Sound the alarms! There’s no time to lose! The world seems to be spinning out of control with craziness. We can ill afford to waste another minute. Let every able body—man, woman, and child—step forward now with unwavering resolve and courage.

It’s time to put everything we’ve got to give to end the hatred, division, and violence. Indeed, this is a call to arms!

We’ve all got to use the arms we have in every way we can with every opportunity until we bring a halt to the world’s growing madness.

We have used our arms to hug those we know and love. Now we begin to use them to embrace strangers who are suffering and in need of our love. We’ll use them to wrap around all the children of the world. We’ll reach out our arms to draw close our elderly and give them comfort.

With this call to arms we’ll fling our arms wide open to signal our own willingness to welcome all beings. Regardless of the vast differences trying to separate us, we’ll hold firmly to our connections.

There will be times when our arms seem to act of their own free will. When we have the opportunity to cheer someone else’s efforts or success, those arms will pump and reach toward the sky in celebration.

Sometimes our arms may be overhead as we acknowledge the presence of God. Or maybe with our arms at our sides we join our hands, palms and fingers, as we earnestly pray for God’s help to bring love and peace.

When words seem to fall short, we can stand with our ams folded across our chest, a visual sign of our love and gratitude for persons in our midst.

Moving on to the ends of our arms, let us regularly extend our hands to others. Extend them to turn strangers into friends. Outstretch them to anyone who needs our help. Offer them as a way to open the door to love and understanding with our enemies.

Yes, absolutely! Arms and hands to display kindness and compassion to every single person we encounter.

It’s time to lay down all weapons designed to harm—our hatred, unhelpful speech, tweets, Facebook posts, etc. It’s time to throw away our judgment, intolerance, and all notions that we are in any way better than another person.

Returning hatred with more hatred solves nothing. All it does is beget more hatred. Just as light is the only thing to drive out the darkness, so it is that love is the only force capable of overcoming hatred.

The time has come to strap on the body armor of tolerance and tenderness. In all our ways, we are called to become the love of the God we profess to love.

Paraphrasing and tagging on to the words of John Wesley, let’s respond to this call to arms by committing our own arms to “Do all the good we can, by all the means we can, in all the ways we can, in all the places we can, at all the times we can, to all the people we can, as long as ever we can.”

And maybe then we’ll feel the tide shifting and the swell building toward true peace, love, and unity.