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.

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Here’s the latest of my ridiculous parody shorts. It crossed my mind Tuesday to wonder what a slick and fast-talking car dealer might do right now to try to turn the high price of gasoline to his advantage. So I conceived of a fat and lovable character who tried to sell cars that don’t use any fuel — and then I started wondering if it would be funnier if all the characters were felines. Designing the King Cashpaw character took about four hours, but the rest took only another four hours, so this was a relatively quick piece that virtually wrote itself. I know it’s almost impossible for these parody videos to find a larger audience, but at least they amuse me — and there are 19 of them on my YouTube page now. The first few were very limited, but they’re getting more complex.

The Republican Party is dead. It still exists in name, of course, but it’s nothing but a shell. All that’s left are idiots and stooges and con men of the MAGA party. When Donald Trump is gone — which won’t be long — those populist idiots and pragmatic fools will have no one to follow. Democrats will thrive. They will take more power than ever and they will push the federal government further to the radical far left than ever. When that happens, don’t just blame Trump if you’re a conservative. Blame every person who has claimed to be a conservative and has given up on principles, character and everything else that Republicans once claimed to stand for. As someone who worked as a GOP political consultant for many years, this is disgusting and disturbing to me. Those who have enabled Trump to have almost unchecked power are going to be shocked when they see what they will unleash in the long run. It’s been plain all along what this narcissistic con man is. It’s your fault that you chose to pretend not to see what he really is.

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.

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