As we loaded into the van for the umpteenth time, I thought about the overwhelming needs verses the reality of small stabs at justice. How is justice supposed to be...

Thistles have been my guide and teacher. When we first started Thistle Farms I knew I wanted to name it after the wildflower that grows in alleys and through the chain-link...

I have been thinking about the wonder of mud for a long time...how we can create new products with it, how it is the center of the work of many...

We have developed Shared Trade partnerships around the world believing that together we can provide expanded markets, education, and better margins to women vulnerable to trafficking, violence and poverty.  

No one could have explained the joy of having all the family gathered in a sacred space and witness your son make his life vows to an amazing woman. It...

The idea of heading to the tomb while it was still dark, only lit by the reflection of the sun off the moon, paints a different cast on the story. As...

I don’t have to get bigger to be better or try and compete with the bright lights. Sometimes if I just quiet the noise and dim the lights, I can see...

Bearing witness means listening to a story again and again. It is seeing the woman in front of you, nodding along as you recognize parts, weeping together, and believing together...

I once celebrated Lent by giving up Baby Ruth candy bars, my absolute favorites. Setting them aside for six weeks didn’t mean I wouldn’t come back for them; it meant...

I want to celebrate Nicholas Hitimana as a brilliant scientist and entrepreneur, but most importantly, as someone faithful enough to listen to a dream and hard-working enough to see it come to life.

This past summer a new collaboration, The Bethlehem Project, was born between Love Welcomes, Thistle Farms, and the Center for Contemplative Justice.  We commissioned three hundred chalices and patens from potters living...

  During monsoon season it rains every day, surrounding the mountains north of Kathmandu in distant cloudy haloes. It is magical seeing Tibetan nuns running through the rain towards their...

There is a miracle that happens when people offer tiny droplets, bits of rich soil, and seeds of hope. Something stunning begins to grow.

I recently returned from two and a half weeks in Africa, visiting and connecting with communities doing justice.

Wildflowers are harbingers of spring. Every year, no matter how hard the winter, flowers resurrect.

I am not sure why exactly, but I knew that grace, like mercy, falls on the just and unjust. I found comfort in changing the phrase so that when I witnessed...

Civility seems like a low bar for our common life together, and yet it also seems that often we can’t even reach that. We struggle to be kind to one...

I love stained glass. I love the artistry, the history embedded in small fragments we piece together, and how it calls us into prayer. But when I walked into a...

It's about friends. I have been thinking a lot about how we have grown Thistle Farms and Thistle Farms Global into a movement for women's freedom. It didn't happen by finding a life coach, a...

The latest incarnation of #metoo unfolded recently at a megachurch in Chicago, and my thoughts have been with the woman who brought her dark secret to light. I am in awe...

It is a gift in the season of Thanksgiving to show up to wherever you are, with gratitude. It makes all the small irritations fade into sweetness like marshmallows on...

Once I learned the history of going barefoot, I was sold forever. I have spent the past thirty years preaching barefoot. 

We need to move beyond words and help inspire people to join with the women of Ukraine in shared hope for healing.

Kristin McWilliams, a talented organizer, leader, wife and mom, reflects in the following blog on her first year as an Executive Assistant to me at Thistle Farms. Read on to...