that is a lie, I would not play so happily, surrounded by joy. To take my divinization even further, golf is a spiritual exercise for most […]
2020
2020
The Skeleton in my Closet
My uncle, Hafis Salich, served time in San Quentin as a Russian spy. Honest. My mother’s family had to leave Russia when the communists took over. Born in Moscow, she was seven years old when they left. At least, I think so. My mother’s birth date was listed as January 1,1917. I have been told […]
2020
Pescatarians for a week…
Well, almost a week. Tomorrow morning will be a week. I got the idea when we started hearing about all the Covid problems in the meat-packing plants. Rather than hoarding meat, it seemed like we could explore other options. Karen liked the idea. Both of us realized it would probably be good health-wise. My third […]
2020
“Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together…”
I didn’t get off to a very good start with The Church—thankfully, we have developed a mutual respect over the years. Just beyond my backyard was the St. Dorothy Catholic Church and parochial school. I was not Catholic. My mother and grandmother hated Catholicism—not sure why. (My sister Diana recently told me that she attended […]
2020
To shave or not to shave
I have never liked shaving. During my teaching career, I went by the every-other-day rule—or tried to. Part of the reason I shaved is because Karen wanted me to. Much as I tried to sell her on the Harrison Ford stubble (I even purchased an Indiana Jones hat!), she never bought it. Another reason I […]
2020
Fate vs. Chance
It’s the age-old debate—so ancient we no longer think about it. Put it another way: God’s will vs. man’s choice. or predestination vs. free will. In my post-adolescent years, we’d debate about it into the night, and in my early Christian years, we’d search the Bible for pat answers to it. It never has been […]
2020
Ascia
As distant and estranged as I felt from my father growing up (hmm, Father’s Day essay?), so I seemed attached and connected to my mother. Not in a cloying, spend-lots-of-time-together way–in fact, I don’t remember ever spending much time with her. But somehow, my mother got me. There was one stretch, somewhere between grades five […]
2020
God is in control
It struck me like a lightning bolt as I was sitting on my back porch. We all know that He is concerned. We all know He will comfort us. We all know He loves us. But do we believe, even for a second, that He is in control? That right now He has a handle […]