Green Shoots: The challenge of love for those at the margins

This column is appearing on the day the leader of the Catholic Church is being buried. World leaders universally have hailed Pope Francis as a man of the people. Tributes to his love for humanity have come from all quarters, from theologians and clergy, and from high-profile voices and commentators on social and political affairs. For me the most poignant expression of grief came from the priests and parishioners of the Holy Family Church in Gaza City.

Francis phoned them every day amidst the Israeli assault to let them know he held them in his heart, that every single day they were foremost in his thoughts. It is this solidarity with those at the margins that the world will now miss. And whether Catholic or Protestant, religious or atheist, I reckon that if this doesn’t challenge us all to reflect on how we see the world and engage with it, we miss a chance to share and amplify Francis’ legacy of justice, peace, and love for those at the margins.

It got me thinking that it is at the margins of society where change happens. So many of us are comfortable in our existence in the centre. The centre is where you are accepted, where there is certainty and order in how things work. It usually involves having resources (money), and that gives us the security that enables us to navigate a world that is quite difficult to be in at the moment. The safety and security of being in the centre - inside the castle walls - is reassuring, and requires only that you maintain it and your place in it.

At the margins is where the struggle to survive shapes and determines your life. Living at the margins of society is scary. People there must manage an ever-present existential threat, whether it’s from genocidal bombers or greedy warmongers in places like Gaza or Sudan. It could be the threats to survival that poverty brings, the inability to feed yourself or your family. Or you could be navigating the constant threat to your personal safety for being gay or lesbian, or a woman, or a migrant, or a child.

We have created a society that needs those at the margins so that the centre can exist. We have set it up like that – it isn’t accidental, and it focuses our actions and thoughts to maintaining it. We go through life with blinkers, not looking left or right so as not to be distracted from doing what is required to maintain the privilege of being in the inner sanctum. How much does that prevent us from imagining something different, from taking inspiration from those who are not constrained by privilege?

To see and acknowledge and love, like Francis did, those who are at the margins is not about charity and pity. It is about leaving the safety of our privilege and engaging with those who struggle every day for their dignity, and learning from that. It is about suspending the certainty that the centre has the answers, and instead allowing ourselves to imagine a different way of being that doesn’t require the marginalisation or exploitation of anybody.

When he was chosen to lead the church, the Pope chose the name Francis. St Francis of Assisi, in the 13 th century, chose to reject the privilege of his family’s wealth to be with those at the margins. I have no doubt he too saw how great the cost of maintaining the centre was  to humanity and the earth, much like Pope Francis did. We would do well for ourselves and the world to heed that challenge.