Outer storms will end, but storms in my heart do lasting damage

By David McElroy · May 20, 2017

The sheets of rain lash down, almost maniacal in their resolve to pound everything in the way.

The lightning flashes blindingly. For a split second, there is silence, followed by the booming thunder nearby.

The water pounds and pounds. The thunder rumbles. The lightning comes again.

The storm is hitting my windshield and the wipers struggle to move the water. Their back and forth motion is hypnotic — and I wonder whether the storm I feel and hear and fear is really outside — or if it’s inside my heart.

It’s dark and it’s loud and it’s gloomy. The storm outside the car threatens me physically, but the storm inside threatens something far deeper. Far more existential. It’s pounding on my very core again.

The sheets of rain pound down like the notes of nature’s mad symphony.

One, two, three, four. Flash. Boom. One, two, three, four. Flash. boom.

There’s a rhythm to the violence. The notes hit harder, punctuated by the percussion of thunder and the flash of lightning.

Is this symphony the voice of God? Of the devil? Or of some mindless randomness that doesn’t care who it strikes?

A violent storm does damage, sometimes fleeting, sometimes lasting. Nature is tough, though. The trees and rocks and animals can take a pounding and remain strong. One tree or a dozen trees or even a hundred — maybe an entire forest — can be wiped out by a storm and others will rise to take their place.

Nature is patient. Nature has many centuries of time. Nature has resilience.

Not so with a human heart.

The heart hurts. The heart needs. The heart scars from accumulated wounds.

The heart can harden. The heart can wither. The heart can give up and start dying.

Love is the only thing that heals a wounded heart. Love is the only thing that softens a hard heart. Love is the only thing that can make a withering heart flourish and become vibrant again. Love is the only thing that can give a heart the hope to move forward with life and live again.

Every heart needs love. And a heart without love is vulnerable to the storms which I feel raging. The storms threaten to engulf and destroy.

My heart needs a love that comes and stays. The storm violently makes that clear again — the storm outside and the storm inside. But it’s not just any love my heart needs.

My heart needs a love that also needs what I have to give. A heart that wants what I want. A heart that cares about what I care about. A heart that recognizes its equal and its partner.

As the violent storm rages around me — and in me — I long again for a love to come and stay. A heart that knows what it wants. A heart that is unafraid. A heart that shares my values. A heart that wants to create and build and soar.

I long for a heart that will build a love that will matter this year and next year and next decade — a love that can kindle a flame that can last a thousand years, long after these two hearts have stopped beating.

But tonight, there is only the storm.

Once again, there is the lashing, violent rain and the thunder and the lightning. There are the maddening questions. The crippling doubt. The blinding pain.

The storms are powerful.

The storm outside will end soon and the sun will come out. The storm inside will rage and rage. Without elusive love, that storm seems endless.

One, two, three, four.

Questions, doubt, pain, fear.

The sheets of rain keep lashing against my wounded heart. I pray again for the storms to end, but there is no end in sight.

Share on Social Networks

We are ruled by the dumbest and most incompetent people among us — and we have a system which allows stupid and irresponsible people to force the costs of their idiocy onto smarter and wiser people. Can we get away with that? Yes, for quite some time. But we eventually reach a point at which the dumbest of the dumb — who are habitual liars and mentally ill fools — lead us to the disasters and destruction that some of us have seen coming for years. We are approaching that point. And yet most of the idiots around us still wave their rhetorical banners of support for the evil people who are leading us to ruin — and all of them point their fingers at someone else, never noticing that their own enthusiastic support of evil is to blame. When things finally fall apart, blame yourself for your blindness to the evil, not whoever happens to be in power when it happens.

I’ve been making some changes to the site lately and there are more changes coming in the days ahead, so don’t be surprised if you some small differences. This is not a wholesale redesign, but rather the addition of some features. Since they’re smarter than I am, I’ve put Oliver and Alex in charge of the technical work, which you can see in this action photo from the control room of our media complex. I recently added a series of landing pages for readers who randomly discover the site from an Internet search. I’ve also changed the YouTube link at the top of the page to go to the new YouTube channel for video essays that reflect things I’ve already published here. (Here’s a little bit about both of the YouTube channels I’m working on.) In addition, I’m trying to move away from using Instagram, so I’m experimenting with photo plug-ins that will eventually allow me to host the pictures — cats, dogs, sunsets, whatever — that I often take. So don’t be surprised to see more changes. Thanks for your patience. Let’s hope Alex and Oliver know what they’re doing.

I have no use for the theocratic and repressive government of Iran. The people who run the country are cruel at best and evil at worst. The Iranian people deserve freedom. But I have no personal quarrel with anybody in Iran. While I’m not thrilled about a future Iranian government having nuclear weapons, I’m just as concerned about nukes in the hands of politicians in Israel, Pakistan, India, China and Russia. I’m not even thrilled with the U.S., Britain and France having them, either, because I don’t trust any politicians to be responsible with such terrible weapons. All I can say with certainty is that American taxpayers have no business attacking Iran, especially since we’re being forced to pay for this attack in order to benefit the politicians of Israel — and nobody else. If Middle Eastern countries want to fight among themselves, that’s none of my business. It’s not the business of the U.S. government, either. I have no quarrel with anybody in Iran — and having the government which claims to represent me launch an unprovoked attack against a sovereign country will only make all Americans less safe in the near future. This attack is poorly conceived and morally unjustified. Remember that when the Iranians launch attacks that we will then condemn as “terrorism.” What the U.S. is doing right now looks like terrorism to me. And let’s not forget that the attack is the latest in a long line of unconstitutional wars by various U.S. presidents — who have no legal power to declare war on their own, according to the U.S. Constitution.

A child having a tantrum understands only one thing: Did I get my way or not? He doesn’t understand the issues involved. He doesn’t understand the reasons that went into a decision. He doesn’t understand any of the things that mature and reasonable adults have to understand in order to live healthy lives. By his reaction to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling to strike down his disastrous tariff scheme, Donald Trump shows himself to be — once more — a screaming child having a tantrum. Outside the world of mob bosses who expect to get their way every time, normal adults don’t act this way, but Trump isn’t normal. He’s an angry and vengeful man who has narcissistic personality disorder. And we are in danger as a result. Trump doesn’t understand the legal issues involved in this ruling. He doesn’t understand economics. He doesn’t understand rule of law. He doesn’t understand that he can ever be wrong. All he understands is that he didn’t get his way. And he is now a narcissistic and raging little boy who also happens to hold life-and-death power over most humans on this planet. He’s dangerous — and the system which gives him that power is even more dangerous.

Is it an attempt to blur the gender line between men and women? Or is it some weird tribute to the traditional Scottish kilt? It’s hard to say, but fashion designers keep pushing for men to wear skirts in the last few years. Both men and women in modern fashion seem oddly androgynous, as though it would be offensive for a man to look manly or for a woman to look feminine. A CNN article about the latest fashions from Paris caught my attention Monday and left me wondering about the ugly clothes the designers are hawking. If a man wants to wear a skirt — or a kilt — that’s OK with me, but I’ll stick with a traditional dark suit with a white shirt and tie. (Well, when I’m not wearing t-shirts and sweats, of course.) I always wonder who actually buys the outlandish garb from fashion designers anyway. I would be humiliated to be seen in any of this stuff, but I obviously have no sense of high fashion.

Related Posts