David McElroy

Hank Williams is an unlikely choice as a potential role model for me.

He was a singer and songwriter, but I’ve never had the least bit of musical talent. He was closely identified with country music, which I grew up hating. He was a hard-drinking man who was closely identified with the honky-tonks that I’ve always found distasteful.

I grew up hearing about Williams and his music, though. My father used to sing some of Williams’ old songs and I was struck by how emotional and authentic they sounded. (Williams had been popular when my father was in high school and college.) That didn’t seem like country music to me. It just seemed like the music of loneliness and heartbreak and redemption.

I haven’t given much thought to Williams and his music over the years, but I’ve been watching the Ken Burns documentary “Country Music” in the last few days. As I’ve come to understand more about this Alabama musician who’s been called the Hillbilly Shakespeare, it stirred something in my soul that I rarely allow myself to look at anymore.

And I couldn’t help admitting — quietly, where no one could hear — that I still want to be a star.

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As I got into my car after work Thursday, I felt a vague sense of unease. Something felt wrong. But what was it?

There was something wrong. Something was missing.

I went through a mental checklist, but there was nothing obvious. I wasn’t especially hungry or thirsty. There was no pressing need that I was overlooking. But I felt a wave of crushing emotion and then a thought hit me.

“I want to go Home.”

As the waves of emotions rushed over me, I knew what was going on. I wasn’t feeling a sudden need to go to the house where I live. I was filled with the crushing need for something which we all know in a deep part of our unconscious collective psyche.

Home isn’t just the place where we live. Home is a state of being in which we’re where we belong, among people who love us, where we fit and are accepted. To be Home is to experience the magic of knowing you are exactly where you need to be.

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Why are people who fall in love so often willing to pay a tremendous price for the love they want? I first encountered this question as a child in the book of Genesis when I read about Jacob’s love for Rachel. Why was he willing to work seven years to marry her? It seemed crazy to me. It wasn’t until I eventually fell in love myself that I started understanding that love for a woman changes everything for a man — and it makes him capable of doing things he never dreamed he could do.

Preview of new week’s show: If love is so great, then why do some of our worst hurts come from our romantic relationships? Why is it that some people are hurt so badly by lost love — or by relationships they should leave, relationships that are supposed to bring them joy — that they harden their hearts and swear they’ll never love again?

It’s because counterfeit love feels just like the real thing — at first.

Love is the most powerful and healing force the world has ever known, but its closest counterfeit might be the most destructive force we encounter. We’re going to talk about how we keep failing into those painful and destructive patterns, next week on Love and Hope.

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