Dallin Malmgren's Blog, page 27
February 26, 2020
Malmgrenisms

Those were the days…
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 them I stole from other sources. Another word of caution: you couldn’t say them to any kid any time—to a certain kid at a certain time, it could go all wrong. I usually trusted my instincts. A teacher has to trust his instincts. I said quite a bit: “Can I ask you a personal question?” I suppose in this age of student confidentiality and FERPA, that inquiry is dangerous. More’s the pity. For me, it was a chance to get past the teacher/student wall. If the student said no, I dropped it immediately. It was fun to watch the hesitant ones wonder what I would want to know. For those who said yes, I had several stock replies:
1) “Is it fun being you?” This was not soul-searching. I suspect I only asked those who knew intuitively that it is supposed to be. I meant it not as crisis intervention, but as an invitation to regain your equilibrium.
2) “Do you think it is wrong to lie?” This was mostly playful—to a kid making an excuse or giving a rationalization or sticking exclusively to one point of view.
3) “Did you lose a bet so you have to wear that?” Some kids love to dress outlandishly. Those kids are usually impervious to external judgment. This was my way of messing with them—they usually liked it.
An adjunct to the personal question was: “Can I ask you a moral/ethical question?” This was fun because I was so curious what they would say. Some examples: “If you found a wallet with $100, what would you do?” (Sorry to report, most popular answer was “Take the money and pitch the wallet.”) “If I have a kid who’s failing by 2 or 3 points, but he’s a good kid, is it okay for me to bump up his average to pass?” (Almost unanimous: “Yes, definitely.”) “If your best friend is cheating with your girlfriend/boyfriend, who should tell you?” (Answers clearly divided by gender). “If you won the lottery tonight, one year from now would you be considerably happier than you are right now?” (You couldn’t convince them that they wouldn’t.) I always thought it was healthy to get kids to think about right and wrong and values.
I had a few Bible quotes that I used frequently. My very favorite was Proverbs 21:19—“It is better to live alone in the desert than with a nagging woman.” Yeah, I cringe a little now. By the end of my career, I would change it to “nagging person” and apply it to boys and girls. Honestly, the girls used to fuss much more than the boys did. My other favorite was Proverbs 17:28—“Even a fool appears to be wise if he remains silent.” I would only use that one with smart, mouthy kids.
I had a number of aphorisms that were directed mostly at our tennis team (they also heard many of those listed above). I think the most overused was “It’s not dark yet.” My kids would ask me how much longer until practice was over and I would answer them “It’s not dark yet.” I even played the Bob Dylan song from a boom box while we practiced. And we made a t‑shirt. I used to ask my players “Is your grandmother home?” if they were drifting or said something stupid or threatened to overstep the bounds of decorum. We played the “Over/Under” game a lot: “We will be back in the school parking lot by 10:17 p.m.” (over/under) — “It will be three hours and 15 minutes before your match goes on.” (over/under) — “Your opponent will yell ‘C’mon!’ five times during your match.” (over/under). There was one joke I used numerous times, but the first time was with the adorable David Marbach: I am driving the school bus on I‑10 to Kerrville for a tennis match. Me: “Okay, Dave, as we come over this hill, we’re approaching your future retirement home.” Exit sign: Welfare, Texas. Dave: “Awww, Coach!” Me: (10–15 miles down the road) “Hey, Dave, now we’re getting to my retirement home.” Exit sign: Comfort, Texas. Dave: “Awww, Coach!” Boy, coaching tennis was fun!
I used to tell my students: “Five years from now you will have no recollection of what you made on this test. But you will know if you are an honest person.” It is so hard to have perspective when you are in high school.
I always tried to keep things spontaneous in Creative Writing, but I did have a few principles or ideals of writing that I wanted to communicate to them. When it came to poetry, I used Robert Frost: “Poetry is the impish attempt to paint the wind.” Have you ever heard it defined in a cooler way? In teaching Creative Writing, my emphasis was more on Creative. I didn’t expect many of my students to end up authors, poets, etc. But it is a wonderful thing to realize you are creative. We all are. We need to open up the channels…which leads to my second precept: “Imaginations are like fingerprints—there are no two alike.” But our imaginations are tender—if they get shot down, they pull back. We have to push forward. I think I said this to almost every CW class I ever taught: “If you want to write, you have to develop a strong ego…because you have to believe you have something to say, and you have to be willing to be rejected. “ I have been writing for 45 years and have struggled with both sides of that equation. Now I downplay the ego—you have to have a sense of who you are and a willingness to step out.
I suppose the reason I kept using these “Malmgrenisms” is because they worked. The very best moments in teaching are when you make a connection…and these connections are not just random events. You build them. I think all good teachers know they are teaching character the same time they are teaching their subject. I’m afraid that in this era of test scores and school evaluations, the emphasis is on depersonalizing teacher/student relations. A shame. It’s kind of like the “five years from now test score..” example. Five years from now what are they going to remember more, who you were or what you taught them?
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February 23, 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 he was one of the first to give me a glimpse of spiritual things. I wanted him to find what I found. Lo and behold. In August of 1979, Bob put out Slow Train Coming, an album so drenched in his new-found Christian faith that no one could mistake it.
I’ll grant you, his conversion only seemed to last for the next two or three albums. Then he became ominously quiet about religion (although I would argue that his songs continue to reflect rich spiritual imagery). I have a theory about what happened: like me, he was won over by a genuine encounter with the living Savior. Then he was seized upon by the Savior’s church. He soon went scuttling for cover. He discovered there wasn’t much difference between the church he encountered and the one his Savior had to deal with.
I’m not pointing to Dylan as a messiah—I am supremely confident he was as lost as I was—but the man has always had a gift for prophecy. I rediscovered that when I listened to the title song on his first Christian album.
“Sometimes I feel so low-down and disgusted, can’t help but wonder what’s happening to my companions/ Are they lost or are they found, have they counted the cost it will take to bring down/ All their earthly principles they’re gonna have to abandon?” Earthly principles—that got me. Like money is more important than people…one country is more favored by God than another…that you matter more than me…that I matter more than God. Huh? I gotta abandon those principles?
“I had a woman down in Alabama/ She was a backwoods girl but she sure was realistic/ She said, Boy, without a doubt, have to quit your mess and straighten out/ You could die down here, be just another accident statistic…” The prophet warns: Straighten out! Live like you’re supposed to…your time is limited…you could start by abandoning those earthly principles—people, not money…there is only one country and we are all citizens…you matter as much as me…God is the potter, I am the clay.
The prophet addresses the economy: “All that foreign oil controlling American soil/ Look around you, it’s just bound to make you embarrassed/ Sheiks walking around like kings, wearing fancy jewels and nose rings/ Deciding America’s future from Amsterdam to Paris…” The circumstances may have changed, but the governing dynamic hasn’t—we are motivated (as a culture) by greed, and we will follow those who promise to improve our circumstances.
Now he zeroes in: “Man’s ego is inflated, his laws are outdated/ They don’t apply no more, you can’t rely no more to be standing around waiting/ In the home of the brave, Jefferson turning over in his grave/ Fools glorify themselves, trying to manipulate Satan…” A diagnosis? Our democratic ideals have been trashed…it is okay to put yourself first—in fact, you should…outdated laws, like sexual and racial discrimination, and the empowerment of the wealthy, and I’m not even going to address “Fools glorifying themselves…”
And then he points a finger at those who perpetuate this state of affairs: “Big-time negotiators, false healers and women haters/ Masters of the bluff and masters of the proposition/ But the enemy I see wears a cloak of decency/ All non-believers and men stealers talking in the name of religion…” We are all accountable, and we are all being led astray—woe to us for allowing it, and woe to those who do the leading.
Then he points us to a solution: “People starving and thirsting, grain elevators are bursting/ You know it costs more to store the food than it does to give it/ They say lose your inhibitions, follow your own ambitions/ We talk about a life of brotherly love, show me someone who knows how to live it…” Self-explanatory, isn’t it? Just in case it’s not: WE ARE SUPPOSED TO TAKE CARE OF ONE ANOTHER.
Like every good prophet, he closes with a sorrowful observation: “Well, my baby went to Illinois with some bad-talking boy she could destroy/ A real suicide case, but there was nothing I could do to stop it/ I don’t care about economy, I don’t care about astronomy/ but it sure does bother me to see my loved ones turning into puppets…” What do we do when we see a tolerance for self-destruction? If I call my Christian brother a puppet, I am judging. But Dylan is a prophet, and I believe him.
If this song is not an address to our church in these times, I don’t know what is. I wish I could feel more optimistic—I want to. I suppose it is all about how you interpret the image of a slow train coming. As long as the Lord is steering…
To hear this prophetic song, cut and paste the following link (I prefer the album version, but this was all I could find on YouTube): https://youtu.be/ebFUFUgKb0M
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February 19, 2020
Fear, Part Two

Dallin at the Royal Gorge…photo by Karen
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 to irrational fears as well as well-based realistic fears.Take heights, for example (I wish you could). I have no idea why I become anxious when I look down from a high place. It didn’t used to be that way. When I was a boy, we went on a family vacation to Watkins Glen, New York. Watkins Glen has a state park that is actually a huge ravine with trails that run through the trees and rocks and boulders. My family was hiking along one of these trails, very high up. I went ahead of everybody, around a bend. There was a rock/cement wall along the side of the trail, protecting hikers from the perilous fall. I stood up on the wall, and when my mom came around the bend, I said, “Goodbye, cruel world!” and I jumped. Of course, I landed on a ledge about six feet below. My mom about had a heart attack. Boy, was she mad!
That really happened. My brother and sisters still tell the story. But I could never do that now—you couldn’t get me to stand on the wall! Why?
Flash forward to my freshman year of college. The University of Missouri has a Medical Center that is about seven or eight stories high. My roommates and I discovered that if you go to the top floor, there is a trap door that will get you onto the roof of the building. On the roof there is a ledge that goes all the way around the building, about twelve inches wide. I remember getting on the ledge and skipping, dancing, waving to the little people below. I could never do that again. What happened?
Karen and I went to the Royal Gorge in Colorado on our honeymoon. There is a photo of me standing out of the bridge that spans the Gorge. If you look closely, you can see that my smile is frozen, my hands are gripping the protective fence, and my knuckles are white.
Let’s see, freshman year, 18 years old, no fear. Marriage, 27 years old, debilitating fear. Why?
Could it be dreams? I can remember falling and then jerking awake, flooded with relief that I was still intact. Someone once told me that you’re okay in your falling dreams as long as you don’t land, but if you land then you die in your sleep. Maybe I landed but survived. I don’t remember. But I do remember having dreams where I could fly, soaring around without a care in the world…so that kind of shoots down my dream theory.
While I’m uncertain about how I acquired the fear, I kind of get the basis for it. Heights impose no real danger at all (as long as you are securely grounded). Unlike, say, bullets, heights cannot really hurt you. The building or the mountain or the rollercoaster is not going to throw you off. What are you afraid of? YOU ARE AFRAID YOU ARE GOING TO JUMP! Not that you want to jump, not that you are suicidal, not even that you might slip. But just that this tiny little impulse will take control, and you’ll do it, and you’ll immediately change your mind, but it will be too late. You are afraid of yourself.
This fear, this phobia, bugs me because it is so limiting. But how do you overcome it? How do you confront a fear of heights? Jump?
I have learned to live with the fear. I can look over an edge, or ride a train through the mountains, or take a ski lift (in the summer—I don’t ski), or even hike on an unprotected ledge. But never carefree, never with joy—always that queasy feeling. I have a mantra. I repeat in my mind, “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me,” and I move forward. Like I said, it’s not about fears going away—it’s about handling them.
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February 16, 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 soil where Your seed withered and died. Now…I don’t want to fall short of Your calling.
–Thank You for gently taking Aunt Faith home to You. It warms me to think she is contented and at peace right now.
–My ego tries to creep into almost every aspect of my life and take control. It disguises itself in the guise of free will. I want to choose You.
–Thank You for Karen. I know you are teaching us so much as we go through this period of our lives. I pray we will be open to Your teaching.
–Teach me to abide in You. That is my number one goal for the rest of my life. But abiding is so tricky. It can’t be measured. Does a vine think about how much it is a part of the branch? Eyes off myself and on You.
–I want to do more for You but I am often afraid to step out. Help me.
–Music has been one of Your greatest gifts to me.
–Sports are such an invigorating distraction! Give me your perspective.
–I lift up my brother and sisters to You. I love them so much. Our time is limited. I have no desire to “evangelize”. I want Your Holy Spirit to show me how to express Your love in a way that draws them nearer to You.
–Every knee shall bow and every tongue confess. I believe that.
–I ask You to bless every moment I have with my family—immediate, extended, Karen’s—realizing these are the most significant people You have given me to love.
–Health is one of our greatest human concerns, and I believe You are the source of all healing, but it gets very complicated after that. Increase my faith.
–Thank You for golf. I know that this might be viewed as a rationalization or an excuse, but it is a spiritual exercise for me. I love playing golf with You.
–I can feel You moving me toward more service. I want to move.
–I pray for a deeper contact with You for Dylan and Bethany. They need You to be more present in their lives. And let it shine upon Edith and Agnes, our Canadian cherubs!
–Thank You for the wonders You have accomplished for Nathan and Annalisa (esp. one!) I pray You will give them a clearer direction of what You want for them.
–Thank You for the warm presence of Zachary and his family, the very best of many reasons to move us here. I pray for time and patience and a clearer vision of where You are leading them. (I’m getting redundant).
–I know that You know my thoughts. I apologize. I am learning to turn them over to You. “Whatever is pure, whatever is noble…” I have a long way to go.
–I think (and dream!) of my mom and dad sometimes—I trust them to You.
–I ask You to guide me and give me wisdom in my spiritual reading. I trust Your Spirit not to let me be led astray.
–My time with You is precious to me, even if I don’t always act like it.
–Thank You for being here with me.
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February 12, 2020
Stormy weather

Photo by me
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 on my lifestyle. I was going to go to the store today…ah, it’s a little wet and rainy—guess I’ll wait and go tomorrow. Think of all the people who this weather has a real impact on: trash collectors and construction workers, roofers and roofees, window washers and traffic cops. It has some impact on anyone who has to go to work, because no one likes to drive in the rain. And I haven’t included major weather disasters, like tornados and floods and hurricanes and droughts. The fabric of peoples’ lives can be ruined by weather. No wonder we all check our devices for the latest forecast–everyone’s life is affected, major or minor, by it.
Given this portal to potential catastrophe, who is to blame? What is God’s role? On some level, do we blame Him? We can’t blame Trump (except in some climate change-long range kind of way). When we witness the devastation of a tornado—the awesome power involved—does God engineer that? Or think of the poor girl who has made her wedding day the most important event in her life—and it rains that day. If God is not responsible, who?
Fallen world. We have the weather as a challenge to our human spirit. And I am happy to report that the spirit is winning. I recently did a mini-study on the Klondike gold rush…you would not believe the hardships those seekers endured, in terms of weather and terrain, in order to pursue the dream. It’s unfortunate that the dream was built on greed, but my goodness, how we humans can persevere! God gave us authority over the planet, but He did not give us dominion. No doubt, dealing with the weather is a trial—we are to “…consider it all joy when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance…” We are being tested so that we will endure. The more gracefully we can do that, the nearer we are drawing to God. We look for God’s hand in “Why did this happen?” We should look for it in “How did we handle it?”
Weather proves our diversity. We have demonstrated that we can prosper and procreate in any environment. After my first two years of teaching in Texas, I decided I didn’t like it there and was looking for our next place to live. We went to Portland, and it looked like the place. I told my friend’s mother-in-law. She said, “Can you live without seeing the sun for nine months?” No, I answered definitively. I’m not sure if she was warning me or protecting her homeland. A lot of people seem to like it in Portland.
How much should weather matter in where we choose to live? My parents retired to California, where they had both lived in their youths. My mom always used to say “This is God’s country.” What? Like God prefers a balmy climate? My mother was smart in many ways, but perceiving God’s intention was not one of them. I love that God makes Minnesotans Minnesotans, and Texans Texans, and Californians Californians. If that doesn’t prove the wisdom of diversity, what does?
Alluding to one of Bob Dylan’s most underrated albums, I am Bringing It All Back Home. The weather outside is crappy and I am unhappy about it. Bad weather and my mood—should it make a difference? No, no, no! I am like the disciples on the boat in the midst of a stormy sea—and Jesus comes walking across the water. Should I go out and join Him? O Lord, give me more faith!
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February 9, 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, there’s a decent chance I will never come back to it.
This is a fairly recent affliction, though it has crept up slowly. Since the mid-1990’s, I have kept a log of every movie I’ve watched (I also give it a grade). My list is getting close to 2000 films. In 25 years, that’s an average of nearly 80 movies a year, more than one a week. That doesn’t count movies I watch more than once. That makes me a pretty avid movie fan, doesn’t it?
So what has gone wrong? Back in the day, I had an ulterior motive. When the market for my young adult novels dried up (I had two published, then wrote four without success), I decided to try my hand at screenwriting. I loved movies, and I only had to hit on one to strike it rich (average payment for an original script in Hollywood was $175K—or so I read). So I began to study the craft, which meant seeing a lot of movies. The good thing about my “research” was that I could share it with my wife, my kids, or anyone else who liked to watch and talk about movies. I ended up writing four screenplays, none of which hit the bigtime.
My dreams of an Oscar faded away. Now any movie-watching motivation focused more on entertainment. I gravitated toward two genres: the Young Adult movie (probably because I was a high school teacher) and the Rom-Com (because somewhere in my heart I am a hopeless romantic). But I still watched movies from every genre (and graded them ruthlessly).
The special ones, however—the ones that moved me in my soul—were the ones that reflected, or at least shined a light on, real life—the human experience. The ones that made you want to be a better person—that made you admire the human spirit—that filled you with an appreciation for life… The movies that made you realize that film-making was art—not just entertainment. I could give you a list, but I trust you can come up with your own.
So how did it become hard for me to watch movies? No doubt, some of the fault lies with my own antiquity—but I can also point a finger at you, Hollywood. Superheroes and sequels and slashers and sensationalism…most especially, the glorification of violence. Look what they done to my art, ma. My spiritual muses, the Avett Brothers, sing: “If you think there isn’t any connection between/ All the violence you see in real life and what’s on the screen/ Well it seems painfully clear to me/ That you’re living in a fantasy.” I can still walk out of a theater feeling uplifted, but the odds are far greater that I’m going to feel beat down.
And these purveyors have dragged the whole film industry with them, from film criticism to entertainment journalism to artistic achievement to self-congratulationalism. I can barely open an Entertainment Weekly. I don’t want to see previews of coming attractions (used to enjoy that as much as the show). I don’t believe award nominations have anything to do with artistic merit. And I don’t want to hear actors thank their agents and publicists and personal assistants. The entire enterprise has become self-inflated, and anyone with clear vision can recognize the true idol: money. It surprises me that Hollywood hates Trump—or is that just a veneer?
I am lucky that my wife can go to movies with her sister now—they both enjoy the experience, and they don’t have to listen to me grouse. And when they report something they really enjoyed, I make a mental note (50/50 chance that I will follow up on it). I especially enjoy sitting on my back porch in the springtime.
So I am filing for divorce, Hollywood. Oh, we can still keep in touch. We have many mutual friends—they will let me know what you are up to. I won’t hesitate to contact you if you catch my interest. No hard feelings. I hope you return to your younger vision—when you won my heart.
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February 5, 2020
All as it should be…

Photo by Karen
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 said, “I hope so!”)I have three favorite coffee mugs, and I like for them to hang from the hooks rather than set on the shelf. I know where every club fits in my golf bag, and I want them there. I have a wonderful way of stacking the dishwasher—it is the best. We have a drawer for knives—brown handles on the left, black handles on the right. I have become a fan of purple ink. I squeegee our glass shower from right to left. You should not crush boxes to recycle—flatten them at the seams.
See what I mean? How did this happen to me? The obvious answer is senility—but I think it is more innocent than that. I believe that your later years are meant to lead to a deeper spirituality. One of the keys to freeing up your spirit is to simplify your life. I like my three mugs visible because they are the ones I want to use. I see the golf shot I want to hit and know the club that gives me the best chance to do that. Dishwashing is an ecological activity—I like mine neatly filled. Okay, the knives are a little OCD. Purple ink is royal—I write for the King. I’m right-handed. Flattened makes more room than crushed. Simplicity. A sense of order is a comforting awareness.
When does it cross the line? When do I become a difficult person to live with? When I insist. I have drunk my coffee in all the other 23 mugs we have, and it tasted just the same. I can like things MY WAY, but I must never think that is THE WAY. And I don’t get to sit on the throne. The situation will decide what is the BEST WAY. That’s the one I want. We upset ourselves with each other over such trivial things!
How do we cross that line? By valuing OUR WAY more than the person who is disrupting it. Remember our code of conduct: Love God and love your neighbor as yourself. People have to come first. We make so many choices without being aware of making them.
There is a key to resolving this internal/external dilemma (how I want it vs. how to get along with others)—flexibility. It saddens me that Bible-believers have gained a reputation for being inflexible. The only people Jesus didn’t seem very flexible with were the Pharisees and the moneychangers. Old age brings us a warning: inflexibility encroaches upon us. Our joints and our muscles (and even our brains) will inevitably tighten up. Our spirits were never meant to.
I am starting to get it and I want to pass it on: as we step into the newness of our relationship with God, we are becoming younger. Miracle of miracles! I realize I am a babe in terms of knowing Him. Except ye become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. And I am only going to grow in that knowledge. All is as it should be.
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February 2, 2020
Sports (spectatorial)

Our Spurs group ( the fives are for championship rings)
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 you share your passion with people who feel exactly the way you do. What fun! As long as you can keep it like that…
Even just watching on TV, I can see the exuberance and the intensity and the joy that spectators bring to the games they attend. Painted faces (sometimes bodies!), high fives, pounding on bleachers, synchronized screaming, jumbotron feedback—it looks like tremendous fun (except when a play goes wrong). Ultimately, fun should lead to thankfulness. God also enjoys it.
Fun can lead to different places too—many of them not so spiritually rewarding. Excess is a very close relative of fun. And excess always leads to putting yourself ahead of others. And selfish never ends well.
Yikes! How gloomy on a subject that evokes so much joy! Like participating, spectating can be a family unifier. I’m a sucker for the commercial where the whole family is wearing one team’s jerseys, and the new boyfriend comes in wearing the archrival’s. I watched the Saints win their Super Bowl in New Orleans—one of the best times I can remember. I understand why cities are willing to build stadiums and give teams tax breaks. A team in the midst of a championship run gives the entire city an upbeat vibe. And teams recognize how good community involvement is for their business—lots of charitable things get done. On the artistic level, a great move in sports is every bit as uplifting as a great song or show or book. Most of all, there is the inexpressible joy of winning—no wonder it arouses such passion!
My son and four of his/our friends are in a Spurs text group that they graciously allow this old man to join in. It makes watching a Spurs game so much more fun—the shared excitement—the backseat coaching—the absurd humor—the friendship and even the pain. They still haven’t forgiven me for texting “We got this!” before Ray Allen made his crushing three-pointer.
I must also confess another guilty pleasure: fantasy sports. I have been in football and basketball leagues for the past 15 years or so. It just ups the interest level. Yes, it is a form of gambling, and I struggle with that. In all this time, I certainly haven’t made a profit, but I haven’t really lost that much either. Again, there’s a camaraderie that goes along with it that is very enjoyable.
Most of us recognize there is a dark side of spectating. As with any obsession, it’s pretty easy to go over the edge and hard to admit when you have. We tend to idolize our sports heroes—who probably deserve it no more or less than our neighbor or a random person off the street…at least, in terms of character. Indulging your sports habit can easily lead to a great deal of expense—easy to jump in whether you can afford it or not. As cavalierly as I dismiss my fantasy leagues, sports gambling has led to the wreck and ruin of many families. And most wives will tell you that your obsession with your team can also lead to family neglect.
So I have come up with a helpful little questionnaire to help you determine if your sports fixation is healthy or not. Answer honestly: 1) Do you care about this more than anything else? 2) Does this bring you closer or farther away from your family? 3) How much of a financial strain does it create? 4) Does your mood change when you team loses? Does it affect those you love? 5) Can you say during the contest: “Thy will be done”?
When the sport (whatever your fandom) is deterring you from becoming the person that you want to be, that is idolatry. If the ‘49’ers loss tonight affected your perspective of the world, your overall mood (not immediate), your treatment of your family, your financial status or your self-esteem, you have gone over that edge.
Just pull back. Go for a walk. Breathe in, breathe out. I used to presuppose God’s involvement in the outcome of the big game. You know, the Spurs are a classy organization, upright men, they deserve to win. Now I appreciate more the ramifications of the game—the countless ways the outcome will affect countless lives in countless directions. Only God can handle all that. I believe He loves the spectacle—and grieves for the heartache.
Way to go, Chiefs!
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January 28, 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 sense, is a joint effort to pull out the very best of ourselves. The first glorious aspect of competition is the struggle within yourself. No matter the sport, there is an internal push to be better, to try harder, to give your very best. That’s what God wants from us in every situation, but sports sure are a fun way to practice for it. One of the reasons I love golf is that the battle is fought almost entirely within your own head. But so is a free throw. In every sport, your engagement from within is a huge factor. Most people call it the mental game, but it goes way deeper than that.
The second glorious aspect of competition is that most of the time you get to measure yourself against someone else. Ah, the opportunities for growth! The unidentified fruit of the Spirit is sportsmanship. You can almost immediately spot an athlete who was taught sportsmanship at an early age. Sports promote equality in that they nurture respect for your opponent—someone trying to the same thing as you are, probably just as hard. There are not many human endeavors that have promoted racial equality as beneficially as sports. One of the hardest things that God tries to teach us is that you can lose just as nobly as you win.
The third glorious aspect of competition is that you get to compete with, not against, someone. In most sports, you get at least one teammate! How cool is that? You’re trying as hard as you can to perform your best, and so is he/she/they—and you’re working together, and you have the same goal. You want each other to do the best you can; you encourage each other; you energize each other. There is nothing you would rather be doing, and neither would he/she/they. The divine pleasure of camaraderie.
An adjunct to all these positive joyful benefits is the legacy. Many sports experiences are passed down from generation to generation. Do you realize how much exquisite parent/child time that affords? And that doesn’t even address the possibility of coaching your child (and the team). It’s hard to find much better teaching moments. Yes, I’ve seen enough berserko parent sports videos—and witnessed firsthand the impossibility of objectivity when evaluating your own child’s performance—but for every parent I’ve seen go over an edge, I’ve seen hundreds provide support and encouragement and joy. God smiles when families play games.
My parents gave little support to my childhood athletic exploits ( and I was a decent athlete). I quit competitive sports my sophomore year when my dad kicked me off the basketball team for grades. A year later I was smoking and drinking and making worse grades. I’m not blaming Dad for my shallow character—but sports could have helped.
All three of our children explored various sports in their childhoods before they settled on playing tennis for their dad. Only one of them extended organized competitive sports beyond high school, but I am proud of the people all three have become, and I know that playing sports was a factor in their character development. And, boy, I had fun with all three of them!
Now I get to watch my granddaughters enter into the grandeur and glory of sports. A nice change that I have been witnessing in our societal perspective is the acceptance and encouragement of female competition. All of those positive benefits that I’ve listed above about sports participation…they are completely genderless. When I watch my son teaching his daughter a skill, it is with the same intensity (maybe more) that I used to teach him. I realize that sports gender equality has not come close to filtering up to the professional level yet, but it appears to be moving upward. I am glad.
Every good thing comes from above—I believe God takes great enjoyment in our games and contests. I am reminded of my favorite line from Chariots of Fire, spoken by an Olympic athlete: “When I run, I feel God’s pleasure.” I feel the same way about certain golf shots.
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January 26, 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 sin, she regrets doing it. She believes that you cannot come to repentance without having regrets. I have a hard time with that. I suspect our difference is semantical. I believe all our past experiences have led us to where we are now, and I am content with where I am. More specifically, wasn’t it my past sins that led me to repentance, and didn’t repentance lead me to Christ? Should I regret that?
But Karen certainly has a point. If sin is anything that separates us from God, and the wages of sin is (spiritual) death, we must vigilantly try to avoid the “I wish I hadn’t’s.” I think Jesus had the proper perspective on it when he told the adulterous woman, “Go your way and sin no more.”
If you have read much of my blog, you know I advocate introspection and retrospection as healthful self-awareness activities. So I have looked back and identified specifics on the “I wish I hadn’t” side: I regret being an arms dealer (see Happiness is a warm gun – posted 5 January, 2020). I regret accusing my brother-in-law of cheating at cards when I had no idea if he had or not. I regret hurting several girls because I didn’t feel the same about them as they did about me—I prefer having my heart broken to breaking one. I regret putting my son ahead of the team in a coaching situation and not informing a player about a decision I made before a team function. I regret beating people over the head with Christ right after I became a Christian—as if I knew anything! I regret choosing a best man on the basis of belief rather than friendship. (To this day, I have no idea what became of my “best man”.) I regret certain sexual behaviors. I regret being stingy because I worried more about the future than the present. Man, my list of “hadn’t’s” could go on and on. Enough.
Although the instances might be more general, my list of “I wish I had’s” is equally cumbersome. I wish I had expressed the love I felt more openly. I wish I had been more honest, and thus developed deeper friendships. I wish I learned to dance—and speak another language. I wish I had planned our finances better and kept my children out of college loan debt. I wish I was more sensitive to the needs of others. I wish I was a better listener. I wish I read The Story of Civilization (11 volumes) by Will Durant. I wish I took golf lessons when I was young.
All of this self-examination leads me back to my original position: I (now) am the product of all the life events that came before this. While I can unearth heaps of regrets (omissions and commissions), I look back on my life with gratitude. I know all my past sins are covered, and I know to try to avoid sin with all my heart because that separates me from Him. If you will refer back to the allusion in the title of this essay, Frank Sinatra’s biggest mistake wasn’t the regrets—it was his insistence on doing it My Way.
And that is definitely my biggest regret: all the time I have wasted not being aware of His presence when He has been here all along.
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