DM’s greatest hits — vol. II

Post on 8 March, 2020 by Dallin Malmgren

All of the fol­low­ing are quotes from pre­vi­ous blog posts:

Pho­to by Karen

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, which are far more fre­quent occur­rences. Go for a walk in the woods. Fall in love. Watch a mom and a baby. Play with a kit­ten. Learn to dri­ve. Lose your­self in a book. Make art. Cook your favorite din­ner and top it off with a glass of wine. Real­ly pay atten­tion at Christ­mas. Life screams out at you that it’s meant to be good. –from A mes­sage to my for­mer stu­dents…(12/14/2017)

I don’t want to down­play those moments of illu­mi­na­tion. Those are the major events in our lives—the plot points. But life is not a syn­op­sis or an obit­u­ary. Its vital­i­ty is in the present—the here and now. Trap­ping God in the major moments is as bad as trap­ping Him in a book, or as bad as vis­it­ing Him once a week when you go to church. If you real­ly want to hear Him whis­per, you have to let Him decide when. –from That was the Lord (July 7, 2019)

Dis­cord is like the morn­ing frost on the golf course. (They won’t let you play when there’s frost—it kills the grass.) You can’t will it away—you just have to let it melt. But like the sun and the breeze, you can help it along its way. A soft word, a kind­ness, a touch, an unso­licit­ed gesture…the ici­ness of dis­cord is noth­ing to the warmth of rec­on­cil­i­a­tion. –from Dis­cord (mar­i­tal and oth­er­wise) (July 14, 2019)

…I’ve always felt that when Jesus said, “The king­dom of heav­en is at hand,” he was imply­ing that if we could just raise our aware­ness, we would rec­og­nize beau­ty and joy and glo­ry right here, right now. Music draws us near­er to that recog­ni­tion. –from In praise of Jubal (Music makes the world go ‘round) (July 31, 2019)

…I watch these six beings devel­op and I am in awe. Every quirk, every incli­na­tion, every idiosyncrasy—every I am-who-I-am. Karen and I can talk about them for hours. We watch their inter­ac­tions with their parents—with each other—with us, and we mar­vel at the new­ness. If every good gift comes from God, this is one of His spe­cial­ties. –from Being Pop Pop (the joy of grand­fa­ther­ing) (August 18, 2019)

For the love of mon­ey is the root of all sorts of evil. That’s the divid­ing line. Jesus looks at the heart—and you can nev­er fool Him. It is no longer 10%–it is all His. Does that mean He’s going to send you out on the road, pen­ni­less and hand­ing out Bible tracts? (Haha, only if you are a fun­da­men­tal­ist). He meets us where we are—just as He did the rich young man, who asked a rather bold ques­tion. He doesn’t want your money—He wants you. –from Money (the spir­i­tu­al side) (Sep­tem­ber 8, 2019)

So here’s my ques­tion, and the point of this whole meditation…can we change our­selves? Sad­ly (or not), I don’t think we can. I find that my will is as weak as my faith (but my faith has a bet­ter reserve). I can­not will myself to a bet­ter char­ac­ter. I can’t find it in me. I have to receive it. It’s called the fruit of the Spir­it. –from Ch-ch-changes (Sep­tem­ber 22, 2019)

I was talk­ing with my wife awhile back. “Do you think we’ll poop in heav­en?” Her: “Nope. No poop, no pee, no mar­riage.” An unread­able smile. Should I be wor­ried? –from The Detri­tus of Life (Sep­tem­ber 29, 2019)

…Lis­ten­ing is even more impor­tant than speak­ing. Speak­ing (fre­quent­ly) comes from the ego, and lis­ten­ing (almost always) comes from love. Lov­ing your neigh­bor involves way more lis­ten­ing than speak­ing. Don’t get me wrong, it involves both, but lis­ten­ing will open doors more quick­ly than speak­ing. Becom­ing a good lis­ten­er is a gift. –from Teach me to lis­ten… (Octo­ber 20, 2019)

“He must increase and I must decrease” is not a death sen­tence, or even a stern com­mand for some sort of ascetic liv­ing. It is a promise, an invi­ta­tion, a for­mu­la for abun­dant liv­ing. It is the road to learn­ing how acces­si­ble He is. The way to deal with my ego is not to oblit­er­ate it…I just need to take it off the throne. The throne doesn’t belong to me. –from Deal­ing with the ego (Novem­ber 6, 2019)

This I believe: God enjoys observ­ing my life and is always inter­est­ed in the choic­es I make—but He absolute­ly 100% respects my right to make them. We have to acknowl­edge that respon­si­bil­i­ty before we can com­mit our lives to any­thing. That is what makes the jour­ney joyful—we are always in the process of learn­ing to sub­mit our choic­es to Him—not because He is a tyran­ni­cal auto­crat, but because He knows what is best for us. I want to choose what He wants—but it can get tricky. –from The Joy­ful Jour­ney (Novem­ber 24, 2019)

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