All About Women | Women

~ 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.

Coach Carolyn