The Gift of the Margins
“When we are willing to step outside our comfortable circles, we discover that God has been waiting for us there all along.”
I never thought a whole lot about it, even though it has been part of my life for years.
For many years, I have gone a couple of times a week—often in the evenings and on weekends—to visit the young people at the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center (CCJTDC). Both Fr. Denny and I continue to maintain a regular presence with these young people, some of whom remain in detention for months and, at times, even years.
Admittedly, I often arrive after a full day of work already dragging a bit. My energy is low, and I don’t always feel up to adding more hours to my day—especially hours that can be emotionally intense. But something happens every time.
I come home from these visits with a different attitude. I drive home feeling energized, renewed, and spiritually fed. Somehow, the very people I feel called to accompany have become the ones who feed me.
Perhaps it’s because they teach me something about what really matters.
The young people in detention don’t worry much about the trappings we sometimes consider so important. They don’t care about degrees, accomplishments, titles, or the hierarchical ladder. They aren’t particularly impressed by what we have achieved or where we fit into the structures of society.
What matters to them is much more basic: Are you real? Are you authentic? Do you genuinely care? Are you truthful?
They have little patience for long-winded conversations about religion or social issues. They don’t need another lecture. They invite us simply to be who we are—fellow sojourners willing to take the time to care.
They may never use the language of Richard Rohr or other spiritual writers, but they recognize someone who is truly “in love” with them—someone who carries genuine love and care in their heart.
There is something profoundly spiritual about that recognition.
Perhaps that is why Jesus so often called his disciples to the margins. He understood the dangers of becoming attached to power, prestige, and possessions. He knew how easily we can begin to measure ourselves by our accomplishments, our status, and the opinions of others.
So Jesus kept leading his followers toward people and places that challenged their assumptions. He led them to the poor, the sick, the outsider, the prisoner, the forgotten, and those whom “respectable” society preferred not to see. At the margins, the disciples encountered people who had been pushed aside—and, in the process, they discovered something about themselves.
Jesus was teaching them who they really were.
When we come to know and accept our true selves, kindness, care, and compassion begin to flow more naturally. We don’t have to work so hard at being loving. We simply begin to live from the love that is already within us.
Richard Rohr often speaks of the spiritual journey as a movement beyond our comfortable circles and familiar ways of seeing. We can remain enclosed in our own little worlds, surrounded by people who look like us, think like us, and reinforce what we already believe. Or we can allow ourselves to cross the boundaries that separate us from others.
The margins have a way of doing just that.
They strip away some of our illusions. They remind us that the person standing before us is not a problem to be solved or a category to be understood. That person is a human being—a child of God, just as we are.
Perhaps that is one of the great gifts of the margins. When we are willing to step outside our comfortable circles, we discover that God has been waiting for us there all along.
And sometimes, after a long day when we feel we have very little left to give, we discover that we are the ones who have received the gift.
Reimagining Justice in Illinois: A Restorative Justice Blueprint for Illinois’ Criminal Legal System
