We deal with difficult people over holiday meals, at work, and online. This guest says there is only one answer.
Father Gregory Boyle is an American Jesuit priest and the founder of Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles, the largest gang-intervention, rehabilitation, and reentry program in the world. He has received the California Peace Prize and been inducted into the California Hall of Fame. In 2014, the White House named Boyle a Champion of Change. He received the University of Notre Dame’s 2017 Laetare Medal, the oldest honor given to American Catholics. He is the author of The Whole Language, Tattoos on the Heart, and Barking to the Choir.
In this episode we talk about:
- How Homeboy Industries began 34 years ago
- Boyle’s practices for working with stress
- What he means when he says you have to put death in its place
- Motivating people through joy rather than admonition
- How to catch ourselves when we’re about to demonize or be judgmental
- How to set boundaries
- How to dole out consequences without closing the doors to anybody
- And, Father Boyle’s expansive and inclusive notion of God
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This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
Is there a ten percent? Have your pakistan, your hosting, enhance hello, everyone,
When I first heard about two days guest, I was- and this is not
Usual for me, I was a little bit skeptical and dismissive by
His work has had a genuinely profound in
act on my life, and that was only reinforced by this interview, which you're about to hear a book by father Gregory boil whose my guest today
first recommended to me by Joseph Goldstein, the great meditation teacher, has been on the show many many times and, if I'm honest man
show reaction to that book. Suggestion was negative because, as you can tell by him
name father boil is a priest to be clear,
not that I'm you know incurable hostile to religion. It's more
as a sceptic who was raised by a scientists in the people's republic of massachusetts, generally, don't think of
guys religion as a source of practical answers to my problems. My resistance
father boil was exacerbated by the fact that the argument that he was advancing in his book was the idea of loving
people no matter what no matter
how of noxious or unacceptable their behaviour? To me, that
did simultaneously trickly and downright impossible. But father
has been testing this notion in some of the most extreme circumstances imaginable for decades, he'd been
with gang members, in LOS angeles, he is a jesuit priest who
Did a remarkable organisation called homeboy industries, which is the large
this gang intervention, rehabilitation and re entry programme in the world. The book that shows
recommended to me and that I ended up really
enjoying is called tattoos on the heart, but father boils lay
Book is called the whole language deception.
it is part of a series called deep cuts where we re run popular interviews from our vast archive heads up before we do
in here, that the audio quality right at the beginning of this conversation is a bit uneven, but it does smooth out as we progress wondering, plus subscribers can listen to temper,
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Father vagary boil welcome to the show, thank you great to be here.
This before we start a recording. I'm a long time fan, as is my long time, meditation teacher Joseph Goldstein, who introduce me to your work and talks about you quite a bit. You ve been quite influential for him and so by extension,
me so again long way of saying I'm really happy to meet you. Thank you. I thought maybe would make sense fur listeners, you don't know
much about you to start with a little bit of
story of homeboy industries. Can you tell me how
start in what is doing today.
Yeah, oh boy started in ninety mediate one. It was passed her of the poorest paris in los angeles, and it was nestled in the middle to very large public housing projects
we gardens and a village, and at the time
it was the largest grouping of public housing west of the mississippi. So we had eight gangs at war with each other, which.
Unheard of, and public housing.
And so consequently I started to bury kids for
the ninety mediate and four weeks,
do I buried a kid named. Jacob
was by two hundred and fifty fifth kid that I buried who was killed,
because of game violent. So we just started a school because there were so many junior high aids gang members who
been given the boat from their homeschool school, nobody wanted them, and so the school led it to a job
program where we tried to find felony friendly employers, and then we couldn't find
that many of those so we started a maid
screw landscaping. Crew graffiti removal, crew,
to build our child care center at the church. All made up of members of the eight rival gangs,
And then, after the unrest, long story short a movie producer border, no,
bakery that had ovens that didn't work, and so
started homeboy bakery. So
Now, where the largest gang intervention, we have re entry programme on the planet, so about fifteen thousand francs a year wander through our doors in our headquarters in chinatown, but now we have to-
social enterprises, restaurants, recycling, silk screening
but is to have a full service thing healing is probably the centre piece of it deserves eighteen month training programme which,
more healing centric than anything else, so we ve been doing
for thirty four years. Everything credible way
done you and your team and everybody whose participated there has to be a stressful job, to put it extremely mild.
And you ve been doing it for more than three decades
how do you live with the stress and sadness,
and all the other emotions that must accompany this work,
say their tracks. The more you practice unit, which is to stay anchored in the present parliament and are somehow delight in the people who were in front of you
we have a stressful week last three people just their kind,
afraid and their nerves are kind of jostled? Then
jackie the edges, and so it take
just about anything to get people to be triggered into start fight. Sir, are you
Then sir you're have having two separate people, so we had kind of some moments last week that were quite stressful, theirs.
And then there's burying kids, which continues
and you know you just have to kind of put death in its place, which is always important as part of your practice.
so that it doesn't have power over you. It doesn't mean you don't
the grief, yummy new,
allow it in and make room for it, but you're not toppled by it. Can you say more about putting down
in its place. What do you mean by that specifically
Well, you know there was a homey, nay more animals. Brother was gunned down,
died in his arms and the guys who shot him came back to make sure that they both were dead, and so he,
tended that he was dead and when he came back to work it worked at homeboy and I called
into my office. We were talking about the death and he said: death is a punk and that's really meant
different from Jesus in scripture and death. Where is your staying in death? Has no power
us over us and death? Couldn't hold them was another passage.
so when more himself, one self, maybe five.
Years later was gunned down in the street. He was playing football with a bunch of neighbourhood, kids and someone came in and saw and killed him, and he was much beloved and people were just-
being- and we had our morning meeting- and I quote at him and said, death is a punk. You have
kind of decide. What are the things that are more power
folder in death and what are the fates worse than death
And those are two very important lists for every human being to compile, and there are plenty of obviously plenty of things
more powerful than death and there are plenty of fate worse than death, and so putting down
in its place somewhere low low on the list, so that death.
Has no power, no sting
so I mean you're always trying to kind of have a practice that leads you to an internal freedom. You know like the dalai lama and when he was asked about his own personal death, he said
names of clothing and
where you wanna be all have what he's having so
it's kind of an important piece? I think, what's on your list of the things that are more powerful than death and the fates that are worse than death? Well,
The most powerful thing in the world is discovering your true self in loving and nobody can touch it. Then death is applied.
Truly them. So that's the whole thing
Is to be able to find your true self and loving once you find that you know your sturdy and, of course
the world is going to throw at you what it well, but you won't ever be toppled the fear that sturdy
If you're, that resilient born of I know
true self ended
in loving and that's hugely more powerful.
Of course, not knowing, that is a fake, worse than death
and so in one homeboy. It's like the buddhist thing. You know o noble, born, remember who you really are so well.
He's trying to remind people of the truth of who they are so.
They will inhabit that truth and they will become that truth.
and no bullet can pierce that and no four,
prison walls can keep that out and death has no power over that, because it's that huge
so that's the goal. You know at homeboy the ideas you create a safe place where people can
be seen, and then they
be cherished and so systems change. When people
change and people change when their cherished. So I think neural science has taught us.
human beings are in other inclined to believe the worst about themselves and the
first about each other, and you can actually change
hard wiring, you know
bored cherished, they can come to see,
Normally born and dick
remember
who they really are, and you do
mutually you do this with each other, and people inhabit their common
dignity and nobility in each other's present, Senate's utterly reliable? Ok,
you ve said about seventy five things that I need to follow up on
Brace yourself. Let's go back to discovering your true self in loving, because I can hear too
potential thoughts,
Rising in the minds of listeners in response, one is what is that actually mean headway, grog, that beyond the grand
the phraseology, and second, is, if I understand it, how do I
we do that. How do I discover my true self in loving.
Well, you know, I hope we were allergic to the idea of pulled the bar up and ask people the measure up,
were completely allergic. To, and part of that is for me that sort of based on a god
doesn't ask you to measure up to us to show up to your truth.
Once you know that love never stopped loving, then you know that's where the joy is
everything is always an invitation to joy? It's not about she. I wish you were a better person today,
hey than you were yesterday. People talk that way, homes for texts may in they'll say a g
it helped me to become a better man and I always say the same thing. I said you could not be one bit better. So how do we get people to a place where they see who they are where they acknowledge.
That truth. They will eventually, if their cherished enough and so that the hope is that
How will be able to hold the mirror up in return? People to themselves and the sole field
Its worth, as the song says,.
and so you want people to know that they are unshakeable good and that they belong
this community of beloved belonging.
so you're taking these people of had just the worst possible
beginnings to their life, just not given what we all need to thrive.
in terms of emotional material, educational support, and you
loving them into loving themselves and others. That's right in the promised, isn't
to do good and avoid evil. What you really want to assure them is this is where.
The joy yes, and so the hope is that people will gravitate where the joy is you're, not asking them to engage in some grim duty,
It's really it's about my joy, yours, your joy, completeness Jesus said, and so it's always invitation. That's not advent chain which all
he's getting them to a place where they see themselves as god
and then consequently see each other
in the same way with it.
Open, hearted, expansive spacious, love
heart, and then they stop caring about
Anybody return that love that
you all know is not even about that. That's the truth is it's about love that never stops loving in love. Never stops loving comes
from the one corinthians where it says, love never fails, and I read a translation recently that said, love.
Never stops loving, and I like that way better, because it's not about failure or success. It's about constancy. It's about! Never stopping! That's your practice! Your practice is to never stop doing that
I want to pick up on that in the second, but just you
doing this to be where you say so many interesting things that I don't want to lose any threats. But when you talk about not holding up a bar in requesting that the people you work with vault it
I just remind me, I mean I, I know
what more about buddhism than I do about christianity, but the buddha one of the things I like about him is that he is pretty.
Consistently speaking to the pleasure centres of the brain, just the way, you're talkin about motivating people
through joy, rather than admonition, yet in that's why it's a kind of invitation as opposed
waking wagging our finger at people again? I come from a kind of a christian and that a kind of specific jesuit and then
the side order of buddhism, but I feel, like you know I remember years ago I was at a conference and I was speaking at the conference, but I was also a protest
whence I was sitting down and listening to the other speakers in some
I got up and he just pounded the podium about some gang intervention programme somewhere in the
country was just parading the audience and he passed.
On the podium- and he says, listen people, this works
and I remember writing in my programme yeah, but I bet it doesn't help and I
pack, and I looked at that and I thought why did I write
and I think part of the deal is
like discovery over. You know almost four
years. Working with gang members is
Everything that works helps
everything that helps works. So I mean speaking from a christian perspective, we backed this on
fortunate horse, which was the sin horse and catholics
we went to mass every sunday because they were afraid they'd go to hell. If they didn't so did it work. Yes did it help know, and I think that's an important thing, because you're you're talking about the buddha basically the stances.
invitation in oh, come on in the waters, fine sort of as opposed to,
you better. Watch out you better, not pouch. You know I mean it's like.
Get your act together. Otherwise this will be consequential and bad. I just feel like if we just as a society did the things that help, but we don't get it wherever you start is where you gonna end up. If you think there is such a thing as good people in
people well that that tells you exactly where you're gonna end up, if you think so,
People belong in some people doubt, but then you equally doomed
mother trees, they used to say in the problem in the world, as we ve forgotten that we belong to each other. So there are no exceptions to the belonging. None zero and everybody is on
Take a really good and there's no exceptions to their ears. Sometimes it my boots.
Friends will say you know essential goodness are basic goodness, but I never
say that I always say unshakeable good, because you want people to know that that's the anchor and we
turning to that truth is what,
the human journey is about. It's not
achieving goodness you're already good. But if you
from that goodness. Now, that would be a different story, so instead
invitation, which is helpful as opposed to wear
being our fingers.
Which may work in the short term, but it's never helpful. I love that distinction between what work
What helps, but you ve talked a lot about our unshakeable goodness, and that is one of the assertions that you hear from many buddhists as well buddha nature. It said
etc. But how do you actually know where? Essentially
especially given the
one needs,
do no more than.
turn on the news to see our capacity for
bad or evil or whatever it is. You want to call it
I believe in horrible. I just don't know
even evil in part of
it. Gang members have helped me see that so you know
Forty years, I know lots of gang members. I know lots of people who done lots of them
things. I've never met anybody. Evil, I've met people, despondent, I've met traumatized
broken, wounded men, deeply, profoundly mentally ill people
but I never met anybody evil and I've seen
a lot of horrible things, there is no question about that.
You know, nobody healthy shoots up a
wait, train in brook
and nobody healthy invades. Ukraine.
I mean it's about health enough,
sir well until all of us are well, and so, like brown das talks about we're all just one
king, each other home and work.
Having each other into homeless and the homeless.
Is there a? How do we help people in community too?
feel more and more cherished I that just alters the hard wiring in people's brain. It's like brain health and you can
really change this thing. I mean
seen it happen. Only all the time I member of probation
for many years ago talking about a kidney ferny and she said,
even try to help that kid? I said why am I liked this woman? She was a friend
she's a joint, even try to help him. I said why and she said because his pure evil- and I remember,
was young in those days and I had hair and I didn't fully grasped the whole
but I knew she was completely.
wrong and then, if you think there is such a thing as good guys and bad guys, yikes and now I
Look at this kid and is now kid anymore: he's got two sons both or severely artistic.
He's hard working. He loves. His wife is just one of the most gentle heroic
Souls I've ever known in this is what we do to each other, and why was it unfortunate? It's just
a crazy way to see the world and to see each other and so on
Do you believe in horrible, like you say, just turn on the news and you're going to see horrible, but in a what, if we sought is god
What if we recognize buddha nature in everybody and you go war
I think morality has never kept us moral. It's only kept us from
each other, and so how do we? How do we take,
that behind moral distance that we create between us and them. Well, it's the very distance.
The us and them that's really contrary to what we would hope for. How do we bridge the distance out
we ensure there is no daylight that separates us, and certainly buddhism want assert that separation.
it is an illusion, and indeed it is, and so you wanna get to a place where its exquisitely mutual ion
people are really a joint. It's just us. We had
huge homeboy family picnic, which has many many many hundreds of people and again it's blackened.
Around him. It's just chock full of enemies and they are brought there
kids at everybody war. This t shirt in it just says just us, but is the just the word it just in
J and the tea are black, but the us is red, and so it says just us all contained in this one word in any way
It's a powerful symbol. Every year, when we gather concedes are all people who shot at each other, one time or another, now they're playing
each other's kids, coming father Gregory boil talks about whether he's ever had to cut somebody loose. He talks about the most spacious, an expansive notion of god and how he thinks about boundaries.
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the challenge right now by downloading the ten percent happier apt to day and starting a free trial. Given that people you work with our practicing,
loving in very extreme and difficult circumstances, but-
To varying degrees, that's true for the rest of us, it could be an obnoxious
brother in law.
would be a difficult colleagues could be,
people we see on the news and chapter wondering
What do you say to the rest of us who are struggle?
Where is fine
in the ourselves in loving in the midst of a world that seems to be designed for
hatred division. My
friend, Pema chodron talks about you catch yourself and so
The invitation is to catch yourself.
hired wiring would directors to demonizing
emanating is always the opposite of the truth. So catch yourself any at no point
are. You co signing on bad behaviour, you're just saying to certain things
but he's unshakeable good. We belong to each other. Now, let's roll up our sleeves, how do we help people? How do we
pay attention. How do we noticed people before their buying high powered weapons?
and how do we include people? How do we move people out of the
solution that depletes their sense of hope? How do we infused people with hope, for whom hope is foreign?
let's change, is how you do it. Otherwise, I guess I get frustrated with it. You know it's like a man assaults
agent asian woman on the streets of san francisco and we talk about hate, but and this is why we don't make progress, because it self congratulatory, I'm
just hate, and I am in favour of what love congratulations, but if this guy below
to us. Then it's about health, not about evil
it's not about winning the argument. It's not about denouncing hate cosette. It's about me, how do we have
each other. How do we walk each other home? How do we love each other in the homeless and
It's kind of why we don't make progress. You know I was reading a book, the other day, Matthew dowd, and he asserts that the reason,
a hundred years from the end of reconstruction to, were you know, emmett till he says
because one third of the american people did not believe.
That all men and women are created equal
and he said why did it take whatever sixty years from martin luther king to Donald trump pieces, big,
one third of the american people, still don't believe that all men and women are created equal well, I think he is, I think, he's pointing out the right thing now point the way you know where they bad evil stupid,
jerks or do they belong to us than they are unshakeable good. Will then that's right to vote
Nobody well our whole or healthy, has ever
is that not all men and women are created equal. So it's about
this is not about hate it.
about morality it's about home,
and how do you help people find the
There is.
In being well, I think it's
about heat? I think it's about health in some people are strangers to themselves and that's obviously problematic and that's the whole point of, as we were saying,
earlier finding your true self in loving, so that make any sense I mean, I think it's beautiful. I want
on package, even further get to say Matthew doubt is a friend e used to be a political consult and worked for george w bush, probably more
famously and then wasn't abc news analysed where I met him because I worked there.
twenty years and Matthew and I would have spent a lot of time together on and off the air. She wrote these great and I see him all the time.
I'm on a variety of shows- and I thought that was an interesting point.
Is, and so that gets me to wear wanted to go and maybe
It's wings, us back to patrol Dron who has been on the show before?
and am I like you, I'm a fan of hers. I believe you
She's got a phrase check yourself or something along those lines. No is kept yourself
I mean in a lot of other contexts. She says it's
when you are inclined to kind of do things or go somewhere.
Or to demonize or in the list is long. It's part of your practices to catch yourself
for your judgmental. Have you stand
and all at what people have to carry, rather than in judgment at how they carry it. So your catching yourself, all the time, it's hard to do.
Wouldn't want to suggest that this is in any way simple, but
It's really hard to catch yourself and to be attentive to that. All that
I met people on recovery will say one day at a time and I always think well that's why
too long now
as in? I think, even a minute,
one minute at a time, while even that's why I've kind of reduced to one breath at a time with every breath, you take your catching yours
Well, it's hard at home boy, because people will color outside the lines and you have to catch yourself and say: okay, what
languages that behaviour speaking to me and that's hard, because
in a you must say: well, he knows what he's doing and he's just trying to pull the wool over my eyes and he's violent because he's a jerk and catch yourself and of course it always
I presume that the answered every question is compassion, but you can't do that once and for all. You can't do that
as you pray- and you said in the morning, whatever your practices and you're,
good to go for the day now,
not one day at a time. It really is every breath. You take your cherish
which keeps you from. Judging you ever governments, this up
only all the time I mean that's. Why, as I think you know it's frustrating for us, because we think we arrive at some answer and were good to go, but that's why they call it a practice. You really have to work at it.
and you constantly have to I'm kind of a man of mantras, Montrose always return
me too the present moment, and I try to fill a space
that way, with a variety of kinds of things. That will
in a kind of montrose that will kind of remind
and me to delight in the person in front of me to listen to notice.
To be the notice of god in the world, all easier said than done. Well, imagine Joseph daul seen before
or who you may or may not know with an incredible meditation teacher. He too is a man of mantras. Just for anybody who doesn't know what a monterey is, but it's a word that can have a lot of meanings, but one of them is just to serve a useful phrase that you
return to as a north star, a pole star for your own behaviour and thinking and actions, and one of josephs montrose is
you, which is love
no matter what now the first them
heard that I thought okay. Well, that sounds a little. I don't know.
Clear impossible or both but
I did very useful. What I'm confronted with somebody who I very tense.
Two demonize, either for silly reasons having to do with interpersonal, whatever or for big. Eighty,
you go, political reasons, because I'm seeing him on the news and I find him of noxious or harmful. So I guess I'd love to
You say more about love, no matter what and how what your thoughts are about. I know you liked it don't like to
the bar is for us to vault over, but how we can use this as a way not to beat ourselves up for failing to vault over the bar, but as it is awaited, direct ourselves tore joy.
Yeah, I more of my expression, is with no matter what this and I
I use it when I talk about the one for
smooth god or
the no matter, what business of god
the kind of a no matter what nus, but it shouldn't be that hard for people to kind of connected, because- and I don't really recall everything that it too low-
no matter what its
that no matter what news, because parents and grandparents there's a decided. No matter what this so then pretty soon, disappointment and discouragement is not part of it.
Vocabulary because everything's with no matter what business
no matter what.
And you know, I'm always there gang
we have an expression till the wheel
Fall off and they loved that they'll say I mean your corner till the wheels fall off.
But even beyond that, because we've all one july peas in our days where wheels actually have fallen off, but even beyond that, you know no matter what I'm going to be there and it's tough. You know like the other day I mentioned we had a hard week and then there was a kid came in
and having a bad day, and he just bombed on this guy, they just big old, bra,
leaving each other with people,
I guys and then I already know how this goal
separated arm. He was just blind with rage, so
I had to kind of graham and put him up against a car, and I had to say
This shit out and he calmed down in a car, came to retrieve him and he got the car.
We already know how he's going to feel that, worse than the black,
in the bruises is: will I cut him? Loose,
sign immediately texting them,
you're, trying to convey a no matter. What does not well did you ever disappoint me today,
He doesn't need that. He already knows that. That's the expected response
Then, two days later, we asked to see me in
I set up a time when nobody else was around because he said a moment in his life where he doesn't play well with others. So it came to my office on Sunday and it was just so beautiful because you wanted.
Be able to say that the day will never come when I won't be proud to call you my son,
they won't ever come. When I cut you lose the day is
We won't ever happen where I say: well, that's it for me and that's not such
deal parents. Do it only every day.
So anyway, it was very healing, and I don't feel like that's one
have to manufacture
You know I've ever felt like they were just words and its uneasy.
thing to do, because if you see people who they are- and you know their pain- and they know you know what they carry. This kid has just been said.
the end up and so abused and so neglected in violated and that's the whole point is: if enough cherishing happens, then it really alters the brain chemistry. Have you ever had to kill anybody
loose. You ever feel like people are taking advantage of you no matter what does.
No. I never feel that
As I was interviewed via Anderson cooper, and he asked me a question about. He says the cops say that gang members
take advantage of. You went so warm by said war. How can they take my advantage?
If I'm giving my advantage so years late,
he came back and we were in the whole boy bakery before we started a film. He says you know all my life
and always say that people are taking advantage of me, and I always quote you. He said, and I suppose
Do I get any residuals for your, but again it's like. No. I never happened. That's never happened where now we let people
but we always say. Oh, my god, we love you come back when you're ready its low, but like rehab everybody's met people who ve gone to twenty rehab and it takes
because the rehab is finally good. It takes because somebody
has finally surrendered,
and the gang members who run homeboy industries all of them but took him
four tries before this,
Well, then, to not resisting
their own goodness and coming to terms with it
done to them coming to terms with what they ve done, and now they have the courage of their own tenderness
chosen to walk in their own footsteps and it's quite remarkable to watch, but then
wanna be a sturdy rock solid place that they can return to when they are ready, none.
has anything to do with good.
sir morality it just
to do with ready and that's kind of neutral
from your perspective, though, and from the perspective of anybody who aspires to a no matter. What this that does not
if I'm here, you correctly preclude wise boundaries.
You may at times have to send people away exactly so people.
always kind of nervous about responsibility, personal responsibility, accountability, boundaries and I think it's less of an
sudan. People really insist that it needs to be, and we,
battle internally at homeboy. All the time give him his last check. You know
People are inclined to do that, but I think it's always a man,
Your oath, you know the people done the work.
I welcome their own wound. They will not be tempted to despise the wounded, and so that's what you want to fast.
In your leadership, people who,
recognize, wound and pain, rather than this guy's a jerk. Let's give him his last check years ago.
I can remember: we have always silk screen and embroidery and its factory that's kind of off campus, but it's been around for
I don't know thirty years or something
so the guy who runs it. He called me one day and he says you know that guy hector, the guy you sent me and I said yeah and he goes well. He doesn't want to
Be here I so well. Where is he right now we're here
I say we trust me
they didn't want to be there? He wouldn't be there now. How
Is he there he's hard headed
in belligerent and attitude? No yeah
these there? The world operates differently, and I
reject the notion were people say shouldn't you be
preparing them for the real world. In my responses who says, the real world got this right: I'd much rather be a counter space
World homeboy is trying to be the front porch of the house. Everybody wants to live in. How do you propose
different way of belonging and community
of tenderness in
a community of beloved belonging where people risk
the tender glance and then they
is to become that tender glance in the world, and I just think how that's how the world changes. You know you stole
the tipp jar I mean whatever it is. You do, I suppose, have consequences, but you never closed the door to anybody and we ve had people. Do
foreign, horrendous things, but it's part of our
Dna at homeboy well
no matter what news is part of our dna yeah
back when you're ready, because we think you're just amazing.
They don't believe it
Come back coming up, father boil talks.
The story behind the title of his latest book
why we burn out when we make our
actions all about heroically saving the day and why
he does not focus on outcomes.
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You used the word god a couple of times and I think it is
no surprise to you. You know this, but a lot of people in this audience. My audience will find that word or a little triggering an you write about
in your bus recent book? You you write about some of your
relations with the aforementioned, permit children, a legendary
this. None who said it, I'm gonna
you hear you write my friend
I'm a children. One evening it you see allay said the quiet part out loud, while yours
can grab. I kept thinking. I wish he'd stop talking so much about god and she has said- and this is quoting her here- that what was agreed.
To her about buddhist teachings is that these are her words. Our basic nature of mind and heart is open. The body sappho, which is the ideal of somebody who is committed to
leaving the suffering of all beings. The bodhisattvas wants to remove the greatest level of suffering, which is what gives rise to deep hatred,
do you have to attribute this worked, something like god or something seemingly outside tides
whether what how do you respond when she and others
things like this to you. Where are you
that night- it was an evening with payment, children and gregg boil, and so there were
People in the audience like myself, who believed in god, so I said-
you see, I don't think it's preposterous to believe in god, I'm just trying to get people to stop believing in a preposterous god- and I think that's
front in part of the thing ass he got to the very end of the evening. Was
acknowledges this her own wounded medicine as a catholic, and I get it at some of it is just tradition.
This. This is amazing is an important thing to me in the mystical view of the world, and I ll
people like julian norwich and ignatius of loyal, learn, Jonathan cross, and
and so I like all this eclectic stuff like
my friend mirror by star who says
once you know the gotta love you fire all the other gods. I like the activity of.
Hiring gods, and I think it's a healthy thing to do. But you know I come from my own tradition
I don't feel threatened by anybody else's tradition effect. I always feel enriched. You know we're ok
It be surface it's all. The same language is important,
because it's kind of how we shape the road
walking on but
Fortunately, people are so saddled by horrific notion,
Richard roar always says is true that your created in the image and lightness of god, but it equally true that our image of god creates us
so I'm kind of more interested in that is finding the most spacious expire
ass of notion so that it can create you, but people are triggered by their neanderthal prehistoric notions,
or their third great notions that keep holding them back my
virtual director is the gang member name, surgeon,
in every morning we email, repulsive
extremely early he's married has three daughters. He runs a program called gods, pantry,
which addresses food insecurity and pomona California used to work at home boy a long time ago, drug attic gang member. So we just
get the reading from the day for mass and in a word
It's up earlier would write a kind of a reflection, a brief sentence. Couple sentences,
and then he writes back and then I write back anyway. It's very enriching, but we're always encountering a god. We don't believe in the wrathful god, because they'll have something from them.
hebrew bible or even stuff from the new testament? Where you gonna know, and he always says you need to have the mystical filter. You know you need to read all this stuff is kind of with a grain of salt and you read it and you go yeah. I don't believe that
Do you believe that is an acknowledgement that scriptures?
inspired by this also imperfect its human beings trying to do that.
Ass, they can have a bay makes sense of horrific things that have happened, oh god must be
pissed off and you go okay. Nice try not true, and it's never been true. It feels like a healthy exercise that gets you beyond your third grade, god that
still torments and keeps you in line. Maybe it worked, but it never held. So that's the preposterous god, the wrathful god. But how would you describe they not preposterous,
odd, I mean you ve, used the phrase, no matter what this, but maybe you could put,
a few more words on what I imagine.
Is the ineffable in terms of building out how you conceive of god. The point is image is why you tell stories
you know. I had a friend who took care of his dad who was dying and he was quite old and torture
of his life. You know he would read em to sleep in the way.
His father had done so when he was a kid but his father.
Just lie there and stare at the sun with a smile and the sun was quite tired. Like I've been
in care of you all day. I want to go to bed and please fall asleep in the father would close his eyes, but then he couldn't help himself. He pop when I open and then after he died. My friends said
I realise that he just couldn't take his eyes off his kid.
So there you have an image, it's an image of god
or a whole me. The other day was talking about how his father, when, in fact,
are always quite problematic for gang members. Almost always for this one kid, his father
wasn't. He said he would show up every sunday
Visiting at juvenile hall and when he'd get up to leave, he had big tears in his eyes and
He would say. I'm not,
we're gonna leave your side, you know it and then these things become kind of the image of the god we actually have, rather than settling for some partial god or a homey who were was just going through a horrendous time and he can retrieve and image of his mom kind of
walking him while he sobbing, when he was little and all she kept saying cause. It was
he's a father and junk attics and quite abusive
and she would just say to him: I'm sorry! You have to go through this well again, then that becomes translated to this is the god we actually have. I mean I have a million images that come
by way of people trying to put words to what it looks like.
and you know the guy who can't take her eyes off of yours- is a pretty good one.
behold the one beholding you and smiling any
we unite, because I think poetry,
words stories, it's the only
we have and new kind say it's like that, but
Ignatius of all of the founder of the jesuits used to say he always said the guy.
whose always greater, which
to say always greater than what
ever notion we'd land upon in that's an important caveat.
You know, even when you land on it now is even greater than that which is always heartening, because then it set you off honour, scamander
to find the even greater image
How do you know that
is a god and that if there is a god that here sheer they is the god that you think is not preposterous,
Is it just a matter of faith or working derive confidence,
I don't need to have more confidence than I have that the other thing you know people talk about all that moment kind of shook my face. I don't even get that everything is shaping your face.
so, is the thing that shaped it's never shaken and then talk about preposterous people like him.
Leave it in the god because of this horrific things.
Happened in and that's always they had scratch or for me, the poet roomy says that love is god's religion and that's what I believe in
It's an important kind of wages, stay anchored in joy and in a mist
the conversion of seeing things in the most expensive way, and we ve been saddled with
puny god for a long time, and it's not very helpful
if I have to know
home girl named nellie. She had suffered more things, anything that could be found
a human being had befallen her in
in prison our kids taken away drug attic, raped, engaged in sex trafficking drug,
selling gang banging and
when she was in my office, and there are two images here: one was she said she needs some help, so I was writing a check for to pay your light bill or something
and then she leaned into me on at the front of my desk and she tears in her eyes, and she said I wish you well
god and laughed. I say why she said. I think you
let me in the Heaven which just broke my heart:
legally and two and it made me cry, and I
forward with big tears in my eyes I said nellie if I get to heaven
you're, not there, I'm not staying,
and I remember thinking, there's a kind of
that everybody has that
however, that means that you have a certain T. That's unshakeable
that you know, I don't want to spend the rest of my life in a place that didn't allow nellie
of that? I am utterly certain the other image he came to me
She was doing well and not getting high and see
a dream that she was
and a big old party kind of it.
Hence, in the era can a party in a big hall in
was dancing with god, which I just love
the image of it and-
she said, all these other people, and then she goes out of her way to say more important people than me kept trying to cut in
then again, she got very emotional
and she said
god, wouldn't let them that the dispute
trying to korean and dance and
There's an insistence
that God wanted to keep dancing with her of all people anyway,
it's an image and then you kind of
to it and you go well. That's true. I know that that's true,
there is little things you land on where you want to get to a place where you say: that's what I believe I couldn't caught the verse or something, but that's what I believe and no one's gonna do so
me from the god who wants to dance with nellie of all people.
Coming father boil on the story behind the title of his latest book. Why
we burn out when we make it all about saving the day and why he does not focus on outcomes after this.
I doubt it
will job in this interview of getting you detail,
about your network, which is called language. What do you mean by the whole language? Will Simon issues
Hates my titles, god love em,
and so every single one of my three books they bought
my titles and all my titles come from things. Homey said so
taxes on the hard
comes from a whole me. I had said something to them and we were on the phone
and he was silent, and he said tat
gee, I'm not attached to that on my heart, and so that was the title
first one second book was called parking to the choir and that
was the homey. Who was one of our bakers, who was kind of colouring outside the lines I had to have the talk with them and ass
I was having the talk about his attitude. He stopped me says: relax you're barking, do the choir
which I loved- and I remember I wrote down. They said title of my next book and then the whole language
comes from a homie who was talking about one of his homies from his gang,
his neighborhood, who had come to this country at seven with his mother from Uzbekistan, and they were wanting to deport him. He had done a ten year stretch in prison,
We joined a latino gang in lincoln heights
story. But I asked this guy Louis said he'd. You know this guy David. He goes oh yeah. We call him russian boy and I was in jail with him and he was myself in every night. He would go out to the pay phone and he would talk.
To his mom in russian and he was very impressive that and then he said, damned gi. He spoke.
the whole language which cracked me up, because that was his way of saying fluent
I thought. What is the thing we want to be fluent in? You know what,
be the whole language, so that some title is the power of extravagant tenderness. So that
The thing we want to be fluent we want to be.
just anchored in loving kindness, knowing that kindness is the only non delusional response to everything
which is to say all the others.
once as our delusional rage, anger, self righteousness,
High horse seen us everything else is delusional, but kindness isn't so there
kind of a whole language and its a way of seeing its MR kohl, its
Do you find the thorn underneath water pipes?
carrying. Can you see
the pain rather than just
behavior. So anyway, that's kind of the whole language,
do terms like loving kindness, love kindness
tenderness a word. You used a lot in this conversation and is, as you reference the part of the subtitle of your new book. How do they,
words go over with homilies, you know they get. It is not so much about words the
thing is: can member who is talking about this the other day? How started
they were. Somebody was visiting a jesuit priest from argentina and he was just
she was being led around by a guy named Joseph and
had tour and he was showing on tap to remove all and where they do.
european classes in the bakery in the home grown cafe
he was walking around, but every time he left the place where he had.
just shown this guy? He would help
somebody there. You know in the tattoo removal- and these are big ol gangway
I've been to prison, and he was telling me this, which we cannot take it for granted.
Everybody was hugging each other and as they you left each other's presents. They would say I love you and it's kind of extraordinary. I come
big iris family, where we didn't
We do that, but ever
but he does it at home. We only all the time it's just
everybody's hugging, each other and everybody
telling each other how much they love them, and it's just a constant thing and this jesuit in spanish,
telling me because by cash I get I never. This was
the forum and I said, yeah- I guess you- I guess I did
But it is a thing that absolutely,
then, suddenly, all the time, so
I mean the homes are quite comfortable with the fact of tenderness, not sure they give speeches.
of tenderness, but they live as though the that truth was true and they put first things recognizably. First,
and they receive the tender glance, and then they move to offer that tender glance to sign.
But he who could probably use it so it it's kind of second nature. There
people notice that when they come in, you know, I'm not so sure we noticed that all the time, because it so natural as reference the subtitle, the power of extravagant
tenderness. What exactly do you think it's power is well, I think,
soften each other into a corner where they dont resist stuff anymore,
I was in boston recently with homey and I had to do
because zoom or something- and I sent these two always out to sea-
austin and they'd, never been on a plane. They ve never been anywhere so this
I saw wool was by himself at one point: it
one of a kind of an old courthouse or something so he's taking a selfie in
holding the phone out, but right in front of them on a park bench or two older guys can a homeless guys and
with a guy start screaming out of don't take my picture in the guy next illegals. Relax he's taken a selfish well, so we walked towards this hostility and he just says,
the two of them, my name's soul, I'm from los angeles and he's covered in tattoos, and these scary, looking big guy and the guy kind of is screaming at him saying I don't care where you're from and that this is MIKE park, and I dunno what the calmer guy says don't mind us, we're crazy and so looks at how many in the
that's, ok, I'm crazy to and the three of them had this conversation that was so tender and so cherishing of each other.
tat. The moment came that he had to leave. He shook their hands in the more hostile guy says to him in a very soft voice. Look
I've lived in Boston all my life. Do you need directions somewhere
and for me, that's what it looks like when you soften people into some corner where they are free to live from their true self in loving now, where did he get this from? Well, I think soul got it from being cherish and it's a thing he expense.
every single day at homeboy and again it's utterly reliable and he began like everybody did you know what,
back up against the wall and not trusting anybody, but once he found the place to be safe in ones
He knew that he was no longer being watched, but he was being seen he was freed to be cherished and softened into this corner, and now he can do it, and now very was so. He didn't walk away from the hostility
oddly, he walked right towards it and when he told me that story, I thought yeah, that's how it works. That's house bolster evolve where you receive it, and then you offer it
and it's funny when we flew home and he had given many talks, and he had never done this before told his story and from the thousands of people and got standing ovations. We're flying in the other guy with us was sound asleep.
He leaned over too many says you know. I think I want to learn how to talk. Fancy talk fancy. He goes yeah. What's that language,
be speaking when the guy is gone off to work any? He looks back at his wife and kids on the front porch any waves at them. Any says tatar. But, as I said, I don't know english british, but I knew exactly what he meant that talk fancy,
meant a more full inhabiting of his truth that he had had an experience of telling it in front of audiences. He had an experience of walking
toward hostility and being tender in the face of it. He had this palpable experience of the power
of cherishing, another human being with every breath you take in a let's all talk fancy and it's like the whole language, it
being article it in your own tenderness and thing anchor
and the courage of that last night.
For me, earlier in this interview, you said something about that's the way the world changes have just carries more. How optimistic argue that the world is gonna change, visa love, tenderness?
matter oneness Barack Obama at the end of his term, said it. If people don't think that we ve made progress, then I dont think you ve been paying attention and I agree with him in a lot of it is
The work is sort of long haul. So, if you want is short term whatever goals accomplished tomorrow, you I'm not that interested in that I've been doing this for a long time. I just notice how lots of things change even policing as much as people can say, also
the things about it. I just remember the truly truly horrific battled days
Little by little, you make progress. You know you start to put a human face on people
and then all of a sudden people don't want to be tough on crime. They want to be smart, we're at a different place right now, because you know people are peddling, fear and loathing, but we make progress. So I I just feel like you know, you go to the margins not to make a difference. You go to the margins so that the folks there make you different and if you go to the margins, to save the day and rescue people fix people or even make a
friends. It then it's about you and it can't be about you, but also you burn out, not because you're so extremely compassionate. You burn out because you have allowed it to become about you. You ve depleted yourself, because it's about you saving the
but once you kind of say, we're not called to be successful, we're called to be faithful. I want to be faithful to a love that never stops loving. That love is god's. Religion, ok count me in, and I just want to delight in the person who's in my path and cherished with every breath. So then you stop caring about outcomes. You only want to be faithful to being faithful to that.
and that makes sense to me, so I'm always hope for because I know how incrementally things change, but systems change when people change,
and people change when they are cherished, and so it's not one day at a time. It's one cherishing breath at a time you that kind of cut your meet up for you. There bite size moments to be able
to reflect back to people, the truth of who they are, and then you watch them become that truth and they extend that tender truth to other people really is true. If once people cherish, they can't wait to cherish and that's how things are
I always changed. This is how I would phrase that I dunno, if you endorse it, but even if you don't get results right away, in other words, the old world doesn't become, which you hope it will be immediately from living your life. This way your life and the lives of the people around. You will be way better so
Why not just do it without in mind yeah, you know it's hard in a nonprofit world were funders, are saying evidence based outcomes, and I don't really care so much about that, because if it's about success, sir,
comes, then I'm only gonna work with people who give me good ones right and I'm
interested in that. So you hope funders will fund you because they get it, but that's a tough cell, but you have to stay faithful to an approach.
if you believe in an we're, always planting seeds. We may not see the full fruition of you're tilling the soil before we go. There are probably
Well, I've been listening to you know want, are more about. You blew more about your organization. Can I gently proud you to just plug a little bit?
Well, you can, you know, go to homeboy industries, dot org, and then you can see all sorts of things and we have a thing called the global homeboy network, which has been around for ten years or so, and and so we have three hundred program
loosely vaguely modeled on homeboy in the united states and fifty outside?
we gather every august for three days and so it's away the kind of connect rather than airlift homeboy into which it all in rome
then become the mcdonald's of gang intervention programmes for those kind of a methodology that we believe, and so people repressed
country in the world of kind of adopted it to address lots of vexing, complex social dilemma and its away to be reverent of the complexity of at all. You know if love is the answer, communities the context but tenderness, a sort of the methodology, but you can go to our website and see all sorts of things in order cookies and get your t shirts and don't forget the books, the whole language barking at the choir and tattoos,
if the heart, father, gregory boyle. Thank you so much for doing this real pleasure, sir. My honor. Thank you thanks again to father boyle, thank you for listening and thanks most of all to everybody who works so hard on the show ten percent
happier is produced by gabrielle sacrament, justine, davy, Lauren smith and terror. Anderson deeds.
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Transcript generated on 2023-11-20.