-- Luke 2:12-14

Early one morning last week under a drizzle and a thick blanket of fog, I headed off to Radnor Lake for a moment of peace from the busiest Advent I have known at Thistle Farms and St. Augustine's. There, perched on a low branch beside the lake was a majestic bald eagle. I know they roost in the foothills of Tennessee, but seeing it watching me 20 feet away was still startling. It was a sign to me, as clear as if I had been a shepherd out watching my flocks at night, of good tidings from an angel of the Lord.

Christmas is the season of signs. The author of Luke's Gospel makes the signs of Christmas, such as stars, angels and dreams, the beginning of his Gospel with poetic mastery. Into the tradition of Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem, he sows with signs a theological blanket that cover us this holy season with grace, joy, lowliness, peace and universalism. The shepherds were given the sign that they would see a baby in a barn wrapped in a blanket. The magi were given the star as sign. Mary and Joseph were given dreams. Since the celebration of these signs were recognized by the church, this has been the season for all God's people with eyes to see, to find sings that point them to the Christ in this world, tucked away like a baby in a barn, to fill our days with hope and glad tidings. 

Looking back at seasons past, Christmas has always come to me in signs. I remember in 2004 when we were building a big new house for Magdalene in a pretty rough neighborhood. I was driving to the construction sight and worrying if this home could ever be a sanctuary for the women in this neighborhood. Then, like swaddling clothes, I saw a red ribbon tied in a bow on a neighbor’s door. It was a sign of peace and hope in the midst of doubt and fear. I remember in 2001 driving home about 10:30 on Christmas Eve after a service. We were just getting ready to launch Thistle Farms, and I was preoccupied the whole of Advent. All the sudden driving I realized the roads were quiet just as I drove past the hospice at 19th and Charlotte. There was only one light on in the whole place. As I imagined the person keeping vigil on Christmas Eve as someone they loved was dying, the light all of the sudden looked as holy as a star over a manger. I remember just last year how it was the simple dancing of a candle flame that brought the spirit of hope and peace to me. As I watched it flicker on the altar, I thought about how a single candle can cut a path through the darkest night, and how I had gotten to be part of a community that had made about 50,000 candles through Thistle Farms over the past 10 years. It was like the multitude of the heavenly host filling my heart and singing. 

You have signs that have carried you through this season like the most treasured gifts of Christmas. Chances are, your signs of Christmas rarely have been found in packages under your tree. It is not surprising that we all have signs, but they always come to us as surprises. This is the season to name them and recognize them as gifts of love that renew glad tidings that Emmanuel, God with us, was born. Your signs and my signs remind us that the eternal love of God is still visible in this temporal world and it can still turn stone to flesh in a heartbeat. 

For me the eagle was a great sign of Christmas. The eagle is obvious because it looks like my totem, the hawk, dressed up like Santa. There are probably a million ways to see any sign. In the rainy foggy wilderness, the eagle had to hunt by getting in close, and it didn't look lofty on that dreary morning, it looked determined. The eagle preached that morning with a clarity that I can only strive for -- that its not always visions of mountain tops, lofty cathedrals, and sugar plums.  Sometimes the holiest is lowly, determined and alone. 

The sign of Christmas is the moment we remember that our hearts beat to hope. The sign of Christmas is a welling of gratitude that bears the gift of loving the whole world. The sign of Christmas is a community that can take this world as it is -- seeing the horrible in the glorious, the meaningless suffering in the midst of deep meaning, and the sorrow in the midst of joy. And so with grateful hearts beating to hope we never, ever stop searching for signs as diligently as a hunting eagle on a foggy morning, that bring us glad tidings of peace on earth and goodwill to all people.

Let us  sing a song to the saints of God.

This picture was taken after leaving the Champions of Change award ceremony and conference at the White House today. The work I heard about from all the other Champions of Change was inspiring. Here is what I said on the grounds of our White House to the hundred members of the staff and leadership of the justice department and administration.

I carry with me into this hallowed space the gratitude of a community comprised of hundreds of women who have survived violence, prostitution, traumatic childhoods, prison and the streets, and who bear witness to the truth that love is the most powerful force for change in the world. Thank you for recognizing the work of Magdalene, and its social enterprise, Thistle Farms. We began 15 years ago with a single home and invited 5 women to live free for two years.  With no federal or state money, we have relied on individual gifts and grants and have grown into six homes. Thistle Farms currently employs 35 graduates and residents of Magdalene as we manufacture and distribute all-natural bath and body care products to 200 retail outlets. We have partnerships and sister programs scattered throughout the world and share this model with cities throughout this nation. This work is my joy and this honor gives me renewed courage to keep seeking that hallowed space in which the universal issues of violence are born on individual backs and love still endures and heals. Thank you. 

I listened to the broadcast by myself while I was in Connecticut at Trinity College for a speaking engagement.  I walked around the campus listening with my IPhone clutched in my sweaty palms and prayed.  NPR told our whole story, including the devastating news about Tara. What we came to understand was that a million people cried with us at the horrific reality of the violence of the streets and the courage of the women of Magdalene to live differently.  The response was a real witness to the truth that when love heals, it washes over all of us. 

In a long letter to me Tara wrote that she can look out through a sliver in a razor-wire fence and glimpse a thistle and remember that her story is not over yet. Thistle Farms has been a whirlwind since the airing with the women speaking their truth in love about why women walk the streets and what it takes to bring them home to over 10,000 people at conferences and events. We have never wavered on our mission to be a witness to the truth that love is the most powerful force for social change in the world.

The Hawk totem came to me at the same time we began the journey of opening Magdalene fifteen years ago. The hawk came swooping in and has been there every step of the way.  It is been a sign to me that we need to be as fierce in love and as focused as the hawk in our vision.  The Hawk soars to the heavens on a breeze and reminds us that the mission of Magdalene and Thistle Farms is not just a statement about the past but a vision that propels us forward with power. That vision is honed by a trusted board, a tireless staff, and hundreds of dedicated volunteers.  That hawk vision is centered on individual women moving from lives tormented by traumatic, abusive childhoods and violence to life on the streets and in jails, into a life that can soar on a breeze and imagine a future. 

On a visit to a prison this year to tell our story, we walked by a woman behind glass in solitary confinement.  Her cheeks were etched like a ravine in a valley carved by a river of tears. There was a mural across from her in the hallway was a hawk flying over a valley.  I swear love can make the connection between a valley of tears and a free bird soaring over mountains.   The healing is slow and mysterious, and it takes all of us to make it happen.  Our vision looks into new fields here and afar.

That vision includes opening a Thistle Stop Café at our manufacturing facility led by Desmond and Roberto.  The cafe would welcome the public to Thistle Farms, provide another training ground for the women of Magdalene, and would serve the hundreds of individuals that come to us from around the country to learn about our model and about how we make paper.

That vision includes launching sister programs like Eden House, founded three weeks ago in New Orleans after Jennifer, Kenny, Tim, Gwen and I spent the week there.  We are working closely with cities like St. Louis, Atlanta, and Dallas that want to learn our best practices and implement them in their own communities. 

That vision includes breaking the million dollar annual sales figure in the next two years and moving into 25 Whole Food stores as well as over 200 other retail outlets.  Those figures will help us to be a force for changing a culture that still buys and sells women and holds other worn out notions.

That vision includes welcoming another 12 residents this year, opening a new house and helping the authorities of the women’s prison to imagine developing a Magdalene sanctuary inside prison walls.

That vision includes a new still at Thistle Farms dedicated to Joanne Cato by her family.  That still will help us be the only local producer of healing essential oils on a commercial scale, and it will save lives by giving new women jobs, by the healing oils it will produce, and by the story it will spread to others.

That vision includes partnering with 3 other women’s enterprises in Lwala, Kenya; Accra, Ghana; and Kigali, Rwanda to introduce a new evening survival kit as we move into fairer trade and lift our communities together.  We are having our pre-launch of these kits tonight. We are offering them to you first, the people who have changed the course of Magdalene and Thistle Farms forever by your presence and grace at this gathering.

Tonight there are eight hundred of us here, but there are more than a hundred women whose paperwork is sitting on Donna’s desk; women on the streets or in jails wishing on the full moon that they could find a home with us.  Tonight, we could raise enough money in this one hour to keep the doors of our six homes open another year, to invite another 12 interns to be a part of this journey, to work with another 100 women who need help navigating the legal and mental health systems, to speak with another 200 groups about providing sanctuary for women’s bodies and spirits, to invite another 10 residents into Thistle Farms for vital training, and to go across our nation and the world to share the miracle and to inspire other cities to open their own communities. 

Magdalene and Thistle Farms are a gift to the city; they cost nothing and save millions.  Magdalene and Thistle Farms are a gift to all of us who donate our time, to buy into the hope that love is the most powerful force for change.  Magdalene and Thistle Farms are a gift to all the women here tonight who are graduates and residents who found a chance at life. 

This evening could be a totem; a sign to cities and social enterprises around the world that it can happen-- we can love the whole world one person at a time; we can change the course of one of the oldest forms of abuse this world has known; we can raise $350,000 in gifts and pledges in an evening and make this vision a reality. It can happen and it can happen with so much grace that all of us will walk out into the world filled with gratitude that it all had meaning and looking towards the sky for the new signs of Love’s healing power.

On the occasion of Joanne's birthday, we consecrated the still with with joy, tears, and excitement.  This great act of love and generosity will allow Thistle Farms to be a commercial producer of essential oils as we continue to expand our line of healing products.  As the sweet smell of lavender fills the workspace, we are reminded again that our cup runneth over. 

Much love, Becca.

I have spent the days sitting with the women sewing in a 1200 square foot tin building where they operate manual sewing machines and produce school uniforms, reusable menstrual pads, and kits for Thistle Farms. Christine, who is 32 years old and the mother of seven children, is a charismatic leader who explains with ease how she moved here when she got married.  She also talks about the prevalence of domestic violence among women and how earning a living frees women from that struggle because they no longer have to "ask their husbands for money for food."   She and the other women heard about the job opportunity from posters hung at the clinic and schools and applied in 2009 when the cooperative began.  Being paid for work not only gives them hope for their own lives she explains, but also, "It makes it possible for the children to attend school."  She explains, "When I was young there were many hardships…” and without lifting her eyes from the task of sewing she says,  “but I left home and went to a polytechnic school even though my family was against it and learned how to sew."  

Elizabeth's story is similar in that she too could not afford an education and came here when she married.  She sits and explains her story with a measuring tape draped around her neck and smiles even while she talks about the harsh reality of growing up in the grip of poverties strong hold.  She talks to me  while Oliva, her youngest, sits on her lap while she hems bags for Thistle Farms.  Above all she wanted to make sure that I shared, "We are grateful to Thistle Farms for ordering bags. The work has changed our lives and we hope you think of more things for us to sew."  She learned to sew from a cousin she stayed with while she was growing up.  

Other women in the group had parents who died early and are trying to stay healthy while living with HIV. They buy utensils, clothing and food as well as pay for their children to go to school, and it is on their minds as they are trying to sew some 200 bags before I leave.  There is a young sewer in the group who has one four-year-old son.  She has completed high school and dreams of going to college.  She says that this job allows her to save money to someday help make her dream come true.  Jane, who is the mother of seven children, never went to school and cannot read or write.  "It’s important to me that my children can learn," she explains.  She thanks me for the interview and for asking her important questions.

Through all the interviews I am sitting in the sweet space where fragile dreams are taking root.  Seeds of hope are being sown on as fertile ground in the hearts of the women as the rich soil surrounds the building.  I will carry Christine, Elizabeth and Jane's stories and weave them into the tapestry of stories I have heard over the past ten years at Thistle Farms.  Together they make a beautiful picture of how community heals individuals and transforms the world.  I don't take any of it for granted and sit, like in a fallow field, and wait for another season I haven't yet even imagined.  I can already feel how this harvest will produce another harvest of things that are useful, and healing, and that help us love each other a little better.

Jordan, Amy and I were getting ready to present at the Nebraska Synod Assembly in Fremont this past weekend. This picture captures the moment before we begin to make friends with people we have never met. We had done all our work to prepare, we had made tons of products, I had written a talk about who we are and how we fit into their vision of growing faith, and the table is set. We were just sitting and waiting as the business part of the gathering unfolds.

I remember, sitting in the back, that I have prayer. It is honestly the only thing that helps me before it all unfolds. And here is mine:

Please let me get out of the way.

Remove all my old ego stuff.

Let me make this day an offering and be open to the spirit moving---in my talk, in my conversations, and in my heart.

Forgive me all my impatience and worry.

Thank you for loving all of us.

Thank you for this chance to make new friends and for the work of Thistle Farms.

Amen.