"Love Heals and That is Truly Beautiful” with Becca Stevens

Becca Stevens is an Episcopal priest, speaker, author, social entrepreneur, and founder and president of Thistle Farms. Simply put, Thistle Farms makes natural bath, body, and home products. But this beautiful initiative does so much more than that. Thistle Farms employs and empowers female survivors of trafficking, violence, and addiction. The organization provides free housing, medical care, therapy, and education for two years, while women earn an income through one of three social enterprises.

Becca was recently named a 2016 CNN Hero and a White House “Champion of Change.” She has been featured in the New York Times, ABC World News, and NPR.

Becca inspires me to see that true beauty is revealed in loving acts. And Becca’s beauty shines so brightly as she continues to provide a loving space for women to heal and to grow. As they say at Thistle Farms, “love heals”…and that is a beautiful thing.

The Interview

Audio engineering by: McGinty Media

The Interview Transcript

Melissa: Hello. How are you?

Becca: I'm good. How are you doing?

Melissa: I am good. Thank you so much for meeting today. I really appreciate it.

Becca: Sure. Now, where are you calling from? It's far, far away.

Melissa: Yeah. I'm calling from Saint Paul, Minnesota. And you're down in Nashville, right?

Becca: I'm in Nashville.

Melissa: Okay, nice. Yeah, I've read quite a bit about the work you're doing down at Thistle Farms and find it incredibly inspiring. And so I just kind of have had it on my radar since I've started this whole project just as I go about life, when I see something that I really feel has a lot of ... This is a weird way to say it, but energy around it or just feeling like, wow, that's incredibly beautiful and it feels like God is really at work there. And I just, I love everything you guys are doing down there. It's pretty amazing.

Becca: Oh, thank you. That's beautiful. Well, let's go for it.

Melissa: Okay. So the first question I have for you, Becca, is how do you define beauty?

Becca: I don't know that I do define beauty. I think I experience beauty.

Melissa: Yeah.

Becca: And sometimes I feel beauty. But I haven't ever spent much time really defining it. I like the question. I think beauty is something you want to behold, almost like cradle it in your arms to gaze at it. That's something that feels beautiful. It's like you want to hold it tenderly. And I think beauty is…it's at the heart of melodies.

And I think it really is the face of God. And I also think it's something you think of as rare or precious. Those are all the words I would attach to it.

Melissa: Yeah, I think that that's the tricky part about it. It's kind of mysterious.

Becca: In a beautiful way.

Melissa: Yes. Okay. So you kind of alluded to this one, but I'm curious then around what you describe about experiencing beauty, where do you see or experience beauty in the world?

Becca: Oh my gosh. Where do I not? I can be moved to tears walking out in the woods. I mean everything. Everything, everything. You know, small animals. Really well formed leaves.

Melissa: Yeah.

Becca: Birds and rocks. All of it feels like anything that's just hasn't removed from its spot in creation feels so beautiful to me.

I experience beauty in really well done baths. When I take baths and I have Thistle Farms products and I've got a candle lit and cup of tea, it feels very beautiful. Like the whole experience and the ambiance and the feeling, it's all just beauty wrapped up in it. You know, when I gaze at my children, I about die I feel beauty so much.

And when I see the women of Thistle Farms joyful and strong, that I know have been broken, I think it's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

Melissa: Yeah. So I think what's really remarkable about you and how you described that is just, I mean a lot of people wouldn't have those observations in nature, like to be able to be moved to tears. I'm just curious like is that something you've cultivated? Or do you feel like that slowly become more natural after certain experiences? Or has that always been how you are?

Becca: You know, I think some people are really drawn to the Eucharist. Some people are really drawn to contemplative prayer. I love both of those things, love it. And I experience community and depth in all of that. But you know, my best communion with God, my best life with God is out in the woods or in a bathtub. So I must have been drawn to those. When you asked me about beauty, those must've been the places I immediately went to, because they're the most beautiful places.

But I have done two separate interviews with People Magazine, and it happened to be the same person interviewing me both times. It was about two completely different projects I had started. And she said on the second one, she goes, "Do you realize that both times you started with, 'Well, I was walking in woods'?"

So that's even where ideas and dreams are born, I feel so connected.

Melissa: Yeah.

Becca: You know? Don't you feel like ... I mean, I just posted this week on Instagram, this tree that I've known for 30 years out in a place called Radner Lake, it's a state park.

Melissa: Okay.

Becca: It was a tree that's like magnificently beautiful. I mean, amazing. So much so that my kids grew up and they had to tag the tree. Like you would want to hug this tree, so beautiful. And it just fell over.

Melissa: Oh.

Becca: It just fell. And it was, it was like seeing something beautiful falling. Like a piece of artwork desecrated kind of feeling. But the storm came and it didn't spare anything. But I was just like, "Wow, that was a beautiful tree that's gone."

Melissa: Yes. Oh shoot. Well no, thank you for explaining that. It's also interesting to hear how we're all wired to, and I love hearing how people find beauty.

The next question I have is, and you could answer this in any way, but if you could talk about an experience of brokenness that you've experienced and then in the midst of that brokenness, if or how you saw beauty breaking into the midst of it?

Becca: I've got a million. I got a million of those. I say that, I mean, there's a whole bunch from my childhood on. But since I've been on the theme of trees, I'm going to stick with the trees.

Melissa: Okay.

Becca: So my dad died when I was really little, like five. And the whole family kind of fell apart. And the rock in our family was my mom. She loved children, she didn't care about things that didn't go well. She was compassionate, she was funny. She was all of these great things and she was just amazing.

And it was in August of 1997 she died of a horrible disease. She was like 62. And the disease is called Creutzfeldt-Jakob, which is like mad cow. And the day she died, there was one tree out in her front yard. And it was an old maple tree. And there was a storm, this was like five o'clock in the afternoon. And lightning struck that tree, and it split in two.

Melissa: Wow.

Becca: And the sky was almost like orange in the storm. It was all really surreal. It was like, of course when a powerful and beautiful soul like my mom passes, I would see it and I could experience the beauty in a storm and in nature coming and saying it's powerful and it's real and it's life and death and it's stunningly beautiful.

Melissa: I'm just curious about your own experience of that.

Becca: You know, I just kept thinking about how it's just so powerful. I mean, storms are powerful. Death is powerful. It was all really powerful. It didn't feel scary. It wasn't even heartbreaking. It was completely heart opening…like broken open, but not broken. But just like wow. It's all so beautiful and it all passes.

And that's why you have to just be so grateful for every day you can see beauty.

Melissa: Well thank you. That sounds like a lot to experience in one day.

Another question I like to ask people is just what lies about beauty have you experienced?

Becca: Oh my God. How about all of it? How about the whole magazine world? No, I mean seriously.

It's like when are we thin enough or rich enough or pretty enough or talented enough or are we making a big enough splash or more beautiful if we have more followers? I mean all those questions that make you just feel like crap. You know, it's just never ending.

And I said that to somebody the other day, they were talking about this diet they were on. They're like 52 years old. And I was like, "Oh my God, this is going to go on forever."

Forever. It doesn't stop. Like you think maybe in high school, maybe in college, maybe in my twenties, maybe after I have kids. It doesn't stop.

And the same thing of you know, now they say because when Thistle Farms deals in the bath and beauty care industry, you kind of learn a lot about the beauty care industry and the statistics are that from this one chain of stores two years ago, about 70% of all the sales of makeup, 30% skincare. And just in two years that split. That people are really trying to preserve their skin. And I was laughing when I read it going like, "Well, that have been helpful 20 years ago." You know?

It's like you get at some point just say, "It's beautiful, it's the way it is and I want to move on."

But the lies are amazingly alluring and deceptive. You know, "If I just buy this dress, I'm going to look beautiful." "If I just dye my hair this way, then I'll be beautiful." You know? It's just this one more thing, and then I'll feel pretty.

And then the other thing that I think is amazing when I look back at pictures of myself in college. I think “you were an idiot. You were beautiful and you never knew it.” Just youth is so beautiful. And to really appreciate it and celebrate it instead of worrying about the next thing. Because it's ... Anyway, I just think, yeah. Lots of lies.

Melissa: Yeah. Have you always been able to kind of see through them? Or do you feel like certain experiences or events have helped you realize, I don't know, how widespread and deep the lies are?

Becca: Yeah, I think so. I don't think I've ever bought into it all the way. But I also think I'm also a pretty lazy person. Like maybe you want to fix up and fix your hair and doll up or whatever they do. It's like, it's just so much effort.

Melissa: It is, yeah.

Becca: I mean, people still joke, if I come to Thistle Farms and my hair is down and washed and I’m kind of cleaned up, everybody's like, "Oh you have an interview today."

So, my natural state is not that. My natural state is just get up and go and enjoy the day. And I think I've always been like that. And I've always thought, you know, my mom wasn't, or my three older sisters, nobody was really into all of that stuff. And that really helps too.

Melissa: Sure, yeah. That that's not being modeled.

Becca: Did you ever get sucked into all of that?

Melissa: Did I?

Becca: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Melissa: In certain respects. I mean, not as much like the makeup and all that. But I think the body image, for sure the body image stuff. But it's interesting how...and this is honestly part of the reason I'm doing this is it's kind of a longer story, so I won't give you all the details, due to respect your time. But yeah, it kind of became all consuming in my life, with an eating disorder. So, yeah.

Becca: Oh, wow.

Melissa: Yeah. And I mean it starts with the cultural lies I think and it kind of took a deeper turn for me. And working with, a lot of my work as a therapist has been with adolescent girls and I look around, and I'm in a lot of Christian circles even. And just the lies, everything that you just named is so a part of that water we swim in. And I think it steals so much life from women. So anyway, yeah, I have been influenced by them for sure. Yeah. But more so the body image one.

Becca: It makes sense to me… when I was a little girl I was sexually assaulted after my dad died for about three years. It makes sense to me that my life and my ministry and where I found beauty is working with women who have that experience.

Melissa: Yeah.

Becca: So all that to say, it makes sense to me that out of this deep journey of pain, that you would come to a place of seeing that's where that beauty is, in those tender, vulnerable places that we've gone through.

Melissa: It's interesting that you say that too. Because I was watching, I feel like I was stalking you last night. Because I watched a couple of your videos and I wanted to get a sense more of Thistle Farms and your story. In one of the videos you had said this beautiful quote about [finding] echoes of your own healing in the women that you work with. And actually exactly what you just stated. I was like, "Huh, that's interesting that I'm so drawn to authentic beauty and wanting to dig into that to find my own continued healing." So that's interesting that you said that.

Becca: And also I think both for sexual trauma, eating disorders, all of that. You know, one of the things that I've loved about doing this journey for so long, I've been doing this work for 23 years. And I realize it's, I mean I celebrate it, honestly, that I'm never going to get over it. We don't ever have to get over the things that we've gone through. They're not our whole story, but they're a damn good chapter. You know? And they influence the rest of the story forever. It wouldn't be the same book without it.

Melissa: Sure.

Becca: And so I love when people are like, "Well when are you going to get over that?" You know? It's like, "I'm going to say never." But that doesn't mean that it's my life. It doesn't define me.

Melissa: Yeah.

Becca: That story doesn't define me. But it has had an impact and helped determine the rest of my life.

Melissa: And it's just interesting. I mean even in that thinking about the evidence of God in that. Because I think if I were to let that affect my life and get sucked down by that, I mean I think there's a way that I could let that be my full story. But that God can weave redemption and other people's healing and my continued healing into that too, is-

Becca: Well, the only resurrection pictures I want to see have the scars. You know? Otherwise it's not even real.

Melissa: Yeah. I hadn't thought about that. Yeah. I could talk to you about this for a while…I'll ask you, I have two other official questions, if that's okay?

Becca: No, I'm done.

Melissa: Okay, well shoot.

Becca: I'm teasing.

Melissa: I know.

Becca: No, please keep talking then I don't have to do any real work.

Melissa: Okay, perfect. Good. Again, this might be kind of a difficult one. There are probably a lot of them. But the next question is about any experiences that you've had that have transformed your ideas around beauty.

Becca: Oh God, yes. For sure. There are so many. And I'll tell you, definitely birthing a baby. I mean what a real like blood and guts, beautiful experience. And how your body all of a sudden becomes this beautiful functioning machine. Like you don't even have control over anything. You know? The idea that milk comes out of your boobs, that's crazy.

And that your body knows exactly how to go into labor or when to stop bleeding, when to start bleeding. And it's like, that is so beautiful. And the whole birth experience. And you know how it's connected to the most primordial inklings of humanity. And they say that child goes through the whole evolutionary journey in utero.

And I just thought, I mean it was a beautiful experience. And it was transformative as far as there was no ... It's very dirty too. You know, very messy and all of that. That was transformative for me.

Melissa: Wow.

Becca: For sure one of my other experiences of what was transformative for me was the first time that I ever really cared for one of the women at Thistle Farms.

And she was so banged up and bruised. And this is long before we had a huge staff and beautiful residences. And people were just saying at this horrible place downtown, these four women that were part of it. And I had to go down there and she was a mess. And I had to clean her up. And the usual me, the me back then would have had gag reflexes, would have thought, “This is ugly, blah, blah, blah. Like I don't want to touch it. It smells bad. There are scabs.” I mean, the whole thing.

Melissa: Yeah.

Becca: And I cleaned this woman's whole body. And she was trying to detox. She was going through a lot. She was really sick.

And it was transformatively beautiful for me. I felt like I was doing that for the Lord. That's what it felt like. I was as tender and respectful as I could be. I was present. And I did, I thought, "This is beautiful." And then I thought, "Boy, that's not like me."

Melissa: Wow, okay. What do you think accounts for that transformation? Do you think that's just God working through you or through us? When we're able to kind of step outside of our usual gag reflexes, like you said?

Becca: Yeah, probably. I mean probably, for sure.

And it's, you know, the whole mystic experience. It's like why do these woods become translucent in a minute and I feel God's presence? And then the other 150 times I walk around here I long for that? I can't explain it.

Melissa: Yeah.

Becca: But I'm so grateful when I've had the eyes to recognize it. And I feel like somehow that day, my eyes were open in a way that I recognized that beauty and I was able to be present for it. And I give God thanks for it. I mean I give God thanks all the time for it, because I don't see that all the time.

Melissa: Sure. Thank you for sharing that. So the last question I like to ask people, is just if there is one thing that you wish people knew about beauty, what would it be?

Becca: My whole thing about beauty, I have two things. Can I say two things?

Melissa: Oh, yeah.

Becca: One is I don't think things are beautiful that harm people.

So even if it's an amazing diamond ring, but it's born on the blood and injustice of other people, it's not beautiful. And I think if we could apply that, it would be a lot better of a world. Even if you think it's really extravagant and expensive and glittery, whatever those things are, if it was done really with the harm of other people, it's not beautiful to me.

And I'm a priest, so I see a lot of rings. I see a lot of people so proud of those first engagement rings. And I remember, this was probably maybe 10 years ago, a couple came to see me. They were doing a premarital counseling with me. Alan and Janet Carnes, that's their names. And they came in and they seemed kind of nervous. And they sat down on the couch and they said, "We wanted to give you something." And they gave me a check for a couple thousand dollars.

And they had decided as a couple not to buy a ring and to donate the money to help the next woman come off the streets. And it was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.

And I just said, "Your marriage is going to be amazing. I can tell you right now that you took that love and you made something beautiful with it." Just stunning.

The other thing I think about beauty is that we wait way too much for something rare to call it beautiful. And the more we can see the common is beautiful, the more beautiful our world is.

You know, what I love is that the most common thing in the world is probably humans. Whatever, 6.7 billion of us. But when we are gifted, we can see each one is beautiful. So you don't have to wait for the diamond. You can see beautiful in the pebbles on the sidewalks.

But to find the beauty in the common, or like Jesus says, "Look to the birds in the air and the grass in the fields and see how Solomon and all his glories, not arrayed like one of these." That they are so beautiful.

Melissa: Thank you for sharing that.

Becca: You're welcome. I loved it.

Melissa: Well, thank you. Is there anything else on this topic of beauty that I haven't specifically asked you about? Because these questions have been pretty pointed.

Becca: I think I just want to say that I'm married to a musician, Marcus Hummon. And I am a mother of a son, Levi Hummon, who's also a musician. And I don't think there's hardly anything that fills my world with beauty more than their music. I think that especially if you have a relationship to that music, that you can take a rainy Monday morning and you put music to it and it's like, "Woo, this is great. I'm ready to go!" So I love that.

Melissa: I love that. Yeah. So is their music in particular that you really resonate with?

Becca: Probably just because it's in my house and it's live for so long. I mean, I wake up, I always bring Marcus, when I'm home, I'm on the road a lot. But I bring him cups of coffee, a cup of coffee. And then the next thing I know he's downstairs and he's playing. Every morning he plays the piano. So that's the music that fills my mornings.

Melissa: Okay. Wow. That sounds pretty amazing. Well, yeah, thank you so much, Becca, for your time. I really appreciate it.

Becca: You're welcome. It was good to meet you. Maybe I'll see you up in Minnesota.

Melissa: Okay, sounds good. Thank you so much.

Becca: Okay. Bye.

Melissa: Bye bye.

To learn more about Thistle Farms click here.Click here to learn more about Becca Stevens. — To learn more about Thistle Farms click here.
Click here to learn more about Becca Stevens.

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