Becca Stevens's Blog, page 7

Sermon: Easter 2017 –The Sacred Thread

An image of a woman weaving in Thistle Farms' new social enterprise

As dawn was breaking on an Early April morning, I was sitting near the windows at the Chapel weaving some of the 1000s of prayer ribbons created by the community of St. Augustine’s. We committed to spend this lent writing prayers on ribbons to hold our thoughts, the names of those we love, the history of our dead and what we long for. For six weeks, acolytes processed torches bearing thistle farms candles tied with our handwritten prayers. As I was weaving, I read the prayers slowly for all sorts and conditions of humanity penned with love. It’s beautiful watching how a single word woven with other words allows a community to pray for the whole world.  It occurred to me how weaving and praying are in communion.  As I picked up a ribbon, I was praying with the child who wrote simply, “my mom." 

I was praying for peace as I read the names of the worn-torn places scrawled onto ribbons interwoven with prayers for strength. As the light grew brighter the weaving was coming to life in the secret hours of the morning. Prayer feels hallowed when our hands do the work so our minds settle to see the sacred threads each day offers.  In such moments we  feel the blessedness that we have woven from the love, longing, and life we have made.

I remember the holy weaving that depicted the resurrected Jesus with a bright green background surrounded by images of the four gospels.  It was a three story high tapestry made by one of the official World War 2 artists, Graham Sutherland. It hung behind the altar in Coventry Cathedral, erected to bring reconciliation after the war dropped a bomb on the original cathedral. During a summer in my early twenties I gave tours in that sanctuary and learned about the amazing tapestry woven by French women who worked 11 years to bring the image to life.  The tapestry took the place of the usual high altar carvings or windows to invoke wonder not just for the image itself, but for the way single strands coming together offer a glimpse of heaven. 

There must have been a thread of hope to lead Mary Magdalene and the other Mary in the story of Matthew to face the soldiers on Easter Morning. The story of the Resurrection begins with the words, “while it was still dark." The light has not yet risen on Jerusalem on the Sabbath as Mary heads out with grief as her guide to carry her to the body.  And that single sacred thread is enough to weave together the love story. Such a thread was enough to lead her through despair, to brush aside fear, and to hold onto love.

That thread of hope after Jesus’s crucifixion became the beginning of a story that changed the world. And that story is powerful enough to unravel all the shame and fear that keep us from experiencing hope. It sustained Mary through meeting angels and feeling the earth shake and catches her when she fell at the feet of love resurrected.  That first fragile thread was strong enough for all of that and to lead her to be the first preacher, to offer those threads for generations to proclaim love as the most powerful force that still ties us together.  We still sing of those threads even as we face death: Blessed Be the Tie That Binds, May God Be With You Till We Meet Again.

It makes sense to be drawn to weaving in the face of the despair, such as experienced by survivors of war who have fled Syria and have nothing when they land at beaches in Greece except a few items and a life vest.  And so for months Thistle Farms under the direction of Abi Hewitt made plans with Luma Muflah from Fugees Family, Ann Holtz from Awakening Soul, Rev. Frannie Kieschnick A Thistle Farms Board Member and visionary, and I Am You to begin the first social enterprise in Ritsona with a group of women to weave the life vests into welcome mats. 

Last Sunday, Tara Armistead, Cathy Brown, Ryan Camp, Regina Mullins, Luma, Frannie, Ann and I flew to Greece, none of us sure if the fragile first threads from those vests would be enough.  We didn’t know what we would be confronting and if weaving with the women was going to be possible.  The luggage holding the spools of thread and the shuttles had been lost.  The not for profits who ran the camp were unsure about where to weave and how to help manage a social enterprise that would pay women to weave. It is hard enough to start a business, but to start in the midst of a setting where people walk slowly because there isn’t anywhere to go, where lines of identical boxes form a quarter acre of densely populated sects in the middle of an abandoned and dusty military base, where language barriers flourish, and where lines look like snakes and people in charge have massive key rings, is really difficult. 

But on the second day as the sun was climbing on a clear blue Greece spring morning, new weavers and the group from thistle farms gathered in our first circle to welcome one another. One by one the women from the Ritsona camp shared their hopes to help the community, to remember how their ancestors in the middle east wove, to have purpose and meaning, and to help their children. Once they started talking I knew the thread of hope would be enough.  That circle is a circle we know.  We have seen that circle a thousand times; in the hills of Rwanda and the farmlands of Ecuador and right down the street on Charlotte Avenue in our Thistle Farms Circle.  

That circle binds us, even if it is in the face of trauma, broken hearts and inadequate space, and it is enough to start wharfing a loom and weave vests and scraps of cloth. Soon Arabic conversations filled the weaving room as the shuttles from the two looms called out a powerful rhythm.  That beating of threads together on big looms became more powerful than all the other issues, and the mantra for the week became simply, “no matter what, keep weaving." 

Thread by thread we tore and bound the vests that had traumatized so many.  They spoke about the cost of those vests as they ripped them into strips and talked all day about whatever came up. When the first mat came off the loom everyone cheered.  There are another 1000 mats to go. We are committed to helping make this business work since less than .01% of any of the refugee families there will be invited to immigrate.  And while the women of the camp may have fled war, they cannot flee the violence of poverty.  That single thread, woven into a single mat and laid on our altar, is enough to build a community. 

And It has always been that way. 

Like a first ribbon tied, like a thread from a tapestry woven from the ashes of war, or even like a string from a discarded life vest, we are holding on to an ancient hope that binds us together in love. And the Easter story preaches to each of us that when we take hold of that thread, hope can pull us beyond grief itself. The stone has rolled, shroud has fallen and we are free. We are tied to all those we love who have died and live on in love and the memory of God. It binds the wilderness of lent to the garden in Jerusalem in a single band of love. All we grieve is still a part of us and all our hopes are not in vain.

It's not hard to imagine the Magdalene and the other Mary running to the disciples, starting to weave the story together. The meaning still fragile and not accepted easily.  But, Magdalene picks up the the pace as she cannot contain the hope and needs to share it. Let us weave our prayers into the hope fashioned into the first morning of creation. A single thread is enough to bind us to the Easter story.  No Matter What, Keep Weaving.  It means we can live in hope, dedicated to justice and truth, knowing we are connected to all that is love.  The thread is ours for the beholding and allows us to make our song even at our own Easter morning, “Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia.”

Read more about The Welcome Project here. 

Sermon: The Ethic of Love

Image Credit: Pixabay

The Ethic of Love: The Sermon on the Mount

The Sermon on the Mount has been discussed by numerous theologians throughout the ages. Many have interpreted the teachings as law, making this reading some of the harshest words Jesus ever spoke to his gathered community of wayward fishermen, dispossessed people, and searching souls. The sermon is generally thought to be gathered isolated sayings from the early church communities. Each is a summary of something, like an original sermon of Jesus or the essence of a piece of his teachings, that could have taken the form of a question and answer. Joachim Jeremias, a German theologian in the 20th century, wrote that when the Sermon on the Mount is read as certain scholars have defined it as law, three understandings follow:               

1. A Perfectionist ethic: Jesus is a Teacher of the Law who tells his disciples what is required of them—perfection. He says he has come not to destroy the law as old vs new prescription is contrasted. You have heard it said, but I say....” He is giving the disciples a clear directive of the will of God.               

2. An Impossible ethic: Jesus is the Preacher of Repentance. When Jesus makes such unattainable demands, we know we cannot reach perfection, so despair at our own efforts sets in. Then guilt awakens in us a consciousness of sin, leading us to repentance and the possibility of mercy.           

3. An Interim-ethic: Jesus is the Apocalyptic Prophet. Jesus was preaching to men who knew they were living in a time of crisis, that there was not much time left. It was a time to love your enemies. Pull yourselves together and live a death-bed lifestyle.              

Joachim questions whether Jesus was any of these. He concludes that we are called to read the Sermon on the Mount not as law, but as Gospel. Another theologian of the 20th century Howard Thurman who was a peace activist and mystic, wrote about the Sermon on the Mount as Gospel. He was one of the fathers of the Civil Rights Movement, who influenced Dr. King so much that he carried Thurman’s book, Jesus and the Disinherited, with him in his brief case. It was Thurman who wrote in the 1940s in the South under the oppression of Jim Crow that when we read the Sermon on the Mount as Gospel and live it out, “We are free at last.” The Sermon on the Mount explains an ethic of love that calls us to radical freedom. In an ethic of love, Jesus is the embodiment of the Sermon in deeds. As long as we see it as a legal prescription, something we have to live out as an obligation, we become slaves to it. But living into an ethic of love, we glimpse at the miracle of the haunting words, Don't worry about what you are to eat or what you are to wear, Take neither walking stick nor traveling bag, “Love your enemies,” Do not return evil for evil, Proclaim good news to the poor.              

When Thurman describes this ethic of love, he begins by talking about loving people where there are rifts in our own world—the people we are close to in our circle. But then he talks about rifts in a separated world. These are the “others” and it is where people live in fear, shame, anger, and cynicism. For example, how the people on the hillside listening to Jesus might feel towards the tax collectors, their oppressors. This ethic of love does not ask us to condone the act, but the act does not cause us not to love. It’s not condemning the enemies’ actions; it is penetrating their thickest resistance so that we can all lay bare our interior walls and get to the heart. This person or group of people you consider an enemy is what holds you back from the altar and this person or group still belongs to God. When we awaken this gospel understanding in us and in our former enemies, change is possible. We all know that enemies of religious or political nature, can derail any of us. But politics are not our religion. Take Rome, for example, from the perspective of the occupied people in Jerusalem. Jesus lifted individuals out of that general classification and saw them face to face as equals—willing to teach, heal, and comfort them. It doesn’t mean there is not accountability, resistance, or that it doesn’t come at a great cost to the individuals stepping out of their bounds. But it means we change the balance of love in the world in the most powerful and poetic way. It means we reexamine our own prejudices and live as freely as possible with this guiding gospel.              

This week I spent 4 days in LA as part of the CNN Heroes Award given to Thistle Farms. We were there to learn more about running not-for- profits and hear from the other nine groups that also won the award. CNN touts this award as ordinary people doing extraordinary things. As I sat and listened in light of this Gospel, I heard stories of communities wounded and underserved and realized the award should really be about extraordinary people who do ordinary things. I heard the story told by Luma Mufleh who began her talk with, “I am an immigrant, a Muslim, a lesbian, and I serve refugees. I guess you could say I hit the jackpot.” Luma founded the Fugees Family. The Fugees Academy (6- 12 graders) she heads has a very successful football (soccer) team. She told the story to a tear-filled circle of friends about an extraordinary thirteen-year old who was a refugee from the Congo. He had witnessed the death of his father, the rape of his mother, and experienced the hard journey refugees make to our country. Luma described this young man’s anger and how he hit another player on the field. She ran out onto the field and was herself struck. She then embraced the young boy and held her hand over his heart and kept repeating in Arabic, breathe. He placed his hand over her hand, so they were both holding his heart as he began to calm down. Slowly and surely over the next several years, he began the journey from woundedness and anger towards a world of enemies into becoming a passionate student and healer who has gone on to earn a full scholarship to college. It all began simply by holding his heart in an ethic of fearless love. 

We all heard other stories of extraordinary people doing ordinary things: a young cancer survivor taking a kayak ride, a foster youth who aged out of a system and got his own apartment, a child with cerebral palsy riding a horse, a survivor of trafficking, prostitution, and addiction taking her first cruise, and a young man from public housing learning to ride a bike. Extraordinary people doing ordinary things not because they followed laws, but because they were casted out and then loved. An ethic of love can overcome any barriers, any divisions as we live out this Gospel in fellowship. Every time we walk out onto a field, take a hit, and then put our hand over a heart in response, every time we step out in love, every time we forgive what we once thought was unforgivable, every time we love an enemy, we are extraordinary and doing the most ordinary thing we were created to do… love. Love. Love.              

What is it that still makes you read this Gospel as a perfectionist law we can never attain? What is it that you think you cannot forgive? Who is the enemy who prevents you from loving? That is a good place to feel the freedom embedded in these strange and compelling words. We hear these words, and then step out into a pretty harsh and scary world and remember the common worth and value of every single person we meet, in our circle and beyond our circle. The calling of this Gospel is not to condemn, but to free us.

Do. Love. Walk.

Do. Love. Walk.

January 29, 2017

Micah 6: 1-8 Matthew 5: 1-12

The prophet Micah preached in the 7th century BCE during the time Samaria fell. He was watching Jerusalem being destroyed because of an invasion. Micah prophesied the fall of Jerusalem specifically because of the dishonestly in the marketplace and the corruption in the government. You probably think he would be ranting and railing and calling everybody out, saying how bad everyone was. Instead Micah calls upon the old prophecies of Moses and Abraham and asks the people, “What does the Lord require of you?” It’s not all gloom and doom; it’s a chance for restoration. What does the Lord require of you, but to do three things—do, love, and walk. “Do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly.”

January 29, 2017 Fast forward seven hundred years. Jesus gathers a group on a hillside. Same war, different invaders. Same oppression, different people. Same fears, same cynicism. All of it. He picks up, like Micah, the old truth of how we are to live and to love in our faith. Jesus then preaches the Beatitudes: Blessed are you when you are peacemakers. Blessed are you when you are meek. Blessed are you when you are mourning, when you can still weep for love of those who are oppressed. Blessed are you. Do, love, walk.

It takes him three years to move from those Beatitudes to Jerusalem—a journey he could have made in a week had he been on a warpath. But he was on a peace path. He took three years to make that journey because he saw people hurting, and he loved them. He saw people lost, and he helped them find their way. He saw people mourning, and he comforted them. He saw people in prison, and he took the time to visit and send good words back. All the while—doing, loving, walking. That is our call today. For all the years the world has suffered under powers and principalities that do injustice and harm, we are called to do, love, and walk. We don’t numb out; we don’t freak out. We don’t do anything, but what we have always been called to do. We keep doing it. I believe there are three ways for us to keep doing this—to keep doing, loving, and walking. 

First—we do justice in communal cooperation. We don’t act in silos. We come together to do justice. Recently Thistle Farms welcomed an initiative called Pathfinders for International Justice in Benin, Nigeria, to come and speak. The director shared the statistics that nine out of ten girls who are trafficked in Europe and Eastern Europe are from Nigeria. Specifically, from Benin City where one out of three girls before the age of 13 are approached by traffickers. It’s what happens to people because of the vulnerability and the violence of poverty. They are also working to help free the 276 Chibok girls who were kidnapped from their school by the Boko Haram. About 180 of the girls are still missing more than a 1000 days later. Pathfinders international is working with groups all over the world to work with and share the story of these girls. We all need to work together to do justice on the young girls’ behalf. Helping one another to tell the story is how you do justice.

Second— we love kindness by keeping a proper perspective. No one’s candle is brighter than anybody else’s. We all have a candle. If you think your light is so bright, you are misled or that it is so small that it doesn’t make any difference, you are misled. We all have this beautiful light within us. When we keep that proper perspective, we can appreciate the kindness of someone lighting ours and when we are able to light someone else’s. The proper perspective on this work and kindness is that we are humbled in the right way, that we are courageous in the right way.

I just got off a cruise with Dorris, a powerful survival leader at Thistle Farms. Dorris tells her story of how she was trapped in a ten-block radius for 20 years and not being able to figure out how to get out. She tells the story about touching the ocean for the first time, feeling the tide, and wondering, “Has this been doing this my whole life?” Last week out on the rough, wide-open seas, she stood on the stage and preached with amazing grace about our light in this world. We are not the light. We receive it and we give it. We can move from a trapped unjust system of ten blocks to the rocking, wide-open seas and be grateful all along the journey. Dorris eloquently spreads her message, “We have a lot of work to do. Let’s keep going; there are so many folks who need help.” We keep loving the kindnesses we see and offering love to the very next person.

Finally--to walk humbly is remembering to ground ourselves in the truth that loves lies down for the sake of others. We can do no more than do the same for one another. Nothing we do in justice work is new. It's old and grounded work that is humbling. We are rooted in the most radical way, the humble roots of loving the whole world one person at a time. A community interested in doing justice and loving kindness is humbled enough to keep going back and working harder.

That is how we live. We practice communal cooperation, we have a proper perspective, and we ground our ministry. That’s the way it has been and that’s the way, God willing, it will always be. We all have been given a great tradition. 

A New Poem: "Hearts a Leaping, Christmas Morning 2016"

On the morning after O Holy Night,

When bleak mid-winter greys the sunrise,

clouded by news and unwrapped wishes,

Christmas becomes a spirit pulling

Hearts made for more than beating.

 

Hearts search like a newborn for the breast

Over the pulse that they knows best.

Hearts skip a beat like a shepherd

Wailing to the wind because a sheep is missing.

 

Hearts quicken like a magi who glimpses a sign

From the heavens that cradle a billion stars.

Hearts ache like all sojourners on cold mornings

Who long to touch skin of beloved back home.

 

Hearts harden like the tyrant who can’t fathom

How poetry changes the world.

Hearts harken angel music that brings courage

In places where fear wants to tighten its hold.

 

Away in the mangers of our thoughts

hearts swell as we revel in the kindnesses offered

This day in the name of the Prince of Peace.

 

Then clinch throats as we recount all the ways

We have failed our truth

And let lesser gods rule our lives.

 

Our hearts leap and flush our cheeks

In the presence of divine wonder that

 eternal and temporal kiss before us.

 

They still, flutter, pound, and then still again

In the space between the light and the dark.

 

On Christmas morning, above all, we remember

Our hearts are made for more than beating

They are made to love

Each

Other

Deeply.  

Thistle Road Update: December 2016

PIc of wild coyotes taken by Becca on a morning walk 

An Update Written by Becca, as she and the Travel Team were preparing to board a plane back to Nashville from San Francisco: 

I wanted to share a few highlights from the past few weeks. Frannie Kieschnick, our amazing board member, welcomed us with hospitality fit for royalty and helped plan a full and amazing couple days. Her friend Amy Rao hosted a two-day market place at her house, with our team doing sales over $18,000 of Thistle Farms and Thistle Farms Global products! 

From there, we had the chance to have a gourmet meal with Wendy Schmidt, who committed to funding our dream of the welcome mats through buying looms, shipping, and plane tickets. Wendy has even agreed to pay for a consultant to help with design and project management. She said at the dinner she believes the welcome mats made from life jackets by refugees will go viral. 

Then she said, "These mats remind us the whole world is woven together". 

It was a huge gift.  Marcus is composing a melody to accompany the words on the Statue of Liberty--"Bring Me Your Tired and Poor." 

We also had breakfast with the Isabel Allende Foundation. Seeing them all again was like a family reunion, and they recommitted to Thistle Farms for the 2017 year. Everyone we met sends their love to the whole community. They have paired down how they want to be involved and get more involved with the groups they are recommitting to. It's a season for them of digging deeper and getting closer to their communities.

Throughout the whole week, Abi (Director of Thistle Farms Global & The Studios), Tiffany (Currently Magdalene Resident & Thistle Farms Employee), and Regina (Magdalene Graduate & Outreach Coordinator) were amazing. It is a joy to share our message of hope in the wider world.

On our last morning, I took a walk with Frannie and Amy, as the sun rose. 

Two wild coyotes walked across our path, reminding me that we are scavengers looking for pockets of grace in a pretty harsh world. We get to stay on the edges and search out where we are fed and bring a bit of inspiration back with us. They were a great sign.

As we left, we crossed the Golden Gate Bridge where Tiffany saw Alcatraz, that island rock that has come to symbolize the cruelty and isolation.  So today, feel free to howl like a wild coyote for justice on behalf of women still isolated and in need of welcome around the world. 

There is so much to do--everyone is working hard--but it is a wild and exciting journey.  

A New Poem: "Trying To Give Thanks In 2016"

An image of the mountains taken by Becca 

Weep with the willow, as the forest burns

And the land cries out,

"I thirst." 

 

Dance with the girl banging her tambourine

Who sold her heart to play

For those who can still hear music. 

 

Wail for the wilting kudzu,

Once your enemy,

That is choking from judgement. 

 

Search for pilgrims who lost their shores

To poverty and war

Combing the beaches for home. 

 

Raise your arms in an act of peace,

Which defies the laws of gravity,

Holding up a rusted ploughshare.

 

Pray for sanctuaries desecrated

Because they withhold bread

To uphold stale doctrine. 

 

Lose everything we took for granted,

Stored in secret closets,

With graceful surrender

 

Then use what is left and offer it

To the neighbor who needs it more,

For Love's sake. 

 

 

peace and love,

becca

 

Thistle Road Update: November 2016

L: Our first woven welcome mat, made from life jackets at the AwakeningSoul Conference, R: Thousands of life jackets left behind on the beach after Syrian Refugees made the hazardous journey in life boats to Greece 

The Thistle Farms Travel Team and I had a great weekend at the 2016 AwakeningSoul Conference in North Carolina. Our time together was a great reminder that we are not just residences, not just a cafe, not just a network, not just a home and body company, and not just a global trade company. We are a movement that loves women.

We are about women's freedom---unequivocally, unafraid, formidable, passionate and powerful. 

At the conference, our team serendipitously connected with a weaver who is coming to Thistle Farms to work with our Global Team on the new welcome mats that will be part of a new social enterprise to help women in Syrian Refugee camps.  (By the way, they can be used as covers for altars as well. What a perfect place to lay a welcome mat!)   We made our first woven life vest into a welcome mat at the conference. It's stunning. 

Driven by the truth that love is the most powerful force for social change, we are going to keep our mission-driven focus like a laser on offering sanctuary.  We are going to rock this holiday, help women refugees in Greece, and lavishly welcome the next survivor coming off the streets of Nashville. 

We will welcome all of our sisters still lost on the streets home, and anyone else seeking refuge. 

peace and love, 

becca

 

Guest Blog: Magdalene Omaha Kick-Off October 2016

I have never been a part of something so powerful – and all of that comes from your absolutely tireless and courageous efforts to ensure sisters can find their way home here.

Thank you to Teresa, a dear sister on the Magdalene Omaha Board, for this guest blog thanking Thistle Farms for visiting Omaha for the Magdalene Omaha kick-off celebration (October 14-16, 2016).

My heart is too full of thanks for your recent visit and efforts here in Omaha.  I don’t even know how to put into words what you have done here.  How much you have transformed me, the board, Trinity Cathedral, the Omaha community, and all the good that’s already rippling through the state as a consequence of you lavishly sharing your love with us here this weekend!  I have never been a part of something so powerful – and all of that comes from your absolutely tireless and courageous efforts to ensure sisters can find their way home here.

Some of you know that I’m in recovery – clean and sober 18 years in August.  Many years ago, when I still lived in the Washington, DC area, a woman named Donna who had a lengthy history of being trafficked and of addiction asked me to be her sponsor.  We went through a long and winding journey together that included me visiting her in jail, hospitals, treatment centers, and half-way houses.  She was not the last woman who had been trafficked that I would sponsor, but she held a special place in my heart.  I watched how hard she tried to leave the life, and how horrible the system was time and again.  And every time it seemed like she was turning a corner and just about to make great progress, there was a new obstacle – most especially lack of employment opportunities because of her record.

Donna didn’t make it, and while I have lost other friends in recovery over the years, losing her hit me hard and I never gave up believing that there had to be some better way to help survivors.  Then, after we launched the Friends of Tamar here and started to realize what a growing trafficking problem Omaha had, Bishop Scott Barker and Trinity Cathedral Dean Craig Loya provided funding so that I could attend a Thistle Farms Education Workshop.  I got to chat with Penny in the café as people gathered before the day started, and with Anika briefly after she gave the group I was in a tour.  Although I read everything that I was provided, it was my conversations with them that made me an absolute believer in this model.  I swelled with hope as I came back here and started to try to share all that I had learned.

But, as happens with all of us in this kind of work, earlier this year, I just hit a wall.  I felt like I was not making a difference here, we were not making progress fast enough, and I feared we may never be able to truly get this thing off the ground in Omaha. During that time, because I subscribe to the Thistle Farms e-newsletter, I received the May 25th e-newsletter with a link to the Thistle Farms - Magdalene 2016 Graduation video.  When I watched this – and I have watched it countless times since, as have several other people I shared it with including the members of our board (I call it my sunshine booster shot) – everything changed.  I got fired up again and redoubled efforts here.  Fabulous new board members joined the circle here in Omaha, and together we expanded efforts to build community partners.  Seeing these beautiful women exemplify the truest meaning of freedom and joy made the point better than any words of mine or anyone else’s here ever could.  That’s also exactly what all of you being here did so very, very powerfully – you drove home we need a Magdalene house here…now.  When Brooke gave me the names of who would be joining Becca on this trip, I just about fell out of my chair.  I asked if I had it right that Jovita & Lori, in this very video, would be with us – and how blessed are we that they were! 

I love that the four of you joined Becca here, and The Fantastic Five gave everything you had to help us get this going.  You sharing your experience, strength, and hope so generously truly built the foundation of our house here.  I love that you already are hearing and knowing the difference you made – your visit absolutely was a game-changer.  I know you gave so much for us, but know this too – feeling like we are part of the larger community has meant the world to all of us, and most especially me.  When Jovita answered my question in the October 15th Saturday morning Expert Roundtable meeting by talking about community and accountability as part of that, I realized that for me and for the board, that’s the change we all were experiencing this weekend that made it so special to us.  We aren’t just out here trying to do this alone now…we are a part of, and now we need to pay forward the love and energy you shared so beautifully with us, and all that you all taught us by what you shared.  We will make this happen here!  And from this moment forward, know that in more ways than you ever realized, you all are as much a part of Magdalene Omaha as any of us here!

With more love and gratitude for you than I know how to say,

Teresa H.

SCALABLE & SUSTAINABLE

When people ask me if this model can be replicated elsewhere, I say, yes, because the wells of love and faith will never run dry when people come together and commit to treating the stranger as God, living in gratitude, and to loving without judgement.  

In the world of social entrepreneurism there are two basic questions: are you scalable and are you sustainable? I am so grateful that after two decades of this work, I can answer both easily, “Yes!” When we started Magdalene, the only vision we held was to keep a sanctuary open for 5 residents, at no cost to them. Now, we reach hundreds of women annually through the prison community, referrals, counseling, and legal services, as well as supporting 5 residential communities. The number of women employed by the Thistle Farms global effort in the Shared Trade network has reached more than 1,500.  When Thistle Farms started, we were employing 4 women for  6 hours a week and making candles in the kitchen of St. Augustine’s Chapel at Vanderbilt. Now, we employ more than 50 residents and graduates in our 11,000 square foot facility, as well as operate a Cafe, sell in more than 500 retail outlets, and bring in over 2 million in revenue annually.

Given that we are now the largest survivor-led social enterprise in the country, I can say in gratitude the community’s vision grew exponentially in proportion to how much we desired to love women, who have graced the doors and joined in the movement over the years. Given the exponential ripple effect of love, it's not hard to understand how we accomplish this rate of growth year after year. Our goal has been to be transparent in fundraising, remembering that all of us have been in the ditch, giving from a place of gratitude, being willing to take a leap of faith when called upon, learning to follow the lead when a new idea is good, and the earnest belief that love is the most powerful force for social change. So, when people ask me if this model can be replicated elsewhere, I say, yes, because the wells of love and faith will never run dry when people come together and commit to treating the stranger as God, living in gratitude, and to loving without judgement.  

Together, anything is possible. The more success we have, the more resources we draw in, the more women we are able to help. Last year, Thistle Farms put more than $850,000 back into the hands of residents and graduates of the Magdalene program, who are turning their pain into purpose. There are now over 30 sister programs in different cities in the United States that will expand the model and potential for growth even faster.  As our vision for this work expands in direct proportion to the healing power of more than 150 graduates of the residential program, I say we are just beginning to see the power of this work.

Photo courtesy of Taro Yamasaki