There is no need to FIX anything or to CHANGE anything in order to shrink our social margins.
What is needed is simply to BE WITH, to risk crossing into the margins to encounter the “invisible people,” one fragile human seeing and listening to another.
A homeless encampment situated on a San Francisco toxic waste dump, where Cynthia was a massage practitioner for street people. (photo ©1998, C.Trenshaw)
The way I entered the margins was through serving as a chaplain in hospitals and hospices, and through offering seated massage therapy to homeless people on the streets and under the viaducts of San Francisco. Meeting in the Margins is a memoir of that work. I created this brief performance piece to answer the often-asked question, “But what did that LOOK like?”
And some of the questions that follow on that performance can be seen here:
Praise for Meeting in the Margins
“Cynthia Trenshaw has nerves of steel and a heart of gold, and she does a superb job of taking readers along with her as she carefully tends to some of the most overlooked and down-trodden members of our society. She steadfastly shines the light of compassion upon the lives of individuals who have fallen by the wayside in our fast-paced mainstream culture, showing readers that underneath the often shabby appearance of each of these individuals lies something else quite unexpected: tenderness, humor, wisdom, even a certain kind of nobility. I recommend her book to all readers who are not afraid to step outside their usual comfort zone and have an eye- opening, heartwarming experience amidst misfits and castoffs.”
BETSY MACGREGOR, MD, co-founder of the Enso House Residence for Care at the End of Life and author of In Awe of Being Human: A Doctor’s Stories from the Edge of Life
“Cynthia Trenshaw gifts us with an extraordinary window into the soul of the marginalized among us. In exquisite detail of both inner and outer moments of meeting on the streets, the reality of presence she evokes communicates through her stories; it sparks our own celebration of that precious sense of presence. Prepare to be deeply touched. Prepare to remember what is truly important in our lives. This book is itself a gift from soul to soul. Through her open-hearted memories, Trenshaw offers us all a most generous and luxurious soul massage!”
RABBI TED FALCON, PhD author of A Journey of Awakening and co-author of Religion Gone Astray and Getting to the Heart of Interfaith
“A beautifully written, challenging, and thought-provoking book, one that truly leads us to insights and recognitions that make it possible to contemplate a world that works for all. I haven’t seen anything like it. Cynthia’s book contributes to helping us see the world at the margins with clarity.”
MARGARET J. WHEATLEY, founder of the Berkana Institute and author of So Far From Home, Perseverance, Turning to One Another, and Leadership and the New Science
“Meeting in the Margins is 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 the poorest, the lowliest, and lost. Profoundly trained in massage, in chaplaincy, in theology, Trenshaw ultimately lays all that down in the simplicity of touch. Touch as sacrament, touch as presence. In hospice, by the bedside of an AIDS victim, and in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco, she kneels (and so we kneel) and massages the feet, the body, the shoulders, the head of an “untouch-able” (who has become ourselves). Doing so, she finds herself touched. And so does the reader. Meeting in the Margins is a powerful tool—it lifts us into hope; it belongs in the hands of all of those who would heal the broken world.”
PAT SCHNEIDER, author of How the Light Gets In: Writing as a Spiritual Practice and Writing Alone and With Others
“Cynthia Trenshaw is a gifted writer, massage therapist and pilgrim who has chosen to journey with those who are the most vulnerable in our society. As a writer, she conveys in vivid and powerful prose the heart-wrenching details of life on the street. As a massage therapist, she feels into their stories and anoints their soul-wounds with compassion and courage. As a pilgrim, she searches for meaning, her own and ours with every encounter. This is a prayer book as well as a textbook for those who choose to journey to the margins of society and be transformed.”
MARY ANN FINCH, founder/director of Care Through Touch Institute and author of Care Through Touch: Massage, the Art of Anointing
Selections from Meeting in the Margins have been chosen for the collection Pain and Memory published by Editions Bibliotekos, Inc.
Order Meeting in the Margins
Fondly Remembered Events
Performance piece and readings presented at
Tenth Annual Search for Meaning Festival, 2018
Seattle University, Seattle WA
Mondays July 10, 17, and 24, 2017 – 7:00pm
“Speak Now, or . . . ”
A three-session workshop on Preparing your Advance Directives
Unity of Whidbey Church
5671 Crawford Rd, Langley WA
Thursday, June 29, 2017 – 1:00-2:00
Live readings of “Ephtiki Singing,” and “The Prostitute and the Beautiful Man”
KWMR, 90.5 FM public radio, “Art’s Desire”
West Marin, CA
Tuesday, April 4, 2017 – 7:00–8:30 pm
Performance Piece – “Meeting in the Margins”
Followed by Author-Led Community Conversation
Healing Circles Langley
534 Camano Ave., Langley WA
Saturday, March 11, 2017 – 2:00 – 4:30
“Meetings in the Margins” performance
2017 Women of Whidbey Festival (WOW)
Whidbey Island Center for the Arts, Langley WA
Monday, January 23, 2017 – 11:30 – 12:30
Lecture for human service students
Skagit Valley College, Mt. Vernon WA
Saturday, November 19, 2016 – 1:00 – 2:30PM
Author-led Discussion
Lynden Library Book Club
216 4th St, Lynden WA
Saturday, November 19, 2016 – 10:00 – 11:00AM
Book Reading and Signing
Ferndale Area District Library
2125 Main St, Ferndale WA
Sunday, October 16, 2016 – 1:30 – 3:30PM
Social service workers, Olympia area
Do we help or do we serve?
St. Placid Priory, 500 College St NE, Lacey WA
Wednesday, October 5, 2016 – 2:00-3:00PM
Reading and Lecture for Skagit Valley College Nursing Students and Public
Oak Harbor Library
1000 SE Regatta Dr, Oak Harbor, WA
Wednesday, September 21, 2016 – 6:30PM
Book Reading and Discussion
Jefferson County Library
Port Hadlock, WA
Sunday, September 4, 2016
Serve or Help? Success or Failure?
10:00 AM – Sermon and after-service Forum
Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Whidbey Island
20103 SR-525, Freeland WA
Wednesday, August 24, 2016 – 7PM (EST)
“Virtual” Book Discussion (via speakerphone)
Centenary United Methodist Church
82 S Hancock St
Pentwater, MI
Thursday, April 28, 2016 – 1:00- 4:30PM
Island County Dept of Human Services Workshop
“Success or Failure? Who decides?”
Pacific Rim Institute
Coupeville, WA
Monday, March 14, 2016 – 6:00PM
Book Discussion
Book Owls Book Club
Clinton, WA
Friday, February 19, 2016, 6:00PM
Book Reading and Discussion
University Bookstore, Bellevue
990 102nd Ave NE, Bellevue
Thursday, January 21, 2016
Book Reading and Signing
Third Place Books
6504 20th Ave NE, Seattle WA
Tuesday, January 12, 2016, 1:30PM
Book Reading and Signing
Senior Center at Bayview
14594 SR 525, Langley WA
Tuesday, November 10, 2015, 6:30 – 7:30
Book Reading and Signing
Freeland Public Library
Freeland WA
Monday, November 9, 2015, 1:00-2:00
Book Reading and Signing
Freeland Public Library
Freeland WA
Tuesday, October 13, 2015, 6:30-8:30
Official Book Launch, Reading and Party
Enso House
6339 Wahl Rd
Freeland WA