cover image Meeting in the Margins: An Invitation to Encounter Society’s Invisible People

Meeting in the Margins: An Invitation to Encounter Society’s Invisible People

Cynthia Trenshaw. She Writes (IPS, dist.), $16.95 trade paper (208p) ISBN 978-1-63152-816-3

This well-written, often moving account of Trenshaw’s experiences among the homeless and other forgotten individuals at society’s margins evokes a range of responses: apprehension, admiration, revulsion, recognition, and perhaps shame in anyone who’s ever avoided the sight of a street person. Trenshaw, a chaplain and massage practitioner with a degree in theology, shares her experiences seeking out these invisible men and women and offering them not only massage (relaxing for both body and mind) but the greater gift of affirming their “realness” and “worth.” Her ministrations to the homeless, alcoholic, dementia-afflicted, and grieving are the stuff of sainthood, even if her account of them is accompanied by the occasional self-congratulatory note. More problematic is the author’s tendency, even as she describes what she does as grounded in science, to wrap much of her discussion in an awkward veneer of spirituality, referring, for example, to a colleague’s work as that of a “priestess intoning sacramental rubric,” and to the smell of urine as that of “holy incense.” This book is likely to arouse admiration for its author’s dedication and selflessness; it is less likely to result in readers accepting its subtitle’s invitation to follow her lead. (Oct.)