I struggle to reflect warm love instead of the world’s cold fear

By David McElroy · August 2, 2026

I’m still looking for my place in this world.

In reality, though, I’m trapped between two worlds. I was born into a flesh-and-blood world which is ruled by a mindless culture which feels cold and indifferent at best, angry and evil at worst. At times, I glimpse another world — a world in which love and decency and compassion lead us to connection with a creator who is often hidden.

I’m a part of both worlds, but I want to live more and more in the world of the spirit. More in the world of love. More in the world of this creator spirit who I know as God.

There are times when I want to rage against the dysfunction and the evil of what modern popular culture has become. That’s partly because what I see seems so wrong, but it’s partly because being immersed in that culture keeps us from seeing the spirit world.

So there are times when I’m angry about the world in which I’m living, when I’m filled with confusion and hurt and outrage about what we have created.

But this is not one of those times.

Tonight, I am filled with a love that is far beyond my own ability to fathom. I’m filled with the desire to touch the face of a God who I know is there. I’m filled with the need to express a boundless love — an expression of the loving spirit who made me.

But I’ll be clear. This isn’t about religion. It’s not about any specific theology. I have nothing to sell you here — not even the things I believe are true.

I could dress this up in flowery religious language that reflects my own faith. People who already agree with me would like that. I know how to reflect my own Christian culture and the Southern Baptist subculture in which I grew up.

But what I’m talking about isn’t about copying that culture, because the culture I see inside modern churches is just as off-course as what I see in the mainstream culture. What I’m talking about here is far more fundamental to the difference between this physical world and that spiritual world.

What I’m saying here is more about the Sermon on the Mount than it is about Paul’s Roman Road, to put it into a theological context.

When I’m able to keep my heart focused on that other world — and when I can allow my behavior to reflect that love — I am a different person. I become the man who I was created to be.

When I move through this physical world — bathed in the dysfunction of our culture — I want to tell others how to fix things. I want to point out all the terrible things I see. I want to ask my fellow Christians to be more loving to our enemies, as Jesus ordered us to do. I want to beg people to be kinder and gentler to the people around them.

But when I do feel love in my heart — in the way I do tonight — I know better.

I’m the only one who I can control. I’m the only one I’m responsible for. I’m the only one who I have any right to lecture.

When I feel the way I do right now, I feel as though I can love others. I feel as though I have blinders on and I can stop — at least for a moment — worrying about things I can’t change.

When Jesus told his followers to love others and take care of people who have needs, he didn’t add a footnote giving me authority to force others to behave as I think they should. And when I feel as though my heart is full of the love that my God wants me to have for everyone, I know where my focus should be.

I need to keep my eyes on the world beyond this one. I need to keep my heart softened and open to divine love. To see the state of the culture around us — and refuse to harden our hearts — is one of the most radical and loving decisions we’re called to make.

When I focus on the flesh-and-blood world around me, I’m prone to feeling fear and anger and disdain for others. I know that’s not who I need to be. It’s not who I was created to be.

I was made to love. I was made to connect — with the divine and with people around me, whether I think they “deserve” it or not.

My feet are in a world where I have to live, but my heart needs to remain focused on a world where love is the common currency.

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It turns out that the radical far left has been training “Antifa cats” to sabotage anything important to Donald Trump. Everything he did was perfect. Honest. It was all the cats’ fault. Arrest all the cats! This is the latest of my ridiculous satirical shorts. Please go watch it. Then “like” it and subscribe. Please. I’m begging you. (Too much?) Although a couple of the previous videos have had views in the hundreds, most have still been seen by fewer than 20 people. So I seem to be having trouble letting people know that page exists.

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.

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