David McElroy

It’s just a tree, but for six years, it’s been my favorite tree. Tonight, half of it has been cut down — and the rest will be gone tomorrow.

When I moved into this house six years ago, this majestic old tree quickly became my favorite part of living here. Each time I’ve stepped out of my front door, this tree has been there to greet me. That tree came to symbolize the beauty of nature’s changing seasons for me.

Each spring, I had the joy of watching new buds spring out of these giant branches. By summer, it would form a massive canopy over my front yard. In the autumn, its leaves would fill my yard with delightful gold and brown leaves that crunched underneath my feet. And in winter, it always stood in silent majesty — as a silent promise that life would soon be reborn.

And now, the beautiful tree which I had come to love so much is gone — and I find myself mourning its loss just as I’ve mourned the deaths of two human neighbors lately.

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Liberated modern culture is awash in sex — but more and more people are starving for love and intimacy. What’s worse, most people seem to believe sex and intimacy are the same thing.

I feel increasingly hopeless about the direction of this culture. There was a time when I believed the worrisome things I was seeing were just minor excesses, but I’ve come to believe the culture is irredeemably dysfunctional.

As a result, most modern Americans are bumper to bumper on a highway toward metaphorical hell — and they’re willing to pay any price to get there, because they believe they’re heading toward a paradise of pleasure.

This is destroying lives. And it’s leaving confused people feeling empty as they find that the life of success and pleasure they were promised has turned into a living nightmare.

Three recent stories have me thinking about this tonight.

First, I saw a HuffPost article this week which was headlined “Here’s When We Can (Probably) Have Casual Sex Again.” It was all about when quarantine restrictions will be sufficiently lifted to allow “normal” people to once again resume having sex with complete strangers they randomly meet.

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I talked with a friend tonight who’s been miserable for years. If she ever loved the man she married, the love died quickly. He’s abusive and dysfunctional. He’s cut her off from her friends and made her life into a nightmare.

I no longer even ask her why she doesn’t leave him. For a long time, I thought she was ready to escape. I sometimes fear for her safety and I always fear for her sanity. But for reasons she can’t explain, this strong and decisive woman hasn’t been able to walk away.

I have no idea why she refuses to fix what she could easily fix.

Earlier this week, a woman moved into a house that she just rented from me. She is extremely happy and satisfied with her new home, even though she’s worked hard all week moving out of the house where she had lived for the last seven years.

I visited the house from which she just moved and I was stunned that she had been paying almost as much to rent that rundown house as she was now paying to rent a nice house that I manage. We talked about how terrible the old house was and how she had been overcharged for the place.

“I’ve realized this week that I’m angry with myself,” she told me. “I knew I was unhappy, but I hate change, so I just ignored how bad everything was. I just don’t understand why I put up with it.”

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