I saw a man today. Actually, I heard him before I saw him.

That happens when you work on Main Street USA … you hear things. The loud squeal of breaks as a semi stops for the red light. Laughter of the ladies passing by on their way to the dress shop. Not so private phone calls of folks who’ve forgotten there’s only a pane of glass between them and me. An occasional solitary soul conversing loudly with herself. The gregarious shop owner across the street who greets her customers as friends.

Yes, life is noisy on Main Street USA, and for the past nine months, I’ve collected a lot of town secrets. I’m tempted to say I’ve heard it all. At least I thought I had …

Until today. Until he walked by.

He had on a feed sack, cinched at the waist. Long hair tucked haphazardly beneath a toboggan. He carried a megaphone. Greater still, he carried a burden.

“Repent for the kingdom of heaven is near.”

He followed it up with scripture and other words, but it was these that stuck with me.

Quietly I collected the tears in my hands while whispering, “Just like the prophets of old … like John at the Jordan.” Instead of thinking him daft, I thought of him with wonder … with wishing that I could be brave, could stop what I was doing and join him on the road of repentance. To come alongside him in his grief. To cry out for a nation that has clearly lost its way. On his return trip down the opposite side of Main Street USA, I snapped a picture and heard him exclaim to the curious,

“I love my country. I care about what’s happening in our country. Repent for the kingdom of heaven is near.”

And I was broken into pieces for I, too, love my country and deeply feel its fracture tonight.

I don’t know how to fix it; I’m not even certain that I want to take on such burden. But what I do know is that, for a few hours today, my heart was completely willing to trade in my khakis and soft sweater for the scratchiness of sackcloth.

It seems the best course of action for the rancor on Main Street USA this evening.

Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.

Surely it won’t be long in coming … the kingdom.

Repentance is our only way forward; it’s the only way home.

May God in his mercy give us enough time to get it right.