Becca Stevens: The art of healing and truth-telling

“There were no weeds in the Garden of Eden,” Becca Stevens, an Episcopal priest who founded Thistle Farms, said. As I looked around the manufacturing room, I could see she lived by those words and encouraged others to as well. The air was so heavy with fragrance, it made me think of how that house must have smelled when Mary prepared Jesus for his death and anointed his feet with her precious nard. The women reclaimed healing properties from plants that had been relegated to weeds. In fact, the whole place buzzed with women and men who were redeeming flowers, words, and especially people—finding dignity, value and worth in it all.

Thistle Farms is a social enterprise to create handmade products as good for the earth as for the body. They work with the community and graduates of Magdalene, a residential program of women who have survived sex work, trafficking, and addiction.