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

God, you’ve shone your flashlight in my heart and known me.

You know each movement I make, even when I’m asleep and unaware. I can’t see you, but you get the way my brain works. Whether I’m walking into a cathedral or the bathroom, you’ve got an eye on my path.

Before I’ve said a word, you know what I’m going to say.

You’ve encircled me – past, present, and future. You’ve put your hand on my anxious heart and settled it with your touch. I don’t understand it, and never will.

Where can I go to get away from all of this attention? Can I run away?

If I’m having a great day and walking The Path, you’re there.

If I’ve made a cozy little nest for myself in hell, yep, you’re there, too.

If I sprout wings and try to escape to the mountains or to the deepest ocean, that calming hand is still leading me, still holding me.

Even when I think it’s too dark, I’m too sad, and I’m beginning to fail and give in to the night, you look around and see daylight. You see the brightness when I can only see the dark. Because you created them, they’re both the same to you.

This is all possible because you created me with your hands and heart and imagination. Like a knitter, you designed and stitched me together when I was still in my mama’s belly. You made my emotions, my longings, my anger, my desires.

Thank you for that. Thank you for creating me in such a mysterious, wonderful way. The way you work is super cool; I feel this in the depths of my tattered soul.

Even when I was a little dot – a “fetus” – not able to sustain life, you knew what this body would look like. Not even my mom knew I existed, but you did, and like a skilled craftsman, you were forging me in the depths of the earth. You saw what I would be. You saw each day of my life, even moment I would live, written on the book of your heart before I even took my first breath.

Your thoughts mystify and overwhelm me in their numbers, their goodness, their foreknowledge. I couldn’t count them if I tried. Yet, here I am, awake, with You, great one.

In my humanness, I wish you would kill the wicked, take away those in my life who hate you, mock you. I hate them because they hate you. They’re my enemies now. And I know that you want to take away that hate, because you are love.

Shine your flashlight on my heart, God. Dig around, ask questions, help me understand my anxiety. See if there’s anything in me that would cause pain to myself or others and lead me to a better, more sustainable way.

**not meant to be a word for word translation