""Love is my grounding," says Becca Stevens. "It provides the axioms that inform and govern what I do. First is that love is the most powerful source for social change in the world. Second is that love heals. I'm not called to change the world. I am called to love it." "All spiritual paths can be walked more gracefully by avoiding the pitfalls of disillusionment and not getting distracted by the bright lights of ego that have led countless priests far afield. Following simple road signs like courage, humility, forgiveness, compassion, and faithfulness that others have put at the crossroads for me has made the work possible and left me grateful. I want to pass along through these letters a tradition of a priesthood that is grounded in the idea that love heals and healing is the central-most sacrament of the church.""

When we allow ourselves to embrace both ordinary and extraordinary experiences, we can feel the divine anywhere. No matter where we are-on a walk in the woods, in a sacred building, or in a dusty refugee camp-signs of love abound. There is no secret formula to experiencing the sacred in our lives, it just takes practice and practicality. You're invited to search this path with entrepreneur Becca Stevens as she explores what it means to be practically divine. Woven throughout the narrative are poetry and rants, as well as ruminations on her mother's wit, wisdom, and passion. In Practically Divine, Becca shares how to live a life that's practically divine by: Redefining old lies and stories, to learn from the past Appreciating the gifts that come from imperfections or trauma Using creativity to spark new revolutions Accepting the chaos of the unknown before us with courage Sharing in a feast of love, knowing there's enough mercy and forgiveness Embracing the practically divine compels us to do something, anything, to share in the feast of love together. When we start from wherever we are, we can recognize the potential for humor, wonder, and freedom. Practically Divine teaches you to use your senses to transform information into holy compassion. When we open our hearts to it, we can experience the divine anywhere - like sacred breadcrumbs marking our path.

What started as an impossible dream-to build a cafe that employs women recovering from prostitution and addiction-is helping to fuel an astonishing movement to bring freedom and fair wages to women producers worldwide where tea and trafficking are linked by oppression and the opiate wars. Becca Stevens started the Thistle Stop Cafe to empower women survivors. But when she discovered a connection between cafe workers and tea laborers overseas, she embarked on a global mission called "Shared Trade" to increase the value of women survivors and producers across the globe. As she recounts the victories and unexpected challenges of building the cafe, Becca also sweeps the reader into the world of tea, where timeless rituals transport to an era of beauty and the challenging truths about tea's darker, more violent history. She offers moving reflections of the meaning of tea in our lives, plus recipes for tea blends that readers can make themselves. In this journey of triumph for impoverished tea laborers, hope for cafe workers, and insight into the history of tea, Becca sets out to defy the odds and prove that love is the most powerful force for transformation on earth.

Nationally well-known social entrepreneur and founder of Thistle Farms brings encouragement and hope through true stories of healing and with a message of how we can help bring about lasting change to overcome struggles.

Becca Stevens founded Thistle Farms in 1997, offering sanctuary to five women survivors of abuse, addiction, and prostitution. Nearly twenty years later, these humble roots have grown into the largest social enterprise in the US run by survivors of abuse, addiction, prostitution, and trafficking. The immensely popular organization has been steadily gaining traction in national news outlets and retailers with no direct marketing from the organization, and their products-and message-have been featured everywhere from The Today Show to O, The Oprah Magazine. The White House recently named Becca Stevens a Champion of Change.

Years after her death, a poet's life and work speak across the generations, inspiring new music and more intentional living. What are the heart's necessities? It's a question Jane Tyson Clement asked herself over and over, both in her poetry and in the way she lived. The things that make life worth living she found in joy and grief, love and longing, and, most importantly, something to believe in. Her observation of the seasons of the soul and of the natural world have made her poems beloved to many readers, most recently jazz artist Becca Stevens. Clement's poetry has gained new life - and a new audience - as lyrics in the songs of this pioneering musician of another century. Like many great poets, from Emily Dickinson to Gerard Manley Hopkins, Jane Tyson Clement (1917-2000) has found more readers since her death than in her lifetime. A new generation that prizes honesty and authenticity is finding in Clement - a restless, questing soul with a life as compelling as her work - a voice that expresses their own deepest feelings, values, and desires. In this attractive coffee table collection of new and selected poems, editor Veery Huleatt complements Clement's poetry with narrative sketches and scrapbook visuals to weave a biography of this remarkable woman who took the road less traveled, choosing justice over comfort, conviction over career, and love over fame.

Healing begins with love and the belief that change is possible. After fourteen years of ministering to prostitutes, drug addicts, and female victims of every kind of abuse, Becca Stevens knows firsthand what it means to be broken - and what it means to find healing. Stevens shares how God turned her own childhood scars of sexual abuse and loss into two nationally acclaimed ministries for healing others. She founded Magdalene, a free rehab and housing programme for prostitutes, and Thistle Farms, employing women to manufacture all-natural body care products in a supportive community of survivors. Wise and reflective, SNAKE OIL inspires readers by offering real recipes for healing oil blends and a story that empowers all who come in contact with it. From clovers to casseroles and everything in between, Becca - a 'snake oil salesman' - affirms that redemption comes in the most unexpected places, and the belief in healing can be just as restorative as the product itself.

Unfortunately, grief and loss are inevitable parts of living. No one escapes. Even so, it's difficult to know how to console those who have reached a broken place in their lives. What is the best way to show compassion when words cannot be enough? In The Gift of Compassion, author Becca Stevens offers practical help for pastors, Stephen ministers, congregational caregivers, and other laity serving the broken-hearted. With a central message on the importance of simply being present for people who are grieving, Stevens combines practical how-to's with prayers, Scriptures, suggestions fro ways to serve the sacraments, and inspiration about the peace of God that passes all understanding. This small book outlines meaningful ways to show compassion through planning visits, writing notes, finding appropriate Scriptures and prayer to read, avoiding cliches, and offering the presence of God to people suffering through the dark and searching experience of grief.

"I have seen water move rocks. I have seen thistles break through boulders." "If water and flowers can move stones, surely love can." Becca Stevens, from "Funeral for a Stranger" In this meditation on living and dying, Becca Stevens shares moving and hilarious stories about her life, love, friends, and our many families. This delicately formed narrative is also a window into the soul of a priest. I loved it and will hold it in my heart with gratitude for years to come. -Phyllis Tickle, author of The Great Emergence: How Christianity Is Changing and Why Loneliness finds connections, depair meets celebration, and fear discovers faith. Join Becca on her journey to a funeral for a stranger. God will be there. -Don Schlitz, Hall of Fame songwriter of The Gambler With elegant simplicity Becca Stevens escorts the reader to the banks of the deepest spiritual wellspring. Surely she ranks among our most gifted teachers on the things that matter most of all. -Stephen Bauman, author of Simple Truths: On Values, Civility, and Our Common Good

"I remember the first day I came home. There were four beautiful women walking out onto the porch to say hello. This was the home I d almost forgotten about. Thank you, God, for leading me home."

""

"" Have you ever felt lost?
Do you long for a group of friends?
Will you ever find your way home?

In this remarkable book, the women of Magdalene ask questions that all of us ask, and they share their own joyous, painful, uplifting answers. Inspired by the classic Benedictine Rule, the women have written down 24 rules they live by in the Magdalene community, a place of healing and grace.

Magdalene is living out the call and making something of the Kingdom happen.
-Tony Campolo, author of Speaking My Mind
With honesty and urgency, Becca Stevens and her fellow pilgrims from Magdalene reveal the insights gained on their personal journeys to wholeness.
-Gloria Gaither, Christian recording artist

Magdalene has a tremendous track record of bringing recovery, hope, and independence to women in need.
-Bill Frist, M.D., Former U.S. Senate Majority Leader

In "Find Your Way Home" there are 24 rules...designed to provoke people into discovering that God loves you as you are right now. And that God loves the possibility within you.
-The Most Rev. Dr. Katharine Jefferts Schori, Presiding Bishop, Episcopal Church
Magdalene is a residential community of women who have a criminal history of prostitution and drug abuse. The women live together in a series of Magdalene homes, supporting themselves and each other through the work of Thistle Farms, a bath and body-care business run by those in the program. For more information, go to www.thistlefarms.org.

Becca Stevens is the author of "Hither & Yon," "Finding Balance," and "Sanctuary," nominated by "Christianity Today" as best spirituality book of 2005. Featured on CNN and in other national media, she is an Episcopal priest at St. Augustine s Chapel at Vanderbilt University."

"Sanctuary" is about some unlikely and unexpected places where Becca Stevens has encountered God a trail in the Andes, her son s bathtub, Dorothy Day s Hospitality House, the Kroger parking lot. "Sanctuary" was nominated by "Christianity Today" as best spirituality book of 2005. I have never read a more direct and moving set of meditations. Becca Stevens has the most extraordinary gift for finding the ineffable in our ordinary old real world, and for making us feel it, too. -Lee Smith, author of "The Last Girls"

Becca Stevens meditations imagine an entire world and our part in it, as a place where God dwells. Instead of the tired effort of searching for God, she reminds us, like Francis Thompson s Hound of Heaven, that God can find us wherever we are. -Charles Strobel, Founding Director, Campus for Human Development

Becca Stevens is my kind of preacher woman. Her ministry extends far beyond the walls of St. Augustine s Chapel. Her words bring to life the miracles that abound in the mundane. -Marshall Chapman, author of "Goodbye, Little Rock and Roller"

Sanctuary can be found in Becca Stevens s elegant, exquisite, earnest pages. -Alice Randall, author of The Wind Done Gone Becca Stevens is an Episcopal priest at St. Augustine s Chapel on the Vanderbilt University campus. She is the founder of Magdalene, a residential community for women with a criminal history of prostitution and drug abuse, and the author of "Hither & Yon: A Travel Guide for the Spiritual Journey, "coming in September 2007. Meet Becca Stevens in this video interview about her life, faith andexperience with the women of Magdalene House."