David McElroy

I got the news Thursday afternoon that someone I knew had died in his sleep a couple of nights ago. His death left me thinking about how the people around me take care of themselves — or don’t take care of themselves. And it left me thinking about myself and what this tendency toward “slow suicide” says about all of us.

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When I was in high school, I surprised everyone — including myself — by deciding that I was going to become a pastor.

Until then, my career choices had all been conventional. Various types of engineering. Law. Politics. Business. But one Sunday night, I decided — without any prior thought — that God was calling me to ministry. I didn’t know why. It just felt right.

As well-meaning adults in ministry tried to direct me over the next few years, I found out that I was nothing like them. There were square hole and there were round holes in church ministry. I was a hexagonal peg that didn’t fit into any of the holes.

During my last year of college, I served on a church staff as youth minister. Each Sunday and Wednesday, I drove about 40 miles from Tuscaloosa to Carrollton Baptist Church. I taught classes to students and I preached for the congregation at times when the pastor was out of town.

The last time I preached there — at the pulpit you see above — seemed to make clear that I just wasn’t cut out for this job.

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It’s always the worst at night. I have no idea why.

That’s when the images and sounds flood my mind. It’s as though someone made a movie and I saw only the first part. I loved the movie and wanted to see all of it. I loved it so much that I wanted to live in it, but I couldn’t.

And then someone had all the images and sounds and smells and emotions from the rest of that movie — and feeds bits and pieces of them to me at random times. It’s warm and loving images of love and family and home and everything I’ve ever wanted.

There‘s a projector on the inside of my skull — and someone plays those images. What I see teases me and torments me, but I can’t make them go away. I don‘t even know whether I want them to go away.

She’s always there. But she’s not really there.

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