this part of the monthly synchroblog i enjoy being a part of, bloggers writing on the same topic on the same day. november’s is a topic near & dear to my heart, seeing through the eyes of the marginalized. i encourage you to check out some of the other writers who participated, the link list is at the bottom of this post & i’ll add to it as new ones come in over the course of today. if you’re a blogger & want to be part of future synchroblogs, you can join on facebook or go to our new synchroblog site and subscribe.
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i don’t know how many of you have had the experience of having to sit at the rickety-card-table-that-is-set-up-in-the-family-room-or-some-other-weird-awkward-space for the special holiday meal. you know those moments where somehow everyone can’t fit at the “nice” table so there’s the second-rate overflow with the kids or the late-comers to the party. i know some people prefer to sit there, so this metaphor might be a stretch, but when i was thinking about seeing life through the eyes of the marginalized that was one of the first images that came to mind.
to me, when it comes to the marginalized, the card-table-set-up-in-the-family-room during thanksgiving dinner represents getting “the scraps”, a sometimes subtle, sometimes direct message that:
- “we’re glad you came but there’s really no room for you to sit with us.”
- ” the power is all at the big, fancy table.”
- “we’re not really equal.”
- “we’re not like you.”
- “we are in control, and don’t forget it.”
- “we sort of want to listen to you, sort of want you around, but not enough to make room for you at this table.”
in my current life situation, i am not marginalized in many ways. i am married, white, and have a graduate school education, health insurance & a host of other privileges. but when it comes to being a female lead pastor from an evangelical-y world, i know the feeling of sitting at the card-table-in-the-other-room-while-all-the-players-are-at-the-power-table. it’s a really crappy, lonely, inadequate feeling. it gives me a pit in my stomach when i even think about it. and while over the past few years i have come to accept its realities & lean on the wonderful love & acceptance i do have (and now, honestly, i’m having way more fun sitting at the card table) it still feels so sad & weird to me–the unwelcomeness, the division, the segregation, the power differentials, the us & them mentality–especially in the kingdom of God.
so many people i know are used to sitting at the card table. they’ve never been invited to the big table. ever. they are used to eating scraps and being satisfied with anything they can get. they do not expect anything. and actually a lot of friends quit bothering even coming over for dinner.
to me, in the kingdom of God, the table is supposed to be big, and i do mean big. making room for everyone–the fringers, the lonely, the not-so-loud-and-not-so-sure, the poor, the rich, the educated, the uneducated, men, women, gay, straight, black, white, brown, young, old, liberal, conservative, and everything in between. when there’s not enough room at the current one, we’re supposed to get up and find some leaves and scooch in some more chairs.
or maybe what’s actually supposed to happen is everyone who’s been used to the fancy table needs to get up and go sit around the card table & listen to the conversations there. to eat on a plastic plate for a while & use a paper napkin. or maybe go hungry for a while. to listen & learn & find that even though we seem so different, in the end we’re all really longing for the same things. and over time, maybe what will happen is those two tables–and all the other kinds that seem to segregate and separate us–will somehow be muddled up & combined, chairs shifted around, the china mixed with the plasticware & all the neat-and-tidy-decorations-not-quite-so-neat-and-tidy-anymore.
we have so much to learn about how deep the grooves are in the culture we live in, not just in the world but in the church. since the beginning of time we have been divided, segregated, and power has been held in the hands of people who have not done well at distributing it. dignity has been stripped, voices silenced, pain minimized, and poverty perpetuated. the only way out, in my opinion, is through brave and wild steps taken in Jesus’ love–in actions not words–to shift-the-dynamics-of-the-power-table. amends must be made. humilty practiced. courage-stepped-into.
and this is what i think will give it a chance to happen–leaders from all shapes & sizes coming from the margins, who are used to sitting at some-kind-of-card table, who humbly & bravely model the kingdom of God despite all kinds of obstacles. a living-in-the-margins blog friend shared this quote with me a while back & it has really lingered and came back to mind as i was writing this post:
“…We need men and women who have previously been on the margins to come forth and lead us. In focusing so exclusively on our cognitive capacities, we have lost our imaginations. We need mystics. We need poets. We need prophets. We need apostles. We need artists. We need a church drawn out of the margins, drawn from the places and filled with people and shaped with competencies formerly thought to be of little account. In fact, perhaps it is from such ‘marginal’ communities as these that influence will begin to spread outward into communities that have been domesticated in a modern world and thus rendered docile. We need a wild vine grafted into the branch. We need alternate takes on reality. We need a different kind of leader – one who can create environments to nurture and release the imagination of God’s person.” – tim keel
so that’s my hope. big, wild, crazy, beautiful, eclectic tables where there’s room for everyone & the people sitting there are humble, spiritually poor, and ready for some really good food– the kind that only tastes good when it’s shared together.
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Other Bloggers Participating so far (a lot more links are coming over the course of today, we’ve got a great group sharing):
George at the Love Revolution – The Hierarchy of Dirt
Arthur Stewart – The Bank
Sonnie Swenston – Seeing through the Eyes of the Marginalized
Wendy McCaig – An Empty Chair at the Debate
Ellen Haroutunian – Reading the Bible from the Margins
Christine Sine – Seeing through the Eyes of the Marginalized
Alan Knox – Naming the Marginalized
Margaret Boehlman – Just Out of Sight
Liz Dyer – Step Away from the Keyhole
John O’Keefe – Viewing the World in Different Ways
Steve Hayes – Ministry to Refugees–Synchroblog on Marginalised People
Andries Louw – The South African Squatter Problem
Drew Tatusko – Invisible Margins of a White Male Body
K.W. Leslie – Who’s the Man? We Christians Are
Jacob Boelman – Seeing through the Eyes of the Marginalized
Peter Walker – Through the Eyes of the Marginalized
Cobus van Wyngaard – Addressing the Normalized Position
Tom Smith – Seeing Through the Eyes of the Marginalized
Christen Hansel – Foreigners and Feasts
Annie Bullock – Empty Empathy
Sonja Andrews – On Being Free