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

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There are few short devotional books I like, even fewer that don't tweak my theologian side as being too wimpy for anyone who wants to think deeply about God. But a few weeks back I was sent a book to review and I'm happy to say that though it is short (you can read it in 1 hour) and devotional it is not theologically wimpy.

In December of 2007 I wrote a blog, "The Human Side of Prostitution: Five for Sorrow, Ten for Joy" reviewing a novel based on a real group of women, "The Sisters of Bethany", a unique Dominican Third Order of the Congregation of Saint Mary Magdalen. These were some wicked unique nuns, women who were previous felons, prostitutes, drug-addicts now committed to Jesus and transforming themselves and their culture. Reviewing Five for Sorrow, Ten for Joy was such a pleasure, because I knew behind the fictional story's inspiration were real women living out lives of redemption after imprisonment. But this was all long ago, an order founded in the 1860's in France.

Well, through this new devotional book, Find Your Way Home I have found a modern day group order of women, here in the United States who are very similar to these Sisters of Bethany. Founded in 1997 in Nashville, TN, Magdalene helps women who have come out of lives of prostitution and drug addiction. The women of Magdalene have come out of correctional facilities or the streets, they have survived lives of abuse, prostitution and are experiencing a no cost, safe, disciplined, and compassionate community in which to recover and rebuild their lives.

Magdalene is a two-year residential community founded not just to help culture but to create culture itself. Their story and rule for living is simply written out in Find Your Way Home: Words from the Street, Wisdom from the Heart. This short book was written by the Women of Magdalene with Reverend Becca Stevens, Magdalene's Founding Director in short chapters listing out their 24 Rules for living in community.

As I read through the 24 Rules, inspired by Benedictine values, that govern the women of Magdalene's lives I was reminded of several things.

Ready to Change Themselves and You

First, these are women who have taken the bold step of changing from abused and abusers to daughters of God. Their journey begins and ends with God. They firmly believe that love heals.

When Dale and I were in Seattle last month we visited a homeless shelter that helps men get off the streets. The founding director taught us something significant. He said he often hears men say, "I want to get off the streets." The director, a previous addict himself, will offer commiseration (it IS cold on the streets, isn't it?), he has learned that these words do not mean change is forthcoming. It's only when he hears them say, "I want to change my life," that his ears perk up.

Find Your Way Home holds many first person stories, staccato paragraphs of women who were ready to change their life. I read from their words about the cycle of poverty, how difficult it is for the homeless to forgive others and themselves. One woman admits to being invited to Magdalene multiple times, attracted because women from this groups were giving her bags of toiletries and snacks, treating her, a stranger, with love. "The problem was, I couldn't stay clean. It would take me almost another year to give up the drugs, but I am so thankful God didn't give up on me." This going-the-long-distance love is something most church-attenders and small groups would benefit from experiencing, even if just through reading this short book.

The women's honesty would blow open most nice Bible studies. Let me give you one glimpse in a woman of Magdalene's own words, "I know the sweetness of grief and the feeling of tears against my skin. I also know that I will still sacrifice just about anything to be accepted by a man. But knowing that my body and spirit are connected at least give me permission to treat my body and every other body in the world as a great gift from God."

Embedded Bible Verses

Second, while I found consistent Christian ideas peppered throughout the 24 Rules, I did not find any Bible-quoting nor any mention of Jesus. As an apologist for Jesus I thought this worthy of mention. I began taking note of specific Biblical ideas, delighted to find so many God-honoring, true ideas woven into the Rules for life and stories from women. This was the Bible made flesh in a community of women in Nashville, Tennesee.

Here are a few Bible ideas I found.

* "I have forgiven the man who abused me when I was a child. I can pray for him and hope for wholeness" an incarnation of Jesus' command to love your enemies and pray from them.
* "We are God's children in flesh and spirit" reminiscent of John 1:12-13
* "We give drink to the thirsty, food to the hungry, comfort to the sorrowful, clothing to the naked, and companionship to the imprisoned and dying. We wash one another's feet" all commands of Jesus.
* "In loving our neighbors we are meeting God" a version of Matthew 22:39 "love your neighbor as yourself" that feels slightly Hinduistic to me as we are not actually God, but we bear his image.
* "I knew that God had new plans for me" echoing Jeremiah 29:11
* "On my best days I know even this broken mess of a body is a temple of spirit" a version of I Corinthians 3:16 and 6:19 that says our bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit.
* My favorite was "we know we are our sister's keepers" a reversal of Cain's avoidance, "Am I my brother's keeper?" in Genesis 4:9.

This spiritual sensitivity with hidden Biblical truths can be a useful guide to helping any person coming out of addiction. It outlines the importance of a Higher Power and prepares them to meet Jesus. Sharing spiritual truths without Jesus can, however, be a dead-end since Jesus' power is necessary to heal us, fully. I can see Find Your Way Home being a good start to spiritual conversations with a friend, especially if she is already concerned with social justice for women. It would be a great way to introduce someone to the Biblical ideas that have power to change real lives today. Just keep an eye out for the Biblical nuggets inside.

Setting up a Rule for Living

Third, this book would be a helpful guide for anyone attempting to set up a series of rules for guiding victims of addiction into healthy life. Inspired by the Benedictine rule, the women have developed guidelines for living with proven working power as they are the guide for everyday interaction and deep-seated community among the Women of Magdalene. Some of the 24 Rules particularly welcome to me like, "Unite Your Sexuality and Spirituality" a much-needed Jewish truth that we are made to be embodied souls, "Consider the Thistle", and "Walk Behind." The personal stories of women from Magdalene are proof that women are finding change, as one woman wrote, "It is not a problem to be lost. It is only a problem if you think it is impossible to find your way home."

Overall, Find Your Way Home made me very glad. Here is a group of women finding hope to leave addiction and find a home, a community, worthy work and meaning in their lives. If you're interested in helping the Women of Magdalene open more homes, you can buy this book as all the proceeds go to Magdalene, or you can visit their ingenious Thistle Farms, a non-profit company where women of Magdalene make all-natural body-healing products. I mean if you've every bought Bath and Body Works, you have to check them out. I've just put in my first order.

Next time I travel to Tennessee, I want to visit Thistle Farm named for that often overlooked flower that blooms where most would die.

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 work out their differences within that community by following the Rule and living into it. Such is its generous charity that women who had been hardened by abuse -- both by others and of themselves -- have found themselves transformed by love.

The Rule itself, broken down chapter by chapter into short segments, is a wonderful adaptation of Benedict's charitable and sane spirit. The reflections by the women of Magdalene that follow each section of the Rule form a powerfully moving recitation. Remember, for many of these women this will be the first time they have lived in a real home or experienced love from another person, or in some cases for another person. Imagine the experience of a woman fresh from prison being given a key to the front door and a room of her own with clean sheets on the bed. Well, you don't have to imagine -- her testimony is there for you to read. And it will move your heart.

I am tempted to cite other of passages but instead I simply urge you to obtain a copy of this short book. I began reading it on the subway on my way to a diocesan meeting and found tears running down my face as I read of the gratitude that woman felt on being given a key, as she knelt down to kiss the floor of her new home. There are many such moments of healing, thanksgiving, and transformation in this little book. It is a reassurance that God is at work.

The Rule of the women of Magdalene has something to say to us all as well. By that I mean all Christians, but particularly in these days of tension in the Anglican Communion, it is well to remember that Gregory the Great, who sent Augustine to England and so in some sense founded the Church of England, was an admirer and first biographer of Benedict. And so I will end this brief review with one of the chapters of the Rule to which I think it would do us all good to attend:

Chapter 8: Let God Sort It Out
In community our job is not to judge or say, "I told you so." We trust that God will sort things out, so we don't have to second-guess every decision someone else makes.
We are here to love one another in the most radical way possible, without judgment, and to pray that others can love us in the same way.
We give drink to the thirsty, food to the hungry, comfort to the sorrowful, clothing to the naked, and companionship to the imprisoned and dying. We wash one another's feet.

Couldn't the Anglican Communion learn something from the women of Magdalene? They have surely grasped an aspect of the life-saving, life-giving Gospel that many of us seem to have forgotten. It is not too late to learn from the thistle and its farmers, not too late to follow the example of the woman who loved much, rather than the Pharisee who sat in judgment.

-- Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Today is the first day of Sexual Assault Awareness Month and it seems appropriate to begin by reviewing a book which highlights a program making a difference in the lives of women who are too often dismissed as unworthy. This book highlights those women themselves by making their voices the heart of the book.

The book is Find Your Way Home: Words from the Street, Wisdom from the Heart by the Women of Magdalene with Becca Stevens.

The book arrived while I was getting ready for the Women, Action and the Media conference where I was scheduled to present a workshop on fighting sexual violence and even though I was eager to read it I didn't have time to do so until I was on the airplane. I read it from cover to cover and meant to review it immediately but again didn't have time to give this book the focus it deserves until today.

Too often books that highlight programs which help people are told only from the perspective of those who do the helping. The helpers are elevated far above those helped, but I didn't feel that stratification in this book.

Find Your Way Home has an introduction written by the founder of Magdalene, a residential community in Nashville, Tennessee for women who have survived lives of prostitution, violence and abuse. This intro provides valuable insight, but what makes this small but powerful book resonate are the words from the women who have stayed at Magdalene facilities. Their struggles are presented in a way that doesn't whitewash their past or their present challenges. It is their grounded hope, with the knowledge that hope isn't always enough, which makes this book something special.

The 24 principles of Magdalene are reflected in the 24 chapters of Find Your Way Home. This book can be read quickly or it can be read slowly since much of the book is made up of essays which can be as short as a single paragraph.

Too often my fellow Christians defend church leaders and other respected people accused of sex crimes by saying, "She's no innocent victim," as if that is a valid defense for a sex crime. This same statement is often used to defend doing nothing to help women like those who are served by Magdalene. Their attitudes made me shamed to share the label, Christian, with them. To me Christianity isn't about who you disdain, it is about who you serve. As I read Find Your Way Home it became clear that those who work to keep Magdalene alive share that belief in service which doesn't focus on elevating the person doing the serving.

This isn't just a book for Christians, it is a book for everyone who wants to help and doesn't know what they can do. Magdalene provides an example of practical and sustainable hope. It is a must-read for all those who have labeled certain girls and women as "no innocent victim."

The symbol of Magdalene is the thistle and was chosen because it is often disdained as a useless weed but is a flower which can bloom in the same tough conditions as the women who come to live at Magdalene. This reflects the cycle expressed throughout Find Your Way Home where being helped leads to becoming the helper.

The pervasive message in this book is that love in action is more powerful than the negative forces which often seem all powerful. That's a message all of us who sometimes feel too small to deal with injustice need to be reminded of.

Please go read the book.

"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 continue to support the community.

Also, visit the newly launched blog of Thistle Farms, where love heals.

Plant seeds... spread hope... give love...

It isn't often I read a book that makes me cry,laugh,pray,curse,forgive and ultimately realize the peace that comes with grace, but 'Find Your Way Home' managed to invoke all those emotions at the same time.

Written by the women of Magdalene, some who had been drinking since age 5, prostituting since age 8, living on the streets all of their lives until coming to Magdalene, I have to wonder if their almost supernatural courage an strength is their gift to "the normal people" to show them just how much we all have to learn and how much we all have to forgive, and most of all, how much we all have to love.

The stories each have their own personality, with the commonality shared of knowing what it's like to be treated like a discardable weed, but understanding how beautiful the Thistle(weed)is.

From: 'Find Your Way Home'

"Consider the Thistle

The thistle blooms in streets and alleys where women walk and sleep.

We spend a lot of time considering the Thistle--
it's rough exterior,it's soft and regal center, and its capacity to break through concrete to blossom.

In a world that names them weeds,we taste the riches of the thistles and savor their beauty.

We are thistle farmers. The world is our farm, and we harvest where other people do not want to travel."

I suppose I could add some more carefully chosen words, but they wouldn't be as good or as inspiring.

I had several opportunities to spend time with the women of Magdalene over the past 10 years, and they are some of the most remarkable people I have ever met. They are a community of women based in Nashville, TN. They come from as deep brokenness as you will find on this planet. They are survivors of lives of violence, prostitution and drug abuse. And they have not only survived that life but have found that abundance of life Christ dreams for all of us not just from help from above our outside but in the eyes, ears and arms of one another.

"Find Your Way Home" (Abingdon Press) is an accumulation of the wisdom of 11 years of community living of these women who were given a chance to escape their former lives in the intentional community known as Magdalene House. It is exquisite in its simple power. It's a book you could read in an hour --- but it took me days. Because every brief chapter. Every piece of wisdom. Every story pregnant with humanity begs to be pondered, sat with, prayed and even wept over.

Find Your Way Home is a Rule of Life from this community of women. It's a handbook of wisdom that has helped them survive and thrive. Like all Rules of Life it's essentially a community interpretation of THE Rule of Life of Holy Scripture. And like our Christian faith itself, it is Word incarnate ... enfleshed in the lives of the women that leap out from the pages.

I have had the honor of spending time with this community of women on several occasions, and so there were times when I heard their voices and saw their faces as I turned the pages. But you don't need to have spent time with these women to have this book change you. As Magdalene's amazing founder, the Rev. Becca Stevens, says "While our story is particular, the problems of prostitution, violence and drugs are universal. We have residents from all over the U.S. and Latin America and have met with women from widely scattered regions of the world, including Russia, Ecuador, Botswana, Rwanda, Sudan and Thailand, all of whom tell similar stories about how sexual abuse, not prostitution, is the oldest form of abuse."

As I turn the pages, I see the faces of pain and brokenness not just from our city streets but from the mining communities in Western Ghana, where girls who should be in Brownies sell themselves for food. But this is a book and these are lives that are not about despair .. but a sure and certain hope that is pure Gospel. A hope that does not ignore or sugar-coat the brokenness of the world but says with a clear and beautiful voice that death in all its forms does not have the last word. That Christ has the last word -- always -- and Christ, for these women, was found when two or three gathered in his name. When they became the Women of Magdalene.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough. I know I will read it again and again and again, finding new wisdom each time. I hope it will do more than that, though. I pray it will give me the strength and desire to put the book down and go out in the streets and meet the saints of God who walk there. And spread Christ's love to them as these women have spread it to each other.

Put together as a short devotional book, "Finding your Way Home: Words from the Street, Wisdom from the Heart" broke my heart and then inspired me. The women (over 100 contributors) who are current residents, graduates, staff and volunteers of Nashville's Magdalene house put their collected experiences into a little book that left me smiling and weeping. It won't take you long to read it, but it will take days to process their moving stories of life on the edge.

The most powerful statement to me came in chapter 3 "Cry with your Creator." The woman writes of being sick, skinny, and filthy. Find Your Way Home: Words from the Street, Wisdom from the Heart"I will never forget just standing at the edge of Dickerson Road with tears streaming down my face. Someone please help me."

I read it and cried. I could not stop crying. I tear up every time I think about it. How many people drove by and didn't notice her? How many people are begging on the inside for someone to see them? To be kind to them? It was personally convicting in that I would be one of those people - so busy, so distracted that I would not look around to see who was hurting and how I could provide comfort.

Matthew 10:42 states "And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is my disciple, I tell you the truth, he will certainly not lose his reward." (NIV) That would include the bag of chips and soda that brought one woman to Magdalene (ch. 12 - Show Hospitality to All.)

The Thistle is the symbol of both the community and the farm that makes body care products. Why the thistle?

"Thistles grow on the streets and alleys where the women of Magdalene walked. Considered a weed, they have a deep root that can shoot through 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. Being a Thistle Farmer means the world is our farm, and that we choose to love the parts of creation that others have forgotten and condemned."

What I take away from this book:

1. God loves everyone more than we know.
2. There are people out there who will love you like He does.
3. I need to learn and continually practice how to love like He does.
4. Small kindnesses matter.

Each chapter paints a picture of love and grace. It shows the long process of healing. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. But the love remains.

Just a quick editorial note: I was asked to write a review and received a copy of the book. Also, the book should not put off anyone who does not believe in God. While we can argue about eternity later, I believe we can all agree that the world is in dire need of more love, compassion, and grace. The source of that is your choice.

See also: Born into Brothels, The Pussycat Preacher (both documentaries are available to rent on Netflix)

This short book is a collection of reflections by the women of Magdalene. Magdalene is a two-year residential community for women who have survived lives of prostitution, violence, and abuse. The community exists not just to help these women, but to change our culture that not only buys and sells women, but often rejects them as too broken to be redeemed. To this end the women of Magdalene live by a disciplined order - a rule for living in community. The twenty-four principles of this rule are what the women of Magdalene reflected on as they contributed their stories and meditations.

The pervasive theme in the book is the power of love to bring about healing. Over and over the women confess that they had never felt loved or accepted by anyone until they came to the Magdalene community. This love is demonstrated in the principles of their order. One rule is that of proclaiming original grace - to look at each person's journey beginning not with original sin but with original grace. The community uses the thistle as a symbol of this love. Generally seen as an unwanted weed, it is the one flower that grows on the streets where these women walk. As one woman wrote - "there were no weeds in Eden. Even the thistle was loved by God. I can see life in a thistle and how God created life in me." (p.68)

I was touched to read how the simple acts of the Magdalene community connected with the hurt and broken women. For some it was the offer of a meal or a bag of toiletries, for others a living room with soft chairs or a kitchen with pots and pans, for others it was someone being willing to brush the knots out of their hair. It took some of these women years and multiple attempts to accept the healing offered to them, but they were never given up on or forced to heal on a timeline. They were loved and offered the benefits of community as they were - and it was that acceptance that made the difference in the long run.

The book is a quick read, but it has lasting impact as the stories of these women challenge the standard reaction of the church to "wayward women." Just hearing their stories forces us to change our perspective. To move past our preoccupation with sin and respond instead with abundant grace.

"It is not a problem to be lost. It is only a problem if you think it is impossible to find your way home."

It is with this philosophy that the Women of Magdalene, a residential community in Nashville for women who have survived lives of prostitution, violence, and abuse, have created one of the most inspiring books I have ever had the pleasure of reading.

...and reading it was an immense pleasure; for it is a such rare occasion that I am able to be still enough to sit through a few chapters a day of any reading material, yet it was difficult to put this book down.

"Find Your Way Home" is a group effort on the part of the Rev. Becca Stevens (Founding Director of Magdalene), along with over a hundred contributing and anonymous authors, including women who are themselves currently a part of the program, graduates, staff and volunteers. The purpose is to share the truths these women have learned through their journey, "that in community, love and grace are the most powerful forces of individual and social change."

The Magdalene sisters live by 24 precepts inspired by the Rule of Benedict, and each rule serves as a perfect chapter title for this collection of anecdotes and powerful lessons learned through the grace of God.

I was privileged to have an opportunity to visit Thistle Farms, the non-profit business operated by the women of Magdalene. The women create natural bath and body products and run the business, learning job skills and responsibility. All proceeds from the sales of the products go back into the program.

It was so incredible to meet some of the women who contributed to this book. I met Cynthia, this beautiful woman whose story began at age 5 when she was introduced to alcohol and then sexually abused at age 8. She had her first baby at 13, and by 16 had 3 kids with no family and no support. Cynthia lived on the streets as a prostitute and addict for 20 years.

And yet...

Today, she is married, a graduate of Magdalene and the Floor Manager for Thistle Farms. All because she has experienced first hand how "love is more powerful than all the forces that drive women to the streets."

As I read "Find Your Way Home," my eyes welled up with tears as I soaked the words in like a sponge:

"Even though we may feel lonely when we cry, we are never truly alone. Our despair is part of a larger chorus howling for justice that stretches back to the prophets...every step of the way we remind one another that God hears our cry."

[...]

"In community our job is not to judge or say, `I told you so.' We trust that God will sort things out, so we don't have to second-guess every decision someone else makes.

We are here to love one another in the most radical way possible, without judgment, and to pray that others can love us in the same way."

The book challenged me to fine-tune my way of thinking about acceptance of all who are made in the image of God, to have a grateful heart for everything I have been blessed with in this life, and to embrace the healing power that is experienced through forgiving ourselves and one another:

"I have forgiven the man who abused me when I was a child. I can pray for him and hope for wholeness. That didn't come until after crossing a desert of hurt and then fording a river of confusion and confrontation and finally climbing the hill of acceptance; but I am so grateful that I know the sweet taste of forgiveness. I love that I can see that even in that pain there were gifts that I have used in my life. I marvel that part of who I am was born from that experience, and it makes me love the world more."

I love the fact that this book is being released in the springtime...how apropos during this time of fresh, new beginnings. Assuredly, your spirits will be refreshed as you read each inspiring page.

i was genuinely and pleasantly surprised to discover the women of Magdalene and their book Find Your Way Home.

As most long-time readers know, my mother was homeless for most of her life. she had been adopted to america from another country after a traumatic childhood and never found her place. i do believe she wanted to be accepted and love, but she only had the violence of the streets, alcohol, drugs, and her own vulnerability and loneliness. in the end, she died homeless--frozen in a snowbank less than 20 feet from her tent/shelter.

i have been homeless as well (though i called it "travelling" without money), but i was fortunate enough to discover a chosen family and community.

Magdalene is a 2-year residential community in Nashville. It is for women who have survived lives of prostitution, violence, and abuse. inspired by the Benedictine Rule, the women have written down 24 rules they live by in the Magdalene community.

Magdalene was founded to help change the culture of women, and to stand in solidarity with women who are recovering from sexual abuse, addiction, and life on the street. at no cost, magdalene offers women a safe, disciplined and compassionate community for 2 years.

the community offers a witness to the truth that in the end, love is more powerful than all the forces that drive women to the streets.

wow. i wish my mom could have been able to get there.

the book Find Your Way Home is written by the Women of Magdalene. it conveys writings that are moving, empowering, tragic, and hopeful.

here is a piece of the tragedy that the Women of Magdalene have gone through:

i have a broken body ... i have jumped off hotel roofs to avoid the police and have survived being stabbed. my body wants to be medicated to forget the brokkenness and all the times i abused it to get a fix.

. . .

i was homeless, standing in the rain with nowhere to go but into a car with a trick. i was sickly skinny, and my hair was falling out. i was filthy, i had lost my front teeth, and my clothes were dirty. i hadn't seen my family in 12 years. i will never forget just standing at the edge of dickerson road with tears running down my face. someone help me.

. . .

the ditch is the place where i was beat up and beat down, with busted lips and black eyes. the ditch was where i was raped and was crying and screaming and thinking no one could hear.

these women (and many more) found their way to Magdalene. treating the stranger with love, including basic needs such as toiletries and snacks, as well as inviting women to live in the community, is an important beginning for many women.

one woman was invited but writes: ...they invited me to come and live (in Magdalene). The problem was that i couldn't stay clean. it would take me almost another year to give up the drugs, but i am so thankful that God didn't give up on me.

for those who are able to join the community, there is a small precious hope just beginning:

when i came into Magdalene they gave me a key to the house. i kissed the floor because i knew that someone believed in me. i felt love for the first time in my life and wondered what kind of people were in this place. it made me tingle all over, from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet.

i remember the first time i cried when i came into the community. i was lying in my bed on one of the very first nights in the safety of this new home. i was looking around; and even though i didn't see anyone there, there was a feeling of something inside of me. because of this community of sisters and God's mercy, i can face the big fears of my life.


as the women journey through their 2 years in the Magdalene Community, they are on a lifelong path to wholeness. through their time there, they walk the path slowly, and help each other. it is a slow and miraculous journey, and their job is to just keep going, respecting love's power.

i sat in our cicrle and didn't feel anything. then the director got up and walked over to a woman sitting near me and started braiding her hair. that is when i felt something growing in me, and i wanted to sing. of course, the feeling was love. i had never sat in such a circle, and i was amazed as i watched her go to the next woman's hair, judging no one and being one of us. it was a comfort to have all the people in the circle be part of it. the circle was soothing and intimate, and it is changing my heart.

the women of Magdalene offer a non-profit business called Thistle Farms. The women create, by hand, natural bath and body products that are as kind to the environment as they are to the body.

all sales proceeds go back into the program, and through Thistle Farms, the women gain job skills and learn responsibility and cooperation. into every product goes the belief that freedom starts with healing, and love can change lives.

you can read more intimately about Thistle Farms at their blog.

this is an amazing community and an amazing book. i'm afraid that if i say much more, i will quote the whole thing! the book is full of the writing of women in different parts of their journey, their way back to wholeness, their fear of leaving Magdalene, the ways that Magdalene helped them, and the many ways that God uses other people to accomplish amazing things.

it is a book that everyone should read, because it is full of hope. i finished it, with tears on my face. just the idea that so many women have been rescued, have been loved, have been part of a community is a beautiful and holy idea.

this community and this book is a dose of hope for all of us.