Find Your Way Home: Words from the Street, Wisdom from the Heart

"It is not a problem to be lost. It is only a problem if you think it is impossible to find your way home." ~ From Find Your Way Home: Words from the Street, Wisdom from the Heart One of the things I most love about my work empowering and encouraging women and girls is listening to their stories. Stories are a time-honored tradition that calls us to a basis truth which moves us forward to healing and wholeness. The stories are told in the context of the community and it is the community that loves them back into wholeness. Such a community is Magdalene, a two-year residential community for women who have overcome lives of prostitution, violence, drugs and abuse. The women's stories are a testament to love in action. Founded by Rev. Becca Stevens, and inspired to live by the classic Benedictine Rule, Magdalene was founded not just to help a sub-culture of women, but to change the culture itself. The women are welcomed at Magdalene with a key - a symbol of trust and hospitality. In reading the women's stories, I believe that healing begins with a key. Coming from the streets, any street can be a cold, dark, and lonely street, especially when you are at the end of the road. So often we take for granted our own warm homes and our own keys. We tend to overlook a warm smile, a tender hug, or a civil gesture. We pass a woman on the street with a criticism in our heart and a judgment on our tongue. Walk a mile in their shoes, as the saying goes; and then share their stories. Find Your Way Home is where we can begin to walk that mile. This small but profound book, written collectively by the residents, staff and volunteers, contains 24 principles of healing; stories of loss, grief, self-deceit, and life without keys. There was no hospitality for these women on the streets. Yet, from the darkness of the cold streets comes wisdom, a wisdom only these women can share. Reading this book, I could feel the transformation through the pages, moving from darkness to light. So often, I often hear others say, "there but for the grace of God go I," as if to exonerate ourselves from the pain of truth. Then I read, "Instead of saying, `There but for the grace of God go I,' we say, `There goes God.' It reminds us of the truth that in loving our neighbors we are meeting God." When we can implant this message within our hearts, all the stories shared will have reached their heights. My invitation to you is to purchase this little book for yourself and for someone you know who may be hurting. The proceeds not only help continue the marvelous work of this community, but it spreads seeds of love and hospitality. Along with the book, give them a smile and maybe a much needed hug. And while your hearts are full and opened, visit Thistle Farms, a non-profit business operated by the women of Magdalene, where they create handmade, natural and eco-friendly bath and body products. The women gain much needed job skills, learn responsibility and cooperation, as well as help

Find Your Way Home: Words from the Street, Wisdom from the Heart You can read details about this little book from the other reviwws here. Let me just say... BUY IT. I have it in hard copy AND on kindle on my iPhone. It's a new and welcome addition to my own daily meditation. This little book is a great investment in these very uncertain and scary times. It's a reminder that love and community are the things that help us through the rough spots in life. This will make you feel good, do it.

Every now and again, I'm privileged to come across a poem, story or book that touches me-changes me-unexpectedly. I say unexpectedly because although I didn't know what to expect from the book, I didn't anticipate that it would challenge me-call me on the carpet-about how I live and how I love others. But that's exactly what happened when I read Find Your Way Home by the Women of Magdalene with Becca Stevens. Comprised of personal thoughts, experiences and affirming life lessons, Find Your Way Home speaks to the healing power of love and the cleansing touch of hope. It serves as a reminder that regardless of our pasts-of our inner pain-of where we've been, true love in the form of service to others can and will mend wounds. And if it is to start anywhere, it must start in us. Find Your Way Home is a thought provoking and inspirational read. It'll kiss at the heart of compassion that lives in us all and ask if you too, are doing all you can to help those around you. You'll cry, cheer and share in the highs and lows of the women's stories. In the end, you'll be better-stronger-for it. I am encouraged and renewed in my decision to share the profound simplicity of love with those around me. Women of Magdalene, I salute you. You are an inspiration to those who will come after you and those who stand changed by the power of unconditional love. Becca Stevens, thank you for reminding us that love still heals and is still needed.

I've been looking for ways and means to expand my spiritual life for awhile now, knowing that my daily reprieve and daily bread depend upon regular spiritual renewal. Along comes a book that amazes me with its simplicity and knocks my socks off with its depth of Love. That book is Finding Your Way Home: Words from the Street, Wisdom from the Heart by the Women of Magdalene. "Magdalene is a two-year residential and support community for women coming out of correctional facilities or off the street who have survived lives of abuse, prostitution, and drug addiction" (111). Magdalene was founded in 1996 by Reverend Becca Stevens, an Episcopal minister in Nashville, Tennessee who had the simple goal to "create a safe place for the women, a home where they could find love as well as space, and time to work seriously on recovery" (112). Magdalene is guided by twenty-four spiritual principles which are, Stevens says, "practical ways we can love one another without prejudice or judgment" (10). The ministry has grown from one house with room for five women to five houses--several of which have been donated by the community, outright or through fundraising events. One of the principles, Proclaim Original Grace, states, "Our journeys all start and end with God, and everything we do is a step toward our return to wholeness. Because grace is our beginning, we are worthy of all good things" (19). Each of the twenty-four principles are described in several ways, facet-like, and then followed by the written testament of the residents, staff and volunteers of Magdalene. The ministry is supported in part by Thistle Farms, a non-profit business producing and marketing bath products. It is operated by the Women of Magdalene, teaching them job skills, responsibility and a sense of unity and cooperation. Found on the website, thistlefarms.org, is this explanation to the question, "Why the Thistle?" Considered a weed, thistles grow on the streets and alleys where the women of Magdalene walked. But, thistles have a deep tap root that can shoot through thick concrete and survive drought. And in spite of their prickly appearance, their royal and soft purple center makes the thistle a mysterious and gorgeous flower. And now, three years in the making, they also have a book to help support their community, a book written by the women of Magdalene. The book is small in size--it could probably be read in one sitting--but don't let that fool you. Like good literature, it inspires one to action. The principles that guide and heal the women of Magdalene are ones that can be used to guide and heal any life. As a person who already does her best to follow a spiritual program for living, Find Your Way Home is a wonderful resource for daily spiritual renewal.

The Rule of Saint Benedict is commonly credited with being one of the instruments by which Western civilization was supported and maintained through some difficult times in its early middle age. The Rule's sanity, generosity, and above all, charity, are the means by which a community of persons can foster stability, through inward conversion from inordinate focus on the self towards living with and for others. The remarkable elasticity of the Rule led to many adaptations and revisions -- and reforms -- down through the years. But I think that none even of the most ardent revisers or reformers would ever have conceived that an adaptation of the Rule would bring new life to scores of women who until that transformative encounter had been living on the streets as prostitutes and drug addicts. But as the old song says, grace is amazing. A little over a decade old, Magdalene is a two-year residential and support community for women coming out of correctional facilities or off the street, from lives marked by abuse, prostitution and addiction. It began with the Reverend Becca Stevens, Episcopal chaplain at Saint Augustine's (Vanderbilt University). She conceived of creating a safe place for women, a place not merely as a house but as a home. We all know there is a difference, a crucial one. We also know how sadly true it is for the church both to get and to give the second-best ("I'm buying a new microwave so I'll give the old one to the church..." You know how it goes.) Becca insisted that this whole would be a home properly furnished, with decent furniture and a real comfortable living room, and bedrooms with beds with clean sheets. It would also be located in a residential district; not just outside the prison doors or the city gates. Soon one house grew to two and then another, as those who lived there truly found new life. Magdalene has expanded to include programs helping male first-time offenders understand and come to terms with how demeaning their use of women is, and the harm they do in contributing to a brutal system. Thistle Farms, a nonprofit maker of all-natural body care products, was launched in 2001. It is named for the hardy plant that is the sole survivor on streets the women walked in their former lives -- and again in their new lives as angels of mercy helping other women to move from the old life to the new. In Find Your Way Home the women of Magdalene recite their Rule and tell their story. In some ways reading this tender volume is like being present at a Greater Chapter, where by tradition the members of the Benedictine household would hear their Rule and reflect on it. True to Benedict's own injunction that the youngest shall be heard, this collection of voices reflects the range of participants in the Magdalene households. A major feature of these households is that they are not "run" so much as lived in. Although there are staff and volunteer supporters, it is the women themselves who form the community and learn to wor