A Prayer for Advent

Beloved, as we reflect on this season of Advent, let it be our care and delight to prepare ourselves to hear again the message of the angels, and in heart and mind to go even unto Bethlehem, to see the Babe lying in a manger.

Let us read and mark in Holy Scripture the tale of the loving purposes of God from the first days until the incarnation of love made flesh by this holy Child; and let us look forward to the yearly remembrance of his birth with songs of praise.

And let us remember brothers and sisters because this of all things would rejoice his heart; those who are poor, hungry, cold, helpless, or oppressed; the sick and those who mourn; the aged and the little children; and all who rejoice with us but on another shore and in a greater light, that multitude which none can number, whose hope was in the Word Made Flesh. Stir up our hearts that our feet may be strengthened for your service, and our path made straight for the work of justice and reconciliation.

Most merciful God, you took on human flesh not in the palace of a king but in the humility of poverty: Grant that your life-giving Spirit may so move every human heart; that, following in the steps of your blessed Son, we may give of ourselves in the service of others. Bless the work of Magdalene, Thistle Farms. Aban, Holy Cross Hospice, Lwala, Blood Water Mission, St. Luke’s, Faith Family, Ikerizi, Escuela Anne Stevens, Episcopal Relief and Development, and all the ministries served and led by the St. Augustine's community. 

O God, in whom there is neither male nor female, Jew nor Gentile, slave nor free: Unite the wills of all people, that the walls which divide us may crumble, suspicions disappear, and hatreds cease; so that all may live together in justice, harmony, and peace. Bless the labors of all who minister to the sick, and unite the wills of nations and peoples in seeking an end to the pandemics of our age; that sickness may be turned to health and sorrow turned to joy. Inspire us to use the riches of creation with wisdom, and to ensure that their blessings are shared by all people. Inspire in our nation, its leaders and people a spirit of devotion. 

We praise you for the faithfulness and devotion of your Servant Mary, our Holy Mother. Protect the health and safety of all women in childbirth and the children whom they bear, and inspire your people to build strong and healthy families and communities. We commend to your mercy all your departed servants; and we pray that we, too, may share with the Blessed Virgin Mary and all the saints in the joy of your heavenly reign.

Let us say the Lord’s prayer together: 

The Almighty God bless us with grace; Christ give us the joys of everlasting life; and to the fellowship of the citizens above may the Angels bring us all. Amen.

 Peace and love,

Becca

@revbeccastevens 

The Global Circle

I was raised by the Harpeth River, but never learned how to skip a stone. The rocks I tossed plopped, and instead of seeing them skip across the top, I got to observe over and over how series of perfect concentric circles grow larger as they move through water. Being in The Ryman tonight is a huge ring in a circle that is bigger than any of us dreamed of when we tossed in our small, rounded stone of hope that consisted of a house and five women in 1997. We have watched the ripples make their way through troubled and beautiful waters and tonight bask in the beauty of 2,000 people in a sacred circle that helps us all believe love grows exponentially.

It is right for us to be here on one of the oldest stages of storytelling in Nashville. The story we share tonight is older than the oldest country song. It’s a story that dispels the myth that prostitution and trafficking are the oldest forms of abuse, and proclaims that child sexual abuse and trauma are at least a generation older. It’s the story that calls us to remember that love is older and deeper than the oldest scars we carry. It’s a story of day to day struggle and glorious transformation. Dorris Walker, who leads the packing team at Thistle Farms and sings like an angel, traveled with me to Florida to share her story of healing and hope. Now, while Dorris, like most of the women of Magdalene, had experienced the underside of bridges, the short side of justice, the back side of anger and the inside of prison walls, she had never seen the far side of the horizon from the coast. I got to be with her as her feet hit the sugar sands for the first time and as she stepped into the ocean and felt the tide pull her. She threw her arms open wide and said in a lilting voice as beautiful as any singer who has ever graced The Ryman stage, “Has this been doing this my whole life?” For as long as the moon was tossed into the atmosphere of our planet, concentric tidal circles have come in waves. The power of the circle and the healing of love are the oldest and most powerful stories of humanity. But we need each other to get down to the shores to feel its pull and to remember that the circle of love can ripple across the whole globe.

For years we have been growing the circle of Thistle Farms. Last year sales were close to $700,000 and we are on track to surpass those numbers so that we can meet our 1.6 million dollar budget. This year, we have welcomed nine new employees and have nine women waiting in the wings to come on board to work. This year we opened the Thistle Stop Café and our Sewing Studio to keep expanding the work opportunities. We are launching new initiatives this year, including the first Magdalene Circle inside the prison walls, under the leadership of Dorinda Carter and Shelia McClain, and a women’s shared-trade initiative that includes overseas partnerships and sales’ teams across the country. We also have our eyes set on a new residence and want to continue our commitment to help launch similar residential programs in more cities.

This circle tonight is especially beautiful because it is the culmination of our first National Conference. The sold-out conference is welcoming 250 guests from 31 states who join us in the truth that together our communities can widen this circle enough to change a culture that continues to buy and sell women like commodities and forgets that we don’t ever have to leave anyone behind on our journey to the shores of hope. They will carry this story back and help us see the next big ripple tearing through the water like justice rolling out across a sea of pain. We know in this circle that if you want to kill a village, rape the women, and if you want to heal the village, heal the women. All of our individual efforts in healing a village may be a drop in the bucket of solutions, but you gather enough drops together and you can change the tide. Magdalene and Thistle Farms are about healing the whole community. Women go back and deal with dysfunctional families, make court restitution, get their kids back, and just by being on Charlotte Avenue, we help the city save and receive income of more than $600,000 annually.

The holiday ornament created by our paper studio this year is a globe. It is made up of 20 individual circles. This global image celebrates that we are a movement of concentric circles, and that we are allowed to dream big, especially on the stage of The Ryman, that we can love the whole world together, one person at a time. We are gaining momentum fast. We were featured this week in the New York Times, we will be featured in a PBS documentary this year with Nicolas Kristof as a best practice model in this country, and we are becoming a voice for change in this country. Yes, we have come far, but there is so much more work to do to make the next ripple; there are a hundred women on our waiting list, there are thousands of women in our prisons that long for community, there are thousands more in alleys tonight where the light of hope is all but extinguished as they can’t see their way home. So we will keep casting our stones wider and farther until we can help change the world so that child sex abuse is no longer a secret, and women who have been raped will see the healing light of justice, where there is no tolerance for the buying and selling of human beings, where women feel like they can seek help with addictions without fear, and where there are hundreds of recovery homes offering long-term, community-based healing with meaningful work.

It is going to take all of us to lift a rock of hope big enough to open the circle to welcome more and more survivors. It’s a lot to open new programs, to open new homes, and to create new businesses. To fund our current programs and the ones ahead, we need to raise $400,000 tonight. We can absolutely do it if we can imagine all the love rising tonight from everyone gathered---from new residents, old friends, and brand new faces, and see ourselves as a force that longs for love as big as the moon. Then we can carry that love through these doors into the wider world and make a circle big enough that it can reach the farthest shores of our hearts and the ends of the world.

Peace and love,
Becca Stevens
Thistle Farmer

We are grateful for everyone who joined us in the circle at The Ryman last night. If you weren't able to make it, but you still want to donate, go to givelovehere.com to make a secure donation via Paypal.

The Lost Sheep: Luke

 

Years ago I got lost and drove onto an old country road that looked forlorn and abandoned. It was a cold day and the land was full grey from the exposed limestone that made it poor country for farming. There were three old buzzards sitting in a barren hackberry on my left, and a cabin by the road had a worn-out rebel flag hanging from the clothesline near a bunch of trash and old tires. Across the road was a fenced-in field with just one sheep standing there looking abandoned and alone. It was the clearest image I have ever seen of the parable of the lost sheep in which Jesus leaves the ninety-nine in search of the one forsaken.

I read the front page of the Nashville paper that described the confession by one student about the brutal rape and sodomy with a foreign object in June of a coed in a Vanderbilt dorm room by four other students and their ensuing attempts at cover up. Six pages later the Tennessean’s "World News" section announced the death penalty just handed down to four young men in India convicted in the rape, sodomizing with a foreign metal object and death of a young woman there in December. That news on top of the debates and images of war in Syria conjured up that devastating image of a forsaken sheep. That image is about all of the victims of violence that not only carry the universal issues including post traumatic stress, loss of life, permanent physical and mental disabilities but the private and lonely scars unrevealed to a wider world. It is the image of the refuge from Syria listening to the political debates about war and carrying all their belongings on their backs to an unknown country. It is the image that I carry with me when I meet folks when they are broken, or just coming from the streets, or when someone is bearing the news of tragedy. It is the image of all of us lost and wandering in a field of uncertainty. And in that lost sheep I can see the faces of people I have known almost daring someone to offer them a sign of hope.

I fear that place and what it stirs up in me of anger and fear. I want to run from it and mourn the part of all of us that knows what it is to be the lost sheep. I want to fight the world that is harsh enough to make us feel like we are standing between buzzards and old useless flags. But the parable of the lost sheep is a parable about compassion, humility, idealism, and ultimately love. Jesus is telling the growing crowd that is following him to Jerusalem where they will find themselves as lost as a lone sheep in winter, that even in the hardest times, they are never abandoned. Into this place love goes with you. Jesus is reminding us this morning that as followers of the way, that those are the very places we are called to go, remembering our own fears, and like love itself, help each other find our way back. This gospel preaches that Love steps into the places we worry that live beyond even its bounds and finds us.

The lost sheep is the call to idealism. In idealism we can live in hope with courage that no one is outside of love’s embrace. When we encounter a woman on the streets that has been victimized before she could even identify where she lived on a map, we don’t give up but find a way to welcome her home. Idealism says there is no one on all of God’s green earth that is hopeless. The lost sheep is a call to humility. In humility we find the courage so face huge and unmovable systems whether justice, education, or penal, and work on behalf of those who have been marginalized. While we are aware of our means and strength, we just keep walking towards the gates with love, even to gates of the city that kills its prophets, not abandoning those who are oppressed. The lost sheep is a call to community. Community is the very thing a sheep longs for more than anything else. It is through the gift of traveling together we don’t get lost and make room for people to walk their individual path with friends heading in the same direction.

The song Levi and Marcus Hummon sing this morning echoes the call to idealism, humility, and community. “Take the tears and the careless words take the fears and all the hurt, and lets just make it love”. Michael Kelsh sang that on the path we can wait for each other and seek the lost and find our way to love.

This Gospel though is not a theory. It more than a way of being, it is calling us to action. Living faithfully has always been about the lost sheep, whether in standing up for gay and lesbian rights, or welcoming women with housing and jobs and family from our streets and prisons, or speaking up for a rape victim on this campus. Luke’s gospel should embolden us to look again at the abandoned fields of this world and make a path wide enough for the sheep to come home. I have learned so much from people who came to find me when I was lost standing with my back against the wind hoping someone was idealistic and humble enough to see me. I have been changed by the folks in this community who love heroically in their work and their lives and goes to the margins of this community and to the ends of the earth to help the lost sheep. Going to find the lost sheep for me means being a part of a movement in this country calling on every city to provide long term free housing for the survivors of trafficking, prostitution, addiction and violence. For many folks here it means growing the work in Ecuador, Botswana, Kenya, Rwanda, Haiti and anywhere else where this community is pouring their hearts into the work of justice for others to find freedom. For others here it means working hard in this diocese for the equality in rites and rituals for every person. And I think for the Vanderbilt community it means we stand together and say that we put the physical and emotional safety of student’s way ahead of athletics, Greek life and donors in a way that demonstrates our compassion for the sheep and our outrage at the horrendous violence that took place.

Imagine for a moment the powerful message that would be preached if the whole university abandoned for a home game all the tailgates and frat parties and stood in solidarity with the one student who was abandoned on this campus one night back in June. It could happen. I am the lost sheep. You are the lost sheep. Together we find our way to love then go back and search the lonely ridges to bring a message of unfathomable love to others. When the sheep comes home there is rejoicing and it stands as testimony to the truth that in the end love is more powerful than anything that wants to wound us, abandon us, or make us feel alone.