Ben is a fan of movies. He often has two or three playing at once. Then he loves to quiz me on questions he knows the answer to. 

"Did the Tin man get a heart?" His smile is enormous. 

"Yes, Ben, he did!! What scene was it in?" I never tire of asking him the minutia of factoring, and the sequence of action in his favorite flicks. 

I can't tell you what his answer was because I already forget. Yet that's ok. He doesn't. 

Recently he watched the scene in Hunchback of Notre Dame where Esmerelda prays. I had not realized that God was welcome in a cartoon. She is a gypsy and feels like an outcast. But then again Jesus was an outcast too, so maybe He would listen to her. 

Many of us spend time on the fringe. It seems to be almost inevitable that we feel marginalized, and unwanted. It can be ignited by not being invited to a party, or the empty seat next to us at the lunch table. Yet, sometimes that distance is what it takes to urge us toward prayer. We need a bridge to find our way back to center, and the sense of loss can render us willing to ask for help. 

Asking for help. It is what children do easily, without hesitation. Grown ups are more reticent.  

Relationships are a way to step in from the fringe. Yet even in marriage, we can feel painfully alone. Prayer can be a way to come back from the edge, when we ask God to tamp down the isolation. 

We might even get a new heart in the process.