Today I attended a workshop in Richmond given by the Rev. Becca Stevens, founder of
Magdalene/Thistle Farms, a residential treatment program for women coming off the streets of Nashville. The workshop was about surrender. Not the kind of surrender that involves waving the white flag on the field of battle to concede that I am the loser and you are the winner. But surrender that involves giving in, letting go, giving oneself up to something greater, like surrendering to love, surrendering to God.
Becca wove the making of healing oils into the conversation about surrender. Healing oils are made by adding a few drops of essential oils into a larger amount of a carrier oil. Carrier oils include olive oil, jojoba oil, and almond oil. Essential oils carry the scent of the plant they come from. Today's oils included cinnamon, sweet orange, lavender, bergamot, lemon, grapefruit, geranium, and cedar. My hands and hair and sweater still smell like oils. We got to make our own by using droppers to put olive oil in small vials and then mixing in a few drops of the essential oils we liked. It was such fun to play with the scents and try to find the most pleasing combination. Each oil has particular healing properties, too, and it was very prayerful to try to pick particular oils for particular people.
The most powerful moment of the workshop for me came at the end. We had been talking about the woman who anointed Jesus with the costly nard, about the extravagance of the gesture, about the complete surrender involved, and about the healing that happened for the woman and, we are guessing, for Jesus. Becca wrapped up by reading us the story of Jesus on the beach with the disciples asking Peter if he loved him. She asked if there were questions. In the long silence that followed, Becca poured a generous amount of olive oil into a small pitcher and then put the remains of several vials of essential oils into it. She then invited forward a woman who happens to be an old friend of hers from Sewanee. Becca asked her friend to take off her socks and shoes. She then said a prayer while putting her hand in the container of oil and scooping a large amount onto her friend's feet. She proceeded to bathe her friend's feet with the oil, rubbing it on from ankle to toe, soaking the feet in the oil. She ended the prayer and then paused. And then she continued talking about how God keeps reaching out with love for us, and she took another handful of oil and spread it over her friend's feet. A third time, she poured the remaining oil over the feet. When she was done, she wiped her friends feet with paper towels and gently put her socks and shoes back on.
I don't really remember what Becca said as she anointed her friend with healing oil. It was a gesture that didn't need words. In a visceral way, the extravagant amount of oil she used brought home for me the extravagance of God's love. God keeps coming back and bathing us in that love, no matter who we are, no matter what we've done. As I watched the oil spill over and drip down onto the floor, I thought about how expensive essential oils are, how Becca was willing to "waste" all that oil to make her point. But not just to make her point. To give us an experience.
Jesus continually compared the kingdom of heaven to concrete things that the disciples could see and touch and smell and taste. Today I learned that the kingdom of heaven is like generous amounts of healing oil slathered on a woman's feet, dripping down onto the wooden floor, soothing and cleansing and overflowing. It smells like lavender and grapefruit and cedar. It lingers on your hands, on your clothes, in your hair. And there is more than enough of it to go around.
In honor of our first anniversary, we are bringing in the Rev. Becca Stevens as our guest preacher for the service. It will be at 6:30 p.m. at Bruton Parish Church on February 7. You may remember me mentioning Becca and her organization Magdalene and Thistle Farms. Becca led the healing oils workshop that I wrote about here. She is also a graduate of my alma mater, Sewanee. Magdalene is the residential program she began in 1997 that serves women for two years without charge and without government funding. Becca also founded Thistle Farms, a social enterprise, in 2001, which currently employs nearly 50 residents and graduates, and houses a natural body care line, Paper & Sewing Studios and Thistle Stop Cafe. She has raised more than $15 million for the organizations she supports. Named a Champion of Change by the White House in 2011 for her work in domestic abuse, Becca recently received an honorary doctorate by The University of the South and is the youngest and first female recipient of their Distinguished Alumnus award.
