Room in the Margins
Table Talk
Setting the Table
You are welcome here. Come just as you are, bringing whatever is on your heart today. Take a few moments and allow yourself to just be. Take a couple deep breaths, grab yourself a cup of coffee, light a candle, do something that brings you comfort. Allow yourself to be present in this moment.
What would it look like to offer others—and yourself—the grace of being unfinished?
We need to give each other the space to grow, to be ourselves... to receive such beautiful things as ideas, openness, dignity, joy, healing, and inclusion.
― Max De Pree
Be patient with each other. Be understanding. Love each other. You are more than your worst moment.
― Nadia Bolz-Weber
Colossians 3.12-14
As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another... Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.
Food for Thought
Several years ago, I moved to a new city. And though it was a wonderful community, I felt the pressure to get every conversation exactly right. When you are new, every meeting feels like an audition. You must prove yourself worthy of a call back in every exchange. You must be the funniest and smartest version of yourself—every comment #inspo. Every observation, deep.
I remember one encounter: I made a comment to someone new that I immediately wanted to explain with pages of backstory and caveats. It wasn’t egregious — it may not have even registered as odd. As I agonized I realized that yes, I wanted a do-over, but what I really wanted was margin — a bit of breathing room, some grace — around the edges of the conversation. I wanted to stop holding my breath and fearing that the next thing I said would doom me to isolation forever. I yearned for the luxury of context, of missteps and try-agains, and of friendships forged with both connection and forgiveness.
The unknowns of the new attuned me to the gift of life lived in community over time. In Boston, I had friends with whom I could stumble through sentences. I had time to say deep things and weird things, to preach good sermons and mediocre ones, to be known in a nuanced way.
I longed for margin — some space around the edges — to be and become.
When writing, I find margins to be helpful boundaries. They need not be permanent. Sometimes they are too constricting or accountable to systems that do not serve the task at hand. I need fewer edges and more space to spill over. Sometimes they need to be honed to resource a new focus or project: a “good enough” that is also its own freedom. They help me locate myself and, in turn, show up to others. Margins guide the writing.
One of the great gifts of my life is friends who find our differences opportunities for curiosity rather than consternation. I have been fortunate to have friends with whom I can be vulnerable about my partially-formed opinions, fragile hopes, and raw regrets. Friends who meet my questions with openness and curiosity. Friends who challenge, ask new questions, and with whom I can disagree. Loved ones who do not shy away from a sentence that begins, “I feel stupid not knowing this but...” Or, “It seems like everyone already knows this, but…" Or, “I always thought that way was up, but it sounds like you think my way is down. Can you help me understand why?” Affording margin to others in community is a practice of welcome — offering spaces where we get to make mistakes and try again, set new boundaries, and lend context to one another’s stories. Welcome is about greeting others and ourselves in our becoming.
When I reflect on the biblical images of tables and banquets and feasts that offer reminders of the kind of love and provision God provides and longs for us to share with one another, I think of the table as one where the conversation goes on for a while — long enough to say the right and wrong things. Long enough to linger with people with whom, when we are not our best, there is time and space to learn, to say we are sorry, and to try again.
This is not to say anything goes. Hoping for more margin — or considering whether and when we want to extend more margin to others — is not the same as no boundaries or no accountability. Not all conversations and relitigations are entertained. We discern carefully around our own capacities, histories, and hopes. Many margins are hard-fought, essential, and upheld. And they are very good.
And, sometimes, if and when we can, we hold curiosity alongside and within the margins we have offered. A breath. A pause. A bit of space in our heart for someone. The benefit of the doubt, without the expectation of forever — simply being with people at the beginning of a thought, or the beginning of a new direction, or simply as they are in this moment. In this way, we set tables, we show up to tables, we stumble up to tables, that make space for old friends and new friends alike to begin.
Create a space (in your home, church, or community group) where people are invited to share unfinished thoughts, half-formed questions, or stories in progress. Encourage margin in conversation — space to explore, stumble, and be met with kindness.
Maybe keep a small journal or shared space (a wall, board, or digital note) for reflections on where you need margin — and where you're offering it.
For a printable version of today's reflection Click Here!
Blessing
God of spacious grace,
Thank You for meeting us in our unfinished places and loving us as we are. Help us create room — for ourselves and others — to grow, to stumble, to begin again, and to become more fully who You’ve made us to be.
Amen.
A little Table Talk for your table...
When have you felt the pressure to "get it right" in a conversation or relationship? What would it have looked like to have more margin in that moment?
What does it mean to you to offer someone else the space to be imperfect? How do you balance grace with accountability in community?
Can you name a time when someone welcomed you in your becoming — when you didn't have to have all the answers or be at your best? What did that experience teach you about love or belonging?
Try taking it to the Kids Table...
Talk with your kiddos about a time they said something they wished they could take back or explain better. Have them reflect on how it felt in the moment and what they might have needed — like time, understanding, or a second chance.
Ask your kiddos what they think about second chances. What does it mean to forgive or be forgiven? Talk together about ways to show grace when someone makes a mistake.
Write down the name of a person or a place where they feel safe being fully themselves. Talk together about what makes those spaces feel welcoming and how they might help create that kind of space for others.
Meet This WEek’s Writer...
Rev. Kathryn House, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor of Leadership Studies and Practical Theology and Chair of the Rev. Dr. Lee Barker Professorship of Leadership Studies at Meadville Lombard Theological School. Originally from Morganton, NC, and after fifteen years in Boston, MA, she now resides in Louisville, KY. She is an ordained Baptist pastor and member of the First Baptist Church in Jamaica Plain. Her teaching and scholarship are generated at intersections of trauma-informed spiritual care, purity culture, liberative theologies, and leadership studies. She loves mysteries, good jokes, spending time with her family, and working on her deadlift.
To hear more from the Rev. Kathryn throughout the week, follow along on our Instagram!