David McElroy

Is there life on Mars? Is there love? Where can we find what’s missing?

By David McElroy · December 6, 2018

I have always felt like an alien among human beings. Or maybe I thought I was the human and almost everybody else was an alien. I’m not certain.

I’ve never hated the creatures among whom I walked. I just felt disconnected. I felt as if I was in the wrong place. I felt as if I was looking for something — someone? some place? — where I would find my own kind. Somewhere I would feel loved and understood. Somewhere I would feel at home. With someone I could trust. No longer the strange alien who didn’t fit.

I’ve recently found a line from an old song playing over and over in my head when I encounter things which make me feel this way. It happened again tonight. When I feel detached and troubled about what’s all around me, I feel myself withdrawing emotionally and I hear David Bowie singing bits and pieces of a song — and I always hear, over and over — the line which goes, “Is there life on Mars?”

And I feel like an alien who’s spent years looking for what he needs on Earth and he turns away in hurt and sorrow, asking whether there might be love and life for him on Mars instead.

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We who believe life has meaning have lost war for modern culture

By David McElroy · December 5, 2018

My side lost the great culture war.

Who is it exactly who lost, though? At one time, I would have been myopic enough to say it was the Christian church that lost the battle, but I now see it as much broader. The people on my side — at least in the broadest sense — could come from various religions or no real religion at all. They might be humanists or New Agers or label themselves in other ways.

The only thing that unites all of these people — many of whom are barely on speaking terms — is that we believe life has meaning. We believe the culture ought to reflect positive values and provide an alternative to nihilism, even if many among that group would strongly disagree about what values they would like culture to reflect.

Modern popular culture reflects nihilism and death. It broadly presents the idea that life has no meaning — and that the only rational response to the world is to engage in the most selfish and cynical pursuit of pleasure that’s possible. The culture sends the message, “Life has no purpose; get over it.” And if you have children, this message is going to be pushed on them over and over by popular culture.

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By end of Pooh movie, I wanted to stay in the Hundred-Acre Wood

By David McElroy · December 4, 2018

I hadn’t thought about heffalumps for many, many years. But as Lucy and I walked tonight, I told her we were patrolling the neighborhood for heffalumps. I laughed as I explained to my dog about why the inhabitants of the Hundred-Acre Wood are so scared of these fierce imaginary creatures.

If anybody had heard my conversation with Lucy, he might have thought I’d gone mad. But I was just having joyful fun — and Lucy didn’t seem to mind.

I had meant to watch Disney’s “Christopher Robin” when it came out last summer, but I didn’t get around to it until Tuesday night. For me, the movie doesn’t get magical until Madeline — Christopher’s daughter — unexpectedly meets Pooh, Piglet, Eeyore and Tigger while they’re on the way to London to save Christopher’s job. Every moment from there on is wonderful. But nothing tops the last few minutes — when Christopher, his wife Evelyn, and Madeline join all the animals for an afternoon in the Hundred-Acre Wood.

It was at that point when I didn’t want to leave. I wanted to be part of this loving fantasy of family and whimsy. And it brought tears to my eyes.

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