Wednesday, July 5, 2023

MARGINS


Dear All of Us, 

When it comes to financial investments, 

I know next to nothing about margins.

When it comes to life investments, 

I know a thing or three about margins.

In the first case I totally rely on 

a trusted friend and financial adviser. 

His name is Darrell.

In the second case I totally rely on a trusted guide 

who keeps teaching me the secret of life on the margins. 

His name is Jesus.


Jesus is totally invested on the margins.

That's where he is to be found.

He centers with the outsiders, the ordinary, 

the humble, the hurt, needy, deprived

      - the no accounts.  

He accounts them blessed.  

He factors them first. 

It's a higher math. 

It's the paradox that flips conventional evaluations:  


The only way to maximize is to marginalize.

Expansion happens at the margins.


Jesus said it.

Jesus lived it.

Marginalized, pushed to the edge, 

he died it and received an unlimited return.

What a yield for us all.


All this was countercultural - and it still is.

World wisdom centers on self.

Its portfolio is to accumulate fame and fortune.

Its accounting draws inward.

It closes in on self.

That grabbing and pulling in 

isolates and limits.

What's locked in

locks in.


Jesus goes out to the edges and keeps going.

            No limits on the margins.

Expansion happens on the margins.

With him, the pushed-out become outgoing 

and that without call.

There are no hedges at the edges.

Those there are needful and thus open, 

ready to be in on God's expanding creation.


Put a whole other way,

      Clutch Clutters, Closes In. 

      Need Widens, Opens Up and Out.


In any economy return results from market exposure.

That's certainly so investing with Soul Self.

Play it tight in and we're squeezed out.

Play it wide open on the margins

and the compounding widens.


Being at the edge makes 

most of us extremely "edgy."

That's for sure.

That's also the only opening for more.


It's been a while since I've done this,

so counting on your loving tolerance, 

here's a hokey, homespun analogy.

God gives us a sandbox.

We really like playing there.

God takes away the sandbox

and wants to send us to Harvard.

Lack hurts, upsets.

Lack opens.

Do we?


The "we" extends, includes all.

With Jesus we head out to the edges,

to those marginalized among us:

 - those in poverty

 - those victimized by injustice

 - the lonely

 - the ill of body or mind

 - the discards of society

 - the abused and the confused

 - the befuddled by puberty and mid-life

 - the dying, being edged out of what has been

    to what will be and that without limit or end.

                      Simply Divine

With Jesus we get close in out on the edge.

With Jesus we care and companion.

With Jesus we share what we can;

   - We become a Big Brother/Sister.

   - We tutor.

   - We challenge injustice, raise hell for heaven's sake.

   - We slim down our goods so others will have some goods.

   - We support food pantries.

   - We visit the lonely.

   - We are patient with the troubled who bother us.

   - We pray worldwide and deep.


Living on the margins is scary.

It tests and stretches our risk tolerance.


For those wiling to chance a wider exposure

to Jesus' life expanding economy, 

please consider what follows

slowly, deeply, prayerfully, practically.

                   ******

   

   JESUS' MARKET STRATEGY


      Risk all on the margins.

          It goes like this.


     "So the last will be first 

      and the first will be last"

                 Matthew 20:15


What the world figures as first 

       - stuff and status -

           is faux fatal. 

It devalues to nothing.

Those last aren't burdened with it.

They don't have it or the illusion of it.

That sure puts them ahead.


Up front of the line 

the little we have 

is all we'll ever have

and that not for long -

certainly not as long as we will be.

It will loss its currency,

leave us broke.


The danger of being first:

We can't get more ahead 

than being first.

Truncated by immediacy.

Lots of openness, though, 

at the end of the line 

and the bottom of the pile.


At the end of the line 

there is nothing to fall back on.

Scary hard.

Plenty of room, though, 

for furtherance in the Great Reversal.

The last will be first.

What a flip - solid and for ever.


We're not here on earth 

to force a faux first 

but to be open

and to be in community with the last. 

There's all the room in the world 

and the heavens for that

at the end or the line.

                      ******


                     HIGH YIELD RETURNS

Fortunate, happy, blessed,

are the undervalued:

- the poor in spirit - uncomplicated, uncompromised, God ready

- those who mourn - loss clearing to furtherance.

- the meek - gentle strong enrichment

- those who hunger and thirst for righteousness - eager righting fullness

- the merciful - caring cared for

- the pure in heart - love ready

- the peacemakers -unifiers "oned" in God 

- those persecuted for righteousness  -  "the righters" earth-hurt, heaven-homed.  

                                  The Beattitudes Matthew 5:1-12

Living on the edge, 

what are moments, movements, 

situations for us 

individually and collectively 

               of

 -"lasting" to "firsting"

 - being poor in spirit

 - mourning

 - being meek

 - craving rightness

 - being merciful

 - purity of heart

 - being peacemakers

 - taking hits working for righting?

It'll make all the difference in the world

and forever beyond that.


               ******


   A BLESSING AND A THANKS


     In the past month plus

    we have been blessed with

    hundreds of participants from 

                Singapore

        joining in with us here.

      Thanks for the gift you are.

       Welcome to you and to all.

              frankly speaking

          spirituality for the street

     johnfrankshares.blogspot.com


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         Looking forward

    to seeing all next week.

    Great to be together.

Praying us all to be market wise -

     out here on the margins.

             Love to all 

            John Frank

               ******