There are many Christians in all denominations who have been given the shaft by the institutional church when dogma, inflexibility, and power are allowed to be its signatures. Kathy Coffey, an award-winning writer and editor for Living the Good News, notes: "For those who come to the margins bitter and aching, this land is a place of exile. . . . They feel betrayed by people and a system that were important to them, a church they once honored. Now it has either viciously turned on them or blithely ignored them."

The meditations in this compassionate and encouraging work present the idea that the margins can be a place of grace and justice. After all, Jesus spent most of his time there. Coffey challenges those on the outside to draw closer to the Divine partner in their dance of faith. She offers models of courageous and creative souls who are practicing spirituality wherever they are. The author also sees soul mates for those in the margins in the Canaanite woman, Thomas, the woman at the well, the fisherman at breakfast, the bent woman, the paralyzed man, and Mary Magdalene. In fact, this whole book can be seen as a well-thought meditation upon St. Augustine's insight: "There are many who are of the church who are not of God and many who are of God who are not of the church."