It is not every day that you hear a story that touches something deep inside of you. \u00a0That gives you a taste for “church” that matters. Not “church” as just another social obligation or Sunday morning engagement, but “church”\u00a0when it is working best, as a circle of saints and sinners having been found by and formed for Love. \u00a0A community of persons whose lives have been knit together by a Love that heals.<\/p>\n
Last week I had this privilege when Rev. Becca Stevens spoke to the United Methodist \u00a0Women’s Circle of Peachtree Road United Methodist Church in Atlanta, Georgia. \u00a0 \u00a0Stevens brought with her two women whose lives have been dramatically transformed \u00a0by the ministry she founded in 1997 to serve women recovering from lives on the \u00a0street as prostitutes and drug dealers. \u00a0“Magdalene House,” as it is called, helps women \u00a0reintegrate into society through a two-year period of living in intentional community \u00a0that provides\u00a0free housing, therapy, medical care, education and employment. \u00a0Their \u00a0work, based in Nashville, Tennessee,\u00a0was featured in a four-part series on NPR earlier \u00a0this spring.<\/p>\n
“I was recently asked whether I saw my role as speaking truth to power,” Stevens began. \u00a0She went on to dismantle the assumption behind this question- that one who speaks truth to power does not have power to begin with. Her experience had taught her that when women come together in circles- be they the well-coiffed, well-bred United Methodist Circle of women who came to hear Stevens last night, or the women just out of prison, without a penny to their name, rag-tag, and beaten up by life- they possess immense power. \u00a0And that power is at its heart the capacity to tell a story about Love. \u00a0Love that transforms lives. \u00a0Love that in our witness as wives, mothers, neighbors and friends, does indeed change the world one person at a time.<\/p>\n
Perhaps most striking about Magdalene is that it models its communal life after the Benedictine Rule, designed by the sixth-century St. Benedict as a way to inculcate fidelity, hospitality, reverence, and love for all humanity, so that\u00a0\u201cthe heart becomes broadened with the unutterable sweetness of love.\u201d \u00a0The Magdalene sisters have taken and expanded on these Benedictine guidelines for living. \u00a0Their “Rule of Magdalene” consists of 24 “spiritual principles”:<\/p>\n
1. Come Together
\n2. Proclaim Original Grace
\n3. Cry With Your Creator
\n4. Find Your Place in the Circle
\n5. Think of the Stranger as God
\n6. Take the Longer Path
\n7. Make a Small Change and See the Big Difference
\n8. Let God Sort It Out
\n9. Stand on New Ground and Believe You Are Not Lost
\n10. Forgive and Feel Freedom
\n11. Unite Your Sexuality and Spirituality
\n12. Show Hospitality to All
\n13. Laugh at Yourself
\n14. Consider the Thistle
\n15. Listen to a New Idea
\n16. Lose Gracefully
\n17. Remember You Have Been in the Ditch
\n18. Walk Behind
\n19. Live in Gratitude
\n20. Love Without Judgment
\n21. Stay on Point
\n22. Pray for Courage
\n23. Find Your Way Home
\n24. Leave Thankfully<\/p>\n