Meeting in the Margins: An Invitation to Encounter Society's Invisible People [Paperback]

When Cynthia Trenshaw, recently widowed, moves to Berkeley, she thinks the reason she has transplanted herself is to earn her master’s degree in theology. But when, step by unexpected step, she is drawn into the cultural borderlands where society’s “invisible people” reside, she encounters dispossessed and demanding teachers not listed on any academic roster—and becomes immersed in a heady curriculum of helplessness and joy, wisdom and pain. A book that encourages readers to receive the generosity and reciprocity of the margins,Meeting in the Marginsoffers guidance for how we can all, as individuals, begin to repair the rift between the margins and the mainstream of society—simply by being profoundly present.Cynthia Trenshaw earned national certification as hospital chaplain and as massage therapist. She holds WA state certifications as professional guardian, guardian ad litem, and nursing assistant-registered. She holds a master’s degree in theology (MTh) from Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley. Three of the chapters fromMeeting in the Marginshave been published in an anthology and a literary journal, and her essays and poetry have been published in a variety of magazines and journals over the past ten years. She blogs regularly at www.cynthiatrenshaw.com.2018 IPPY Gold Medal Winner in Current Events II (Social Issues/Humanitarian)“Meeting in the Marginsis a dangerous book. It will move you, shake you, change you, and leave you with a profound sense that you have been in the presence of the holy. Cynthia Trenshaw’s intention is to do just that. She is a brilliant writer. Simply by telling the truth in stories that she herself has lived, she takes us into touching distance of those whom Rabindrinath Tagore called ‘the poorest, the lowliest, and lost.’”
—Pat Schneider, author ofWriting Alone and With Others, andHow the Light Gets In: Writing as a lc&