Becca Stevens - Letters from the Farm: A Simple Path for a Deeper Spiritual Life

A Simple Path for a
Deeper Spiritual Life

BECCA STEVENS

Copyright 2015 by Becca Stevens

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

Unless otherwise noted, the Scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scriptures marked (KJV) are from the King James Version of the Bible.

Morehouse Publishing, 19 East 34th Street, New York, NY 10016
Morehouse Publishing is an imprint of Church Publishing Incorporated.

www.churchpublishing.org

Cover design by Laurie Klein Westhafer
Typeset by Beth Oberholtzer

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Stevens, Becca, 1963

Letters from the farm : a simpler path for a deeper spiritual life / Becca Stevens.

pages cm

ISBN 978-0-8192-3175-8 (pbk.) -- ISBN 978-0-8192-3176-5 (ebook) 1. Spiritual life. 2. Love. I. Title.

BV4832.3.S738 2015

248.4--dc23

2015002681

Dedication

On May 19, 2014, twenty-five people were baptized in the Harpeth River in the hills of Tennessee. The joy present in the cold waters washed over me and stands out as one of the finest days of my ministry. To witness such abundance and beauty in the river alongside a pristine farm on the sunniest day of the year was breathtakingalmost more than a heart can bear in real time. Each family came with their own sorrows and fears alongside their hopes, but down by the riverside those were laid aside for a minute. In those freezing cold and fast waters we simply felt the rich blessing of new life. For a moment we all held on to one another, trying to embrace an eternal love through our temporal bodies.

I want to remember that day forever without trivializing or tying it up in a neat package. I want to remember feeling caught in the current as the Spirit descended as we stood together holding on. I dedicate this book to the story of rebirth of twenty-five people in the hopes that the following letters help them on their journey ahead. James McClellan Barbieri, James Cummings Berry, Genevieve Adele Bieck, Charles Montgomery Buntin, Preston Oakes Cross, Landen Crouch, Julia Bolling Dryden, Leland Monaghan Eadie, Robert Cooper Feldman, John Duncan Feldman, Thomas Lawson Foster, Mei Ishii, Minami Ishii, Taiyou Ishii, Wendell Theron Karns, Madelyn Hayes McGowan, Jude Francis Nardella, Charles Waller Robbins, Wendy Ann Southard, Henry Boardman Stewart III, Daniel Tashian, Matilda Tashian, Tinkerbell Tashian, Tigerlily Tashian, and Edwin Bass Tyler.

I am not more faithful than when I was twenty.

I am filled with the same doubts and fears.

Its just that now I live

into my faith more than my doubts

and pray to walk with a heart wide open;

To live into the hope that love is eternal,

and allow the course of the river to carry me,

instead of trying to swim upstream.

BECCA STEVENS

A special thank you to my colleagues who offered wwweditorial advice and edits, including Perry Macdonald, Don Welch, and Susan Sluser. Thank you to Nancy Bryan from Church Publishing, who came to Nashville and helped me decide that I wanted to write this book. Tim, as always, without your commitment and love, there is no book. Sandy, Mary, Lissa, Connally and Kathi, without your leadership of the Boards we would be lost on the farm. Donna, Holli, Jim, Anna, Regina, Sheila, Courtney, Fiona, Abi, Gaile, Anika, Shana, Jennifer, Dorris, Marlei, Katrina, Chelle, Peggy, Deb, Peggy, Tara, Cathy, Andrew, Kay, Brenda, Scott, Michael, Nicholas, Gideon, Frannie, Francie, Chris, you drive the plow with grace. To all the volunteers and communities around the world supporting this work, keep watering and weeding: we need you. To Marcus, Levi, Caney, and Moses, I love you all dearly. The hope is that the following letters helps us all walk the path with intention and grace as we all make our way to the shore. Thank you to the staff of Magdalene, Thistle Farms, The Thistle Stop Caf, Shared Trade, the Center for Contemplative Justice, St. Augustines, and their boards. Thank you to all the people who offered such amazing hospitality to the community of Thistle Farms and my family on our global farm journey. Thank you to all the people who offered me forgiveness for the speed of my travel and the shortcomings of my gratitude. Thank you to the great bloggers who have helped us grow a movement for womens freedom and for all the people who have bought our products and shared our message that love is the most powerful force for change in the world. The world is truly our farm and the harvest is plentiful. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

The following are letters from a farm that is as much a state of mind as a place. The letters are written for young priests, old friends, survivors who have been trafficked, and anyone seeking to live grounded in the belief that love heals. We can cut deep furrows and create rich beds for growing when we are not blinded by the bright lights of ego, sidetracked by the illusion of power, and stuck in the mud of inaction, feeling defeated or overwhelmed. We all have stepped in unseen holes, and found ourselves digging on hard, rocky ground. I have learned so much about farming both practically and spiritually from the work of Thistle Farms, a national bath and body care manufacturing and distribution enterprise run by survivors of trafficking and addiction that I founded in 2001. I have also gained a bit of wisdom from great leaders along the way who have been willing to share their hearts. I have seen that the people who work with integrity tend their fields in a posture of gratitude and I have tried to learn to farm that way too. It has been a gift to use tools left by other farmers that help me cultivate a sense of courage, inspiration, humility, forgiveness, compassion, and faithfulness. The hardest part about beginning this book was imagining the recipients of these letters. Am I writing to a class of seminarians preparing to embark on a vocation of service? Am I writing to a grieving father who is just about sick of religious platitudes and sweet sentiments? Am I writing to my own children who may at some point after my death want to know what I was thinking trying to establish sanctuaries and social enterprises for women who have survived prostitution, addiction, and trafficking? I hope that I am writing to someone who has not let the cynical part of their heart abandon the search for the place where justice and faith intersect. Maybe I am writing to a lonely seeker of community who knows that even though we make the journey alone, we can walk with each other. Perhaps there is a priest needing a story for a sermon. If I were betting on who picks up this book, I bet its square pegs, drummers who hear a beautiful rhythm all their own, and folks who have known some brokenness in their own lives. I am writing to myself too. It is such a gift to reflect on the lessons learned founding and running the place called Thistle Farms.