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David McElroy

making sense of a dysfunctional culture

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Real love is a spiritual experience that makes me feel part of cosmos

By David McElroy · February 14, 2019

All my life, I’ve heard people react to transcendent beauty in similar ways. Whether it’s a sunset that fills the sky with color and electricity or a dark night sky filled with a million majestic stars, the typical reaction is similar.

“This makes me feel so small and insignificant,” they say in awe.

I understand the feeling of awe, but I don’t understand feeling small. No transcendent experience has ever made me feel insignificant. For me, the feeling is just the opposite. It makes me feel as though I’m a part of something majestic and universal — something which has no beginning or end.

Experiencing something this huge and significant makes me feel that I’m an inseparable part of this Universe — that every part of me is connected to every other part of Creation, that every person and star and blade of grass is one living thing — with power and life force flowing through all of us.

And there’s no time when I feel this intoxicating experience quite like the times when I’m in love with someone who’s also in love with me.

I don’t know how to define love and I don’t know anybody else who does an adequate job of defining it, either. It’s a living force that’s invisible but obvious to everyone who experiences it. It’s the spiritual equivalent of the wind. I can see and feel and hear the effects of the wind, but I can’t quite tell you what the wind is.

Modern culture is badly confused about love. Maybe every culture has always been confused about it. Those who think seriously about romantic love tend to think of it as a fairly modern thing — driven by popular movies and music. I know that cultures have put pragmatic things — such as money and land and family ties — above love in making marriage partners, but love has been around for at least thousands of years.

Those ancient people were more like us in some respects than we might realize.

In the ancient Hebrew book of Genesis, there’s the story of Jacob’s love for Rachel. Parts of the story make no sense to those of our culture, but we still understand his love for her.

When Jacob first met Rachel, he was instantly smitten by her. He encountered her with a flock of sheep and he helped her water her flock. Right after that, we read, “Then Jacob kissed Rachel and wept aloud.” Jacob felt something so powerfully emotional that it filled his heart and brought him to tears. I’ve experienced that. You probably have, too.

Rachel’s father was named Laban. He wanted Jacob to work for him, but he was willing to compensate him. The Genesis account says, “Jacob loved Rachel. And he said [to Laban], ‘I will serve you seven years for your younger daughter Rachel.'”

Jacob must have wanted Rachel pretty badly to agree to wait seven years for her, but this was the deal he and Laban struck. But Laban cheated Jacob. After the seven years had passed, Laban gave him his daughter in marriage — but when morning came, Jacob discovered that Laban had actually given him Rachel’s older sister, Leah, who he didn’t love.

Laban made up a lame excuse for his trick, but Jacob still loved Rachel and wanted her, even though he was stuck with Leah now. He agreed to work an additional seven years for Laban to bless the marriage that he had already agreed to seven years previously. So Jacob worked for Laban for another seven years — and he finally took Rachel as his wife.

Do you love someone enough that you would work seven years to have him or her? And even if you agreed to such a crazy plan, would you work an additional seven years — 14 years in all — to have the person you love?

I’ve asked myself this crazy question and I know the answer, but you might feel entirely different. If I were a young man and if I could be certain of actually getting the object of my love, yes, I would wait seven years. I think I would even wait 14 years. I also realize that makes no sense, but it seems that love rarely makes sense to the rational mind.

Our path to love isn’t as simple as what it was in the cultures of the day. Back then, it was a matter of a father promising his daughter to a man and then keeping his promise. (Obviously, we’re horrified today at the woman having no say in the matter.) Today, it’s more complicated. Two people have to fall in love with each other at the same time and have to overcome all the other objections or complications that can keep two people apart.

But what if the seed of love was laid and circumstances never make things work for two people? What if one of them — or both of them — fall in love with each other along the way? Can love stay alive through years of going separate paths? Can love survive both people making choices along the way that continue to keep them apart?

Does real love survive — even when we make bad choices and end up on very different life paths? Does something conspire to bring such people back together? I honestly don’t know for sure. I think so. I hope so. My gut tells me this is how things work for those who listen to their instincts and obey intuition. But I’m aware that it’s an irrational gamble.

The only thing I can be sure about is that being in love brings me to that same place of transcendental holiness that I experience when I feel connected to all the Universe.

Loving alone — or missing someone — can be a selfish experience. It can be a miserable experience. But when two people love one another and express that love openly to one another, it’s a spiritual experience.

This sort of loving unity makes me feel connected to God and to all of Creation. I think this is the real reason that the book of Genesis tells us that a man and woman can become “one flesh.”

In the deeper sense of oneness, real love can allow two people to unify into something bigger than what the two could ever be working on their own.

I miss this experience of feeling loved by a woman to whom I’ve completely given my heart and soul. There’s no substitute in this world for that.

On this Valentine’s Day, I don’t have that love. A lot of people go out and grab any partner they can find — just so they won’t be alone — but I can’t do that. I have a hunger for real love that’s just as real as the need for food or water. But we can’t always control when — or whether — we can finally have what we so desperately need.

I crave the transcendental experience of oneness born of real love — and I won’t accept the common counterfeits that the world around me is so eager to provide.

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This was the Monday evening sunset. While I was wa This was the Monday evening sunset. While I was waiting for the right color and light, a swarm of gnats descended on my car. It was like the Hitchcock film “The Birds,” except they were gnats. So I got out of there before things could get ugly. 😺 #nature #naturephotography #sky #colorful #clouds #sunset #birmingham #alabama
I normally get home by the quickest path that will I normally get home by the quickest path that will take me there, but I wasn’t in the mood today to deal with lots of other drivers. So I skipped I-459 and went across the slower two-lane route of Alabama 119. The drive didn’t cure me of all that ails me, but it was a more pleasant and humane experience, at least for me. #nature #naturephotography #trees #countryroad #birmingham #alabama
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For “throwback Thursday, let me introduce you to For “throwback Thursday, let me introduce you to Sam. In 2009, I took in a young feral cat who I named for the early American revolutionary Samuel Adams. He was one of the most confident — downright arrogant, in fact — cats I’ve ever been around. He had an amazing personality and I immediately loved him. He was no more than 8 or 9 months old when he suddenly died for reasons that my vet couldn’t explain. Even though I had him only a short time, he was one of my all-time favorites. #tbt #cats #tabby #feral #birmingham #alabama
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Lucy has been happily rolling around in the freshl Lucy has been happily rolling around in the freshly cut grass of the back yard Wednesday evening. #dog #dogs #dogstagram #dogsofinstagram #cute #cutedog #pets #petstagram #petsofinstagram #instadog #ilovedogs #birmingham #alabama
Thomas believes that he is the Most Interesting Ca Thomas believes that he is the Most Interesting Cat in the World — and I can’t say he’s wrong tonight. #cat #cats #catstagram #catsofinstagram #cute #cutecat #pets #petstagram #petsofinstagram #tabby #tabbycat #instacat #ilovecats #birmingham #alabama
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Except when he’s asleep, Thomas always looks as Except when he’s asleep, Thomas always looks as though he’s on high alert and ready to run away from danger. His feral early years still dominate his internal programming. #cat #cats #catstagram #catsofinstagram #cute #cutecat #pets #petstagram #petsofinstagram #tabby #tabbycat #instacat #ilovecats #birmingham #alabama
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On a live awards show Sunday night, one man made a joke about a female celebrity. The husband of the celebrity was offended and hit the man who made the joke. Or maybe it was staged for entertainment. Who knows? Who cares? Social media is full of discussion — and even arguments — about this idiocy today. This baffles me. Let’s assume for a moment that the event happened as reported. People have been having such idiotic fights ever since there have been humans. Half the bars in the world see such brief dustups regularly. It simply doesn’t matter. The fact that so many people believe they need to talk about this — or even need to have opinions about it — is more evidence of the bizarre media brainwashing that convinces many to care passionately about brain-dead trivia. Your life will be happier and saner if you focus on yourself, your family and your friends, not on whatever scripted (or spontaneous) bilge that the media wants to pipe into your home.

I’m in the middle of migrating this website to new servers this week. This means you might encounter some unexpected behavior until I get all the bugs worked out. Clicking on my links (including this one) might cause your browser to give you the message that it’s a site without a current security certificate. It’s not actually unsafe, but there’s something which isn’t yet set up for the security certificate. I apologize for any such errors you might encounter while the process is going on. If you notice any problems with content which didn’t migrate properly, I would appreciate you letting me know the details at davidmcelroy@mac.com. Thanks for your patience.

I often wonder what animals think when they look at us and consider the society we’ve created. Yes, I know this is fanciful and unrealistic, but what if they could? Would they be astounded at how we treat each other? Would they be disgusted by the ugliness and pettiness which fill so many of our daily interactions? The truth is that I’m feeling pretty disgusted with humanity tonight. I made the mistake of reading some online interactions that I should have avoided — and it sickened me. The people involved appeared to be vile and stupid and arrogant. I wish I could pretend they’re a tiny minority, but I know better. It’s times such as this when I most need to escape much of “civilization” and disconnect from their world. If humans are going to be worthy of “ruling this planet,” we have a lot of growth to do. And I fear that growth is nowhere in sight. So my buddy Thomas, above, and all of his friends would be right to judge us harshly — and to think, “Why do you folks get to be in charge?”

I should have expected this, but I honestly didn’t. The article I wrote last week about disagreements over treatment for autistic children brought me angry emails. You could almost call it “hate mail.” Of the five emails about it so far, two have been to tell me that I’m wrong to even listen to critics of the most popular therapy for autistic children — and the other three tell me I’m wrong for not condemning the treatment as the “obvious” abuse it is. If you read the article, you know I didn’t take a position on the issue, because I simply don’t know enough to have an opinion. But by talking about the issue, I stepped into a heated controversy. The emails from the two sides convinced me of nothing. But they did give me even more empathy for the unfortunate parents who have to figure out for themselves where the truth lies for their children.

Have you ever had what you thought was a new idea — and then discovered that “old you” had the same idea years ago? I had that experience tonight. And it’s been wonderful. I came up with an idea tonight for a very short satirical film that would be a promotion for a fictitious college. The point is to make the college promote — as good things — everything which is actually terrible about most modern colleges. Then I remembered a fake college that I invented back when I was in college. I had created student recruitment brochures and various newsletters back then, so I decided to call my “new” college by the same name I’d invented years ago: Ochita College. As I searched my computer for any old material I might still have about Ochita from the past, I discovered an email I sent to someone in 2009 — outlining essentially the same idea which I came up with tonight. Since I didn’t remember writing that, it felt like magic. So my next film project just might be this one instead. If all goes well, you might soon see “Ochita College: Your Future Starts Here.” This should be fun.

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