Last week, my husband Glenn and I rode down to the docks in Nanticoke an hour before sunset. Yes, a kind of romantic setting at least until the mosquitos arrived in force. While we were driving on back roads toward town, he pointed out a grove of tall, thin-leafed plants on the edge of the roadway – between the woods and the farmland. He explained, “See those plants – that’s where the marsh land is. When you see them, you know the land is hard to build on. And if they are growing there, regular crops can’t. It’s just how it is. ”
That “just how it is” area I saw was an ecotone. Ecotones are the margins in the environment where two very different worlds meet and integrate. Like the transition areas between forest and field, ecotones allow for an expression of growth that takes some of this and some of that to create an environment where inclusion and cooperation are seen at their best. Yet too often, we overlook these naturally occurring margins in the environment to find land more suited to our purposes.
Margins become areas to avoid rather than to embrace.
The first time I ever heard about margins was in elementary school. Margins were necessary to keep us between the lines on the paper whether notebook page or coloring page. But as I grew older, I realized “staying in your lane” was the unseen, and not questioned, barriers created by society – of course, they were all for our good. Or so we were told. However, by staying inside the lines set by the culture, we fail to see life from a fresh perspective. Maybe from the impromptu artwork that emerges in the margin of the page. Or maybe in the friendship with someone from across a pre-determined societal boundary. In the margin is where we can encounter the wonderfully unique messiness of our Creator God. Margins actually are necessary to see the fullness of Gospel truths, like hope, grace, and trust. And to best understand the importance of the margin, all you have to do is to look to the land.
In Paul Hunter’s article, “Farming in the Margins,” he says,
“ we need to consider farming as both a negative and a positive activity, a set of choices, as much what you don’t do as what you do. If cultivation deliberately erases the diversity of nature, in favor of a few selected species, then the laissez-faire, the “let-be” of the margins, is a chance for nature to recover, maintain itself and carry on… the margins are where we overlap, where we test our absolutes. Where we touch. Whose land, whose barrier is this?
The year 2020 marks the 30th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act where the importance and inclusion of the people in the corner of society labeled “disabled” were acknowledged. While great strides have been made over the past three decades, one truth is clear: legislation may give access to the margin, but relationship only happens by encountering the margin. Relationships that include, and not just identify, differences in ability can add layers of richness to soil of our lives and the life of our church for growing kingdom fruit. For Kingdom crops can grow anywhere, especially in the margins.
Just transplanting those plants, called phragmite,s into the typical farm field would kill the plant. And trying to transplant people with disabilities into the way of doing church like the able-privileged majority is not organic and can kill the human spirit. If churches are to truly integrate and cooperate with people in the margin, then they must be willing to get out of the corner of the familiar field and into the neighboring ecotone. And yes, that can get messy.
When the Apostle Paul said “we are God’s field, we are God’s farm”, he said the statement as a fact – not a suggestion. In the 20th century, the church has welcomed people with disabilities to “taste and see that the Lord is good”, but have not included them to the level to which they were asked to take part in the preparation, planting, and harvesting of the land meant for Kingdom growing. The cry of “nothing for us without us” can still be heard in the halls of legislature and should be echoing in the halls of our churches today.
And yet we remain worried about staying within our lines. The division in the United Methodist denomination and in our American nation is all about who is in the forest and who is in the field. Very little attention is paid to the margin existing between the two unless it will result in leverage for one side or the other. Few are paying attention to this rich land for growing the counter-cultural, life-changing and Spirit-infused gospel. Folks, we are forgetting we are God’s field for God’s purpose. Not our own. And that the Gospel is a hardy seed.
As we read in the Gospel of Mark, “He taught them many things by parables, and in his teaching said :“Listen! A farmer went out to sow his seed..”. Did you catch that? The farmer went out. Out of the building. Out of her comfort zone. Out of pre-set lines to get hands dirty and appearances messy. To take the everlasting gospel seed of hope and grace and peace from where it was to where it needed to be.
On the way home from that evening jaunt, I did a little Google research on my phone concerning those plants of the “in-between” place. While those phragmites are seen only to be an invasive plant by neighbors down near the docks, in other areas of the world they are used to create thatch roofs, weave mats, and provide edible food source. And recently, while local environmentalists are trying to manage its negative aspects on the environment, the plant has actually been deemed as helpful in protecting the natural wetlands from sea-level rise and erosion. Guess it all depends upon your perspective and willingness to learn.
Church, it’s time to start farming in the margin where inclusion and cooperation are part of the organic process. And who knows? Maybe a new growth will come up that will bear fruit for the Kingdom in the way that the forest and the field never could. And wouldn’t that be a harvest to behold!
Paul Hunter, “Farming the Margins”, Small Farmers Journal blog. Accessed 7/29/2020