The Call
He said, “Son, when you grow up, would you be the savior of the broken, the beaten, and the damned?”
That quote from the song “Welcome to the Black Parade” has been stuck on loop in my internal playlist—skipping like my old Discman from the ’90s, the one I used to carry around everywhere.
The song continues:
“He said, ‘Will you defeat them—your demons, and all the non-believers, the plans that they have made?’”
Both of these lines come from someone speaking to him. And maybe that’s why it’s stuck on loop for me—because long before I ever heard this song, I had a similar voice in my life.
It didn’t sound like a voice in the traditional or literal sense. It was more of a feeling. A quiet pressure. A persistent echo. Something inside me that has always whispered: “Will you do something about this world’s relationship with certain kinds of people?”
And before I can even begin to respond, it tells me to defeat your demons. It reminds me of those in-flight brochures—the ones that tell you: In case of emergency, put your own oxygen mask on first before assisting others.
And that’s where I’ve been for most of my life. Trying to fight off my demons.
But it feels hopeless sometimes. They keep popping up—unexpected, uninvited, unrelenting.
How in the world am I ever supposed to do the other things… when I can’t even seem to lead myself through the things of this world?
The Floundering
“Be the savior of the broken, the beaten, the damned.”
“Be the savior.”
What if being the savior isn’t at all what I thought it meant?
Maybe—just maybe—it doesn’t mean to save or fix.
Maybe it means something else entirely.
And maybe… that’s where my journey has brought me.
Especially now, during this season of Lent.
Maybe I’ve been approaching it wrong.
Assuming something. Carrying a misunderstanding like a map I never questioned.
Maybe the very attempt of fighting my demons—of not giving up—I am in fact doing the other thing.
The savior thing.
Maybe being a savior is just showing up.
Being present in their space—and letting them be present in mine.
Maybe it was never a sequence of steps.
Not “defeat your demons first, then go help others.”
But it was a how-to guide the entire time.
The Response
If you want to do something about this world’s relationship with certain kinds of people… defeat your demons. Show them how.
And that is where I am. Scared. Fearful. I don’t know what I’m doing exactly. I’m winging it. I don’t know how to defeat certain aspects of this world. But I do know how to create environments—moments of time and space—where the world’s slings and arrows can’t penetrate me.
Maybe that’s why our ultimate Savior, Jesus Christ, was a carpenter. Our master to our apprenticeship. We build. We create these environments—moments of time and space—and if we build enough of them, they take over. They start to feel like that Kingdom we think can only exist outside of this world.
Maybe that’s why I was given the power and talent of empathy and creativity. Tools to use to build things. I need to build. I need to create. I need to show. As I build, I need to ask for help—to say I’m not well when I am not, in fact, well—so others know how to do the same and contribute to the great remodel.
We have Tabletop Fellowship at 6:30 tonight. A moment in time and space that exists here in this world in which the world’s slings and arrows can’t penetrate me—and you.
And maybe that’s enough for now.
Leave a Reply