David McElroy

When I was a little boy, my mother told me a story about what happened when she almost died as a child — and that story has remained vivid in my memory.

I don’t recall what illness she had or exactly how old she was, but she was in a hospital and was near death. Doctors and her family were gathered around her in that hospital room, where she was covered with an oxygen tent.

As she lay there dying, Mother experienced something that might be called a dream. It might be called an out-of-body experience. Maybe it was a near-death experience. Whatever it was, she remembered it clearly and told the story with conviction.

She was riding in a small boat across a river. Ahead of her, Jesus was waiting for her on the riverbank. He was dressed in a sailor suit. As her boat approached the bank, she reached out to take his hand. She said that even in her child mind, she knew that when she took his hand, she would be dead to this world.

Keep Reading

Being vulnerable about my feelings scared me when I was young. I decided early in life that if people knew my fears and vulnerabilities, they could use them against me. I don’t know how I came to that conclusion, but I learned to hide my emotions and wear an impassive mask.

By the time I was in the ninth grade, in fact, kids at school had tagged me with the nickname “Spockelroy,” which was a combination of my last name and the name of Star Trek’s half-Vulcan Mr. Spock, who was brilliant and logical, but never showed the emotions from his human half. The name stuck for a couple of years.

Learning to get in touch with my emotions — well into adulthood — saved me from an empty life. Learning to feel and learning to be vulnerable saved me from continuing down a road of dysfunction toward something ugly that would have been a natural destination for me. Today, I’m very open about my feelings and vulnerabilities, because I know that going back into hiding would kill my heart and destroy any possibility of receiving the love I so desperately need.

Keep Reading

As I stood in the ankle-deep water of the Cahaba River late Tuesday afternoon, it was so serene that time seemed to stand still.

I had ditched my shoes and rolled up my pants to wade into the water for a better view of a warm golden sunset. The water was unseasonably warm for a late February day. I stood there feeling the water rush against my legs as my eyes took in the color and majesty of another perfectly routine Alabama sunset.

In the stillness, I couldn’t help but think that the scene before me had played itself out — like perfect clockwork — for many hundreds and thousands of years. It occurred to me that if I could somehow transport myself back in time — say a thousand years — to this exact spot, I would be watching a sunset that would be essentially the same, depending on the clouds that day.

Keep Reading