"There is room for all of us in the World!"

For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.

Nelson Mandela

Margins…..most of us are brought up to believe they are good things….

As children we are repeatedly told……

                        “now color inside the lines…… …”

In school, the teachers repeatedly tell us to

“keep our writing inside the lines and to stay away from the margins of the page…..”

Many of our homes are set on a designated plot of land….separated with dividing markers…so we know where our property ends and the other begins………..

     Margins:  They are good things ……..right???          

But throughout our history,

 margins have also been used to separate humans from each other and to build walls that divide…….

and truth be told …..many of us  know very little about what it might feel like to stand outside the margins …..we don’t know or fully comprehend what it might feel like to be pushed outside the box of what society considers normal and good….do we?

We don’t fully understand what it might mean to be separated by the margins of culture and sexual orientation and religion and age and financial security and even gender…do we?

………………….while we may struggle some…..I’d venture to say…

most of us have food to eat in our house…some of us more than enough

Most of us here have a safe place to live, air conditioning to keep us comfortable, cable TV to keep us entertained….Internet access to help us communicate and enough money to adequately clothe ourselves and many  us have even experienced the luxury of higher education which has increased our chances for greater promotion in the world….

We quite comfortable where we are…

we do a good job helping those less fortunate and life is good…………right? 

Margins for us have been a good thing…we have benefited from them……

For others in the world though……

they don’t have a clue what it feels like to inside the confines of what we have come to consider normal…………..Right here where we live as well as across the global world, there are people………

People standing outside the margins….

caught up in the cycle of poverty and despair,

Hoping for survival……

hoping for a hand to cross over the margins to pull them over…….

hoping for someone to help them slow down in the hamster wheel of survival……..

hoping and praying for something……….we all do  something….but

it has not been enough………it is not enough…and

it will not be enough….until each of us living on this planet

 have an equal piece of this pie called life ……

until the justice rolls down from somewhere or from someone

and people are granted equal opportunity for advancement regardless of race or gender or orientation or age or physical ability….     

  It is wrong… wrong….for us to live day after day in our privileged lives while our brothers and sisters are pushed further beyond the boundary of our margins.……

when those without are pushed further beyond the edges..

 when invisible walls are built that divide the world…  

……NOW most of want, at least intellectually, to do something to make a difference…..

to change the world…

.but most of us don’t even have a clue where we need to start…..over and over….I have experienced people caught on the outside looking in…..caught on the edges of the margins that divide us as…caught between the walls constructed to divide us…

• Mary is a pregnant mother…………She’s got five children already, and four of them live in foster care……..one with her mother…..Sex for Mary is a form of entertainment….a moment when she is connected to someone in the world…She dropped out of high school at 16 when she was pregnant with her first child…The first time I met her….she looked weathered and worn…..she refused to look up at me…..refused to engage with me in eye-contact…….all she really needed she said, was a little help with her rent so she could keep the heat on until she got her check at the first of the month…..………….and there I stood…..in the midst of margins….margins that divide the  world….

• …….I met Manuel as I volunteered at a local church providing food for the hungry……He was in the food line that cool Sunday morning….I pouring coffee into cups and watching hands pick up the cups as they passed…….tan hands, white dirty hands, black hands, wrinkled hands, even tiny sticky hands………..As they passed I begin to wonder why I privileged enough to be the coffee pourer and not one in the food line…… …….As Manuel, a migrant worker working the tobacco fields walked through, I lifted my eyes…..and for a brief moment, our eyes met……….migrant worker and church volunteer………………and there we stood……in the midst of margins…..margins that divide the world
• …..His body is withered and though he is only a young teen, he wears diapers and a bib and must be attended by his mother, father, sister or caretaker…….He has little ability to communicate…he cannot walk or talk……………I met Ryan walking down the street one day…..His nurse was pushing him in his wheelchair………..and I spoke to her and looked at Ryan….and there we stood….stood in the midst of margins….margins that  God’s world….
• ……Elizabeth looked at me as she sat across from me……..a well dressed business woman tears flowing down her eyes….…..I know God has called me to work as a deacon……….and the church has even affirmed that call……………..and the book of order says I cannot be ordained…….Is that what God intends?…..and there we stood….stood in the midst of margins….margins that divide the world……..
• Anthony…an older gentlemen……retired early from his high profile job in business because he repeatedly struggled with depression…….The day I met him at the hospital he had just yelled profanities …………I pulled my chair up next to him and introduced myself and ….there we sat…sat in the midst of margins that divide  world…

……………Where do we start???

….where it always begins…..by looking within, by allowing us to be convicted

……….by being present…

by looking for  into the depths of the eyes of all we encounter…

by touching a hand that might be dirty or wounded or slobbered on….

by stepping down our foot with courage and believing 

that we can and will make a difference in the world….

All people ought to have equal opportunity in God’s world…..

…………………and if they don’t’……

then we are called to make justice happen….

which is more than doing the things that make us feel good about who we are…

Erasing margins is hard work………………………

.it’s about engaging, touching, inviting, allowing ourselves to wrestle in those uncomfortable places that move us beyond our own preset  ideas about who is inside our world and who is not…. And calls each of us into an unknown adventure in the  world………where margins do not exist…….…………………..……and ALL people are invited to be part of a world that holds no boundaries…

where they can experience healing and be made whole by and through radical love……………

but it takes all of us……to make it happen….

to take down the bricks one by one, to erase the boundaries…to color outside the lines………………to build a world of openness where:

There is enough space

for The unwed mother,

The Latino/Latina migrant worker

There is space for those caught in the confines of their physical limitations,

for those who are mentally depressed or psychologically impaired….

for the single the married,  the straight, the lesbian, gay and transgendered…

for the poor, the disenfranchised, the homeless, the homeowner, the rich….

The strong the weak the old the young…..and thankfully…for you and for me….

In God’ world, there are no margins…

But it takes all of us to do it…..We’ve certainly got our work cut out for us…so let’s get busy!!!

….May we all begin to work toward making it a reality……

and now that I've said this big spill...

I have to confess...

there is room for the man at the library who cut line at the tax place in the gray sweat pants,

there room for the bearded asstronaut hole who was sick in my area...

there is room for the sister of mine who tried to burn a hole in my head yesterday....

there is indeed room enough for all

of us...

even if I don't want to be in the same room with everybody.....

may I do better tomorrow...for there is enough space...