I said:
Lord, come quickly.

It’s a favorite phrase of Christians – a sentiment that means, “It’s all too much, Jesus. Come back from the heavens and rescue us from this cesspool – this mess we live in. I can’t do it any more.”

And then, he said to me clearly:

I have already returned. It’s YOU. You are my way of saving the world.

But how? How do we save a world bent on destroying itself?

Build community.

Take care of people.

 Show up in their lives in real and needed ways.

Hold their babies when their arms are tired and bring them food when they’re hurt or sick.

Invite people into your home and love them, break bread with them. Remind yourself how beautiful human connection can be.

Talk to people you disagree with.

Stop talking on social media and start talking face to face.

Take a breath and put down your ego. Ask questions.

Seek to understand before seeking to be understood.

Speak kindly, even when you’re speaking truth…ESPECIALLY then.

Anne Lamott writes, “I read once in a magazine that in Czechoslovakia, they say an echo in the woods always returns your own call, and so I started speaking sweetly to everyone…And my sweet voice started getting all over me, like sunlight, like the smell of Danish baking in the oven.” And guess what? It gets all over everyone else, too.

The return to our common humanity starts with us, with one broken relationship at a time… by humanizing one person, especially the one I disagree with.

I don’t really think Jesus is going to come floating out on a cloud tomorrow and rescue us, bring world peace, stop the world from coming apart at the seams. But I do think he has equipped each of us, in our own way, to save our own little part of the world – to hold up our part of the sky.

He returns to save us by asking us to save ourselves.

Photo cred: Don Ross III via Unsplash