There are a number of references in the Bible about rescue from above. And I suppose there are many people around the world—whether or not they consider themselves religious—who hope to be bailed out of whatever trouble they might find themselves in.
This is from the 18th Psalm.
He reached down from above and took hold of me; he pulled me out of the deep waters.
And this is from the 40th Psalm.
I waited patiently for the LORD to help me, and he turned to me and heard my cry.
He lifted me out of the pit of despair, out of the mud and the mire.
He set my feet on solid ground and steadied me as I walked along.
He has given me a new song to sing, a hymn of praise to our God.
Many will see what he has done and be amazed.
They will put their trust in the LORD.
Rescue from above. There is a rescuing from above that is real. Not that angels are going to come down on a cloud with harps. But there is a reality above our immediate human experience that is available to us all. The very source of Life never goes away. As long as we have breath, it’s right there. The source of Love is present with us.
We are being loved so much every moment of every day. Can you think of a greater gift or a greater sign that you are being loved? You are being given life by the universe. We all are. That’s Love. We are each being loved from above and given life.
As we know that for ourselves, we become the ones who are coming into the world from above to rescue it from its troubles by our presence. We are coming from above. That’s the very nature of incarnation.
You could look at this as a historical matter. When we were born, we came from out of the Invisible into human flesh. That’s just the plain fact of it. We weren’t manifest in form, and then we were. But this isn’t only historical. It is happening right here and now.
Here am I; send me. We come from an invisible place into the visible, to bring creativity into the world. We could think of the state of the world globally. And if you look at the world today, it clearly needs something of a global proportion. At the same time, for each of us individually, the power coming from above lands in the here and now, exactly where we are.
Initially, it lands in the physical body, in the mind and heart, and in the conscious awareness that is individual to each of us. As it’s said, we have to grow where we’re planted, and we’re planted right here. There’s right here, in terms of our own individual humanity, and then there is the world that is closest to us and the people closest to us.
How do we bring something to this immediate world? And how do we perform the rescue from above, if we don’t begin with right where we are? That’s where we are empowered to channel our creativity—right here, with the factors in our own life experience, whatever they may be, and with the people near us.
Do you ever find yourself shocked by another person’s humanity? I can’t believe they could say something like that! I can’t believe they could be that way! If we are going to be part of the rescue from above, we have to get over being shocked. If we can be here for our humanity, we can be there for another person’s humanity. We didn’t show up in their life to be shocked. We are fully present, ready to perform the rescue from above.
Rescue may be a strong word. But you might have noticed that the dynamics in your own life do not go well without you showing up for them. If you didn’t, things could go downhill quickly. The same is true of the immediate world. Our presence is a critical factor. And so, in that sense, we are performing a rescue.
So, yes, you’ve got to show up for yourself. You’ve got to show up for other people. Any relationship doesn’t go well with another person if you don’t show up for it.
Your family doesn’t do well if you don’t show up for them. Your community doesn’t do well if you don’t show up for your community. So being planted in the here and now, dropping in from above, we have a chance to show up in every moment. We have a chance to perform a rescue mission, to save the world from where it could go if we’re not there.
Ready to drop in? To perform the rescue mission? We’re all here for that. We can have ideas about something global. Perhaps we have a world vision of hope and possibility. Some say we are at a tipping point. Some say we are entering a new age. And maybe there is something to those visions. But world vision is a pipe dream if we’re not showing up in the here and now. This is where we have creative power.
What is the nature of that power? It is the power of Life. It is the ability to make things grow. It is not an absolute power, in the sense that we can impose it on other people or on our world. There have to be the fertile conditions that are conducive for Life to proliferate in the human experience and in the world. And yet it is the power of Life through a person that establishes those favorable conditions for Life to flourish. That is what we bring as someone who rescues from above.
Part of the rescue mission requires that we address the hidden things that undermine the emergence of Life in human experience—the hidden grief, the secret shame, and unresolved angst of the human soul. The rescue mission brings the Spirit of Love from on high. In that Spirit, we see what has been swept under the carpet. We bring the only thing that has the power to heal the hidden hurts—the Spirit of the Highest Love.
As there is a collective of individuals having this experience, we have the potential then to bring a creative power that is global in scope. We then begin to perform a rescue from above of global proportions. We hear a voice from above that is larger than any individual human voice. We bring a Love from above that is far beyond any human Love.