Cynthia Trenshaw

"I thought I was leaving the Midwest to get my masters degree from the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley. The furthest thing from my mind was being with . . . touching . . . massaging homeless people on the streets of San Francisco. Yes, I received the degree, but my real teachers were not academic professors."

Being with marginalized people has been Cynthia Trenshaw's passion for 20 years. Now, through Meeting in the Margins: An Invitation to Encounter Society's Invisible People, she shares that passion. Her readers experience her encounters with the "invisible" people who live in the wide variety of margins she's served:

In the Midwest as a certified chaplain in a hospital emergency room and ICU, in a 210-bed nursing home, and in the children's unit of a psychiatric hospital.

In San Francisco - on sidewalks, under viaducts, and in homeless shelters - tending to the people of the streets, offering them skilled massage therapy and compassionate presence.

Now in the Pacific Northwest, Cynthia advocates for marginalized people as a Guardian ad Litem for the Superior Courts of several counties, and a Registered Nursing Assistant specializing in midwifery for the dying. She serves as a Medical Advocate and helps elders prepare their advance directives so that they remain in charge of their final years.

"In each of these places, and in relationships with all of these people," Cynthia says, "I have known the richness of a sacred reciprocity that exists in the margins, in the deep, hidden places of our culture." Readers of Meeting in the Margins will share in that richness, and be encouraged to encounter the margins that are as nearby as next door.