This is the script of this morning’s Pause for Thought with Zoe Ball on BBC Radio 2 (at the new earlier time of 07.15.
Do you know what it’s like to live on the edge?
Well, that question can be taken in more than one way – especially so early on a Monday morning.
I got back late last night from Switzerland. I went out last week to do some work in Germany, then grabbed a short break with my wife and friends in Basel. We also managed a couple of nights in their holiday house by a lake in Italy. In the course of a few days we were exposed to English, Italian, German and a bit of French in a market.
Crossing borders and operating in different languages is an everyday part of life on the European mainland, but, whenever I am there I realize how unusual it is for me. In one sense, this is living on the edge. Walk fifty metres and the language, architecture and mood changes. You constantly have to navigate strangeness and respect difference.
But, I guess that when most of us talk of “living on the edge”, we mean something else. It’s to live dangerously or with a bit of risk. It’s about the excitement of not quite being in control of events or people. It seems to me that even people who like an orderly or predictable routine also like the odd instance of edginess.
Yet, for many people today, living on the edge is not merely a bit of entertainment. Not knowing if you can put food on the table, pay the rent or heat the house for you and your children is not the sort of edginess anyone would welcome. So, what do we do?
I unashamedly follow a Jesus who constantly crossed borders to be where people actually stood. And he never seduced anyone to go with him – rather, he told them that if they walked with him – edgily – things might get rough and they might lose everything. But, he also made it clear that “loving my neighbor as myself” means living on the edge of my comfort in order actively to love those whose own edge is too sharp.
So, today that’s my challenge: living and loving on the edge of other people’s lives.
