Marginal Living

I can remember quotes and ideas but usually have a hard time remembering who said them. I remember a quote about living in the margin. One definition of margin is the empty space surrounding the important content. For example you remember the English course writing requirements where you had to have a specific marginal space on all sides. I had a seminary professor who actually measured it and you could see the red marks where he indicted the margin should be.

According to him, there should be nothing in the margin. All the content was to be inside. The margin was to be totally empty. A good definition of margin.

As the Gentse Feesten near (for which the weather forecast is rain - this is Belgium) there are people who will live in the margin for those ten days. First of all, the margins get physically smaller. European personal space is smaller than American personal space so packing more people into the same space is acceptable. The margins will get smaller as you walk down the street as people will bump into and jostle one another in the crowd. But that is not the margin to which I am referring.

But people will live in the margin (the definition of empty, outside the content bounds). Many of the values that society sees as important slip away during this ten-day festival. Some begin to sleep during the day and stay up at night. Many try to party all night as many nights in a row as possible. Other social customs and hibitions seem to be ignored. (They have indicated there will be no wilde plassen (public urination) allowed. Not an exclusively a male action but primarily. There will be a 60 euro fine if caught. I wonder if the drunks who do this frequently will remember that when they are totally wasted?

Passing out in the parks is still acceptable and there are places where throwing ones shoes (laces tied together) over wires across the streets is the rage. Modesty has a different level in Europe and some things seen in public here would not be seen in America. But that level declines during the festivals. It is not "you can see anything you want" but there are some things that you will not want to see.

It seems people leave behind the normal morals and actions. In essence they begin to live in the margins of acceptability. Why? Mostly because there are not fixed values. If man is the highest authority then man sets the standards and people can have different sets of standards. But if there are absolute standards then the margins are fixed.

Now this is not so say that hedonism and immorality run rampant like in some cultures where "carnival" means throw every bit of decency to the wind. And the vast majority of Festival participants are great people with good values. But more people live in the margins (outside of the normal social standards) during the Gentse Feesten than before and after. That is one reason some of the Gentenaars choose to take vacation and leave town for those ten days. It is just not the same as it was. Even some Europeans are finding it too extreme.

Living in the margin has become the norm rather than the exception. People have no problem setting their own standards. Just last week a policeman was in a fight and shot someone with his service weapon while off duty. Most police agents can not carry their service weapon off duty and he did not have permission to do so. The fight started because a guy on a motorbike cut him off while the policeman was on his bicycle. (Don't get me wrong bromfietsers (motorbike riders) can be a real pain. They are second only fietsers (bicyclists) in my book). But the police agent thought it okay to live in the margin and attack the young man (according to most news stories).

Just one example of the "if I think it is right then it is right" marginal living that plagues many first world countries.

Pray for us as we seek to be salt and light in this environment. Other local believers are trying as well but they are vastly outnumbered. We have a big God and we are praying for Him to do things that get attention during this event. We are asking that He use us to help change the margins for some of the folks this year. That they will choose to live in His love and not in their margin. That is the ultimate freedom and there is no hangover the next day.