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Margins
by Major Danielle
Strickland
I’ve made a life choosing
to posture myself in the margins... with the people in the
margins. I did this to model the life Jesus lived. Completely
on purpose, Jesus hung out with people who were not of the
'mainstream'. People who made 'normal' people uncomfortable.
People who don't know their place in society - or who just
don't care.
I remember a good picture
of this in my life when I took two of my friends from the
margins of the downtown eastside of Vancouver to Missions Fest
Vancouver. Although it was just down the street - about a
fifteen minute walk - it was a lifetime away in social status.
Once we were seated my friend Annie thought it a good time to
spread out her collected 'butts' and spread them out on the
carpeted floor of the venue so she could roll a few nice new
smokes while everyone was busy singing hymns. My other friend
Stephanie was so bored at the event that she simply kept
looking around at everyone and announcing to me (as though
they weren't real) 'how do people sit through this?' which I
think was less a ruse and more a genuine question coming from
her.
What I now realise is that
the poor don't need me. People in the margins don't really
need charity or mercy from people in the status quo - because
they don't get their affirmation or their value from people in
the mainstream. They never have. That's why they live in the
margins. They have chosen a different value system, a
different way of life - and the things they measure and the
way they live is so completely different to me it's like we
grew up on different planets. and we mostly did. What I did
come to see is that they don't need me - but I need them.
I need a life that is free
from the facade of lukewarm vanilla living. I need to measure
something other than the length of the grass on my lawn and
the shade of paint on the walls of my suburban home. I need to
measure my life in things that actually matter. I need to
un-Martha Stewart myself until I can actually feel again.
Until I can admit my own weakness and laugh at my need for
control. Until I can see others for who they really are and
stop judging them on what they are wearing or their latest
highlights. I need them.
What the margins have
taught me is that there are different ways to live. I can see
why Jesus chose to hang out there every chance he got.
These days I live in
suburbia. I didn't choose it - I was sent. And I've spent
three years raging against the warm glow of comfort that
threatens to put me in a spiritual slumber. This week I was
talking to a great friend who has discovered the same truth.
The margins don't need us - we need them. And so I long for
the discomforting presence of smelly people who defy the
status quo. I find myself hoping for some caramel flavour in a
vanilla world where even my own appetite bores me. I realise
just how toxic the mainstream becomes without a prophetic
voice to wake us out of our spiritual slumber. There must be
better things to invest in than Costco? For this longing, even
an eggnog latte will not suffice.
So, we have decided to
create a spiritual survivor guide for the suburbs. Not just a
book but actually to live it out. A shocking idea. Chapter
one. Wake Up. Wake up to your desperate need of awakening.
Wake up from the slow, thick fog of wealth and ease. Wake up
from everything neat and tidy and details of minutia that will
cause us all to die a death of a thousand paper cuts. Wake up
and head to the margins... even if just to visit. Because a
prophet, dressed in the most inappropriate of clothing, using
the most inappropriate language and hanging out in the most
inappropriate of places is waiting for you. The prophets
always lived in the margins, living out the very word of God
in the world... awake to the reality and words of a living
God. I need this godly prophetic place. I need the margins to
wake me up on the inside. (stay tuned for the book, due out
sometime in the future!)
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