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David McElroy

An Alien Sent to Observe the Human Race

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Storms can end without warning, bringing hope of blue skies ahead

By David McElroy · July 14, 2017

It was already raining lightly when I left the office late Friday afternoon. By the time I merged onto the interstate, the gentle summer rain had turned into a gushing torrent of water. Somewhere along I-459 south of Birmingham, I could barely seen the tail lights of the car creeping along in front of me.

Traffic was bumper to bumper in all three lanes of each direction. We inched along dangerously. I was afraid of what I might hit as I kept going forward, but I was equally afraid of being hit in the rear if I didn’t move fast enough.

I simply couldn’t see what was going on — and I was afraid that trying to pull off the road was no better since I couldn’t see anything and others couldn’t see me.

So I moved along blindly — barely moving — as buckets of rain continued to fall from the sky.

And then I saw something that seemed like a faint shaft of light in the sky off to my right. The rain still beat down furiously, but where was that light coming from?

Then the light grew brighter. The beating rain suddenly slowed to a more-normal pace. And the patch of light in the sky grew bigger and bigger.

In this one spot, the clouds were parting. The rain became a gentle sprinkle. The sky that had been black and then dark gray faded to light gray and then to patches of something else. Suddenly, I was seeing blue sky and white clouds.

I had suddenly come through the storm to safety and beauty.

I snapped the picture you see above right after I turned onto I-20. There was still a lot of darkness all around me in the distance, but ahead — there were increasingly clear blue skies.

The beauty and safety of what I was seeing were actually a bit jolting. It was hard to imagine that something so mundane could evoke such strong emotions of relief and happiness.

As I watched the patches of blue get bigger and bigger straight ahead, it suddenly occurred to me that what I had just experienced was a perfect metaphor for the storms of life.

There are times when the world around us is dark and black. We don’t quite understand where we are or where we’re going.

We can be afraid to keep going forward but know that we can’t stop or go back to where we’ve been. So we can inch along in life, gripped in terror about what we’re going through — something we don’t always understand.

Worse, when we’re going through such dark times, it’s hard for us to imagine that they can end. We can’t see light or color or beauty or anything else except the weariness and depression which seem like constant companions.

And then something happens.

Light appears.

Storms fade.

Clouds part and beautiful blue appears.

Suddenly, our storm is over. We’re safe again. We can be happy again. We can see that the future is worth living.

I’ve faced storms over the last decade. At times, I thought I had seen hints of light ahead and the end of the storms, but those were only brief respites.

The storms have been especially heavy and brutal lately. The only way I can stand them is through constantly reminding myself that the storms will end — that things are slowly getting better.

I keep looking for that break in the clouds. I keep looking for the blue skies. I keep looking for the light.

I haven’t seen them yet, but I have faith that they’re coming soon.

The blue skies in front of me this evening are a reminder and a promise of the hope that lies ahead of me. I have faith that the light will show up just any time now — and then everything will finally make sense.

Note: I can’t help but think this is a perfect time to listen to Electric Light Orchestra’s “Mr. Blue Sky” after this experience.

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Ever since a neighbor strung some decorative light Ever since a neighbor strung some decorative lights in his back yard a year or so ago, I’ve been trying to figure out how to photograph them. In person, the effect is stunning on the yard, but I’ve struggled to figure out any sort of perspective that would be interesting. I’m still not entirely happy with this, but it’s th best I’ve been able to come up with so far. #lights #backyard #birmingham #alabama
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It was five years ago tonight when Lucy first rode It was five years ago tonight when Lucy first rode in the car with me. She was on her way to her “forever home” with me, but she didn’t know that, so she was terrified that night. It was a much happier and braver girl who took a ride in the car tonight so we could go through a drive-through window and order a hamburger for her — to celebrate five years with me. She had a great time. If she could remember five years ago tonight, she would be proud of how far she’s come, too. #dog #dogs #dogstagram #dogsofinstagram #cute #cutedog #pets #petstagram #petsofinstagram #instadog #ilovedogs #birmingham #alabama
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Briefly

It was five years ago tonight when Lucy first rode in the car with me. She was on her way to her “forever home” with me that night, but she didn’t know it, so she was terrified. It was a much happier and braver girl who took a ride in the car tonight so we could go through a drive-through window and order a hamburger for her — to celebrate five years with me. She had a great time. If she could remember five years ago tonight, she would be proud of how far she’s come, too. If you’d like to know more about Lucy’s journey from scared dog to brave queen of the household, here’s something I wrote after her first year with me. I’m hoping this girl will have many more happy years with me.

I’ve never been attracted to skinny women. There’s nothing wrong with someone who’s naturally thin, but it’s never been my preference. What has shocked me, though, is the judgment I’ve heard from women all through my life — about themselves and others — about who’s “fat.” I concluded long ago that most women in our culture have been brainwashed to believe that skinny is attractive — and that anything other than skinny is ugly. I first assumed that I was the oddball — for preferring women with bigger and heavier bodies — but I’m coming to the conclusion that most men naturally feel this way to one extent or another. I just ran across new research by a couple of Northwestern University psychology professors that shows that women seriously overestimate how much a straight man will be attracted to a skinny woman. In a perfect world, we would all be at a healthy weight, but when it comes to attractiveness, too heavy is more attractive than skinny. At least to me — and to a lot of men, too.

Years ago, I heard a question that seemed very insightful at the time. You’ve probably heard it, too. What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail? The question is intended to help you uncover things you really want to do, but which you’re afraid to try — for fear of failure. In an interview today, I heard the great marketing guru Seth Godin give a different point of view. He said the better question is to ask what you would do even if you knew it would fail. That struck me as far more insightful than the original version. We ought to be doing what we know is right, not what will maximize our success or praise from others. There are some battles that are worth fighting even if you believe you’re doomed to failure. Those battles are often for love or important ideas or our children. Some things are simply worth fighting for — and the truth is that you might win anyway. Do the right thing. Take the chance.

The more I understand about myself, about human nature and about the nature of reality, the more I realize I’m a radical by the standards of both Modernism and Postmodernism. Seeing the things which I’m stumbling toward makes me an enemy of many of the core ideas upon which contemporary culture is built. It exposes the culture as a monstrous lie — like a dangerous infection that’s slowly destroying what human were created to be. My “inner observer” has always known that truth was found in the ideas of the Enlightenment, but I’m slowly finding words to explain what has merely been instinct until now. The Enlightenment was humanity’s great leap forward, but shallow and arrogant thinkers for the next two centuries threw away the fruits of that achievement. We can’t go forward as a species until we go back to correct this intellectual and spiritual error — and part of that is acknowledging that our collective attempts to do away with our Creator will always fail.

I’ve come to believe that some of us — including me — aren’t very good at knowing how to be happy. I don’t mean that in the sense that happy talk and positive thinking should be able to make us happy regardless of the circumstances. I mean that some of us had so much experience with being unhappy when we were young that we were trained to be unhappy — and that being happy is an unconsciously uncomfortable thing. When I look at times in my past when I should have been happy, it rarely lasted. I believe now that I found reasons to be unhappy — and caused real problems for myself — because being comfortable and happy felt so foreign to my programming. If I’m right, this means that some of us have to do more than just change our circumstances. It means we have to learn how to accept the happiness that we unconsciously fear we don’t deserve.

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