Soul Boom - Father Greg Boyle: Can a Tender God Ignite Social Change?

Episode Date: August 20, 2024

Father Greg Boyle joins Rainn Wilson to delve into how spirituality and unshakable goodness can address the urgent crises facing today's society. They explore themes of tenderness, forgiveness, and the transformative power of viewing others through a lens of compassion. Father Boyle shares compelling insights from his work with gang members, illustrating how a re-imagined approach to divinity can lead to personal and societal healing. This discussion is not just about theology; it's about applying spiritual truths to enhance our human experience and solve real-world problems. Father Greg Boyle is a Jesuit priest and the founder of Homeboy Industries, the largest gang intervention and rehabilitation program in the world, based in Los Angeles. Known for his compassionate approach to working with former gang members, he has dedicated his life to providing support, job training, and community for those seeking a way out of gang life. Boyle is also a celebrated author and speaker, often sharing his insights on kinship, social justice, and the power of unconditional love. His work has inspired countless individuals and has significantly impacted efforts to reduce gang violence and promote healing in communities. Thank you to our sponsors! HOKA: https://bit.ly/HokaSoulBoom LMNT: http://drinklmnt.com/SoulBoom Pique Tea: (15% off!): https://piquelife.com/SOUL Waking Up app (1st month FREE!): https://wakingup.com/soulboom Fetzer Institute: https://fetzer.org/ Sign up for our newsletter! https://soulboom.substack.com SUBSCRIBE to Soul Boom!! https://bit.ly/Subscribe2SoulBoom Watch our Clips: https://bit.ly/SoulBoomCLIPS Watch WISDOM DUMP: https://bit.ly/WISDOMDUMP Follow us! Instagram: http://instagram.com/soulboom TikTok: http://tiktok.com/@soulboom Sponsor Soul Boom: [e-mail] Work with Soul Boom: [e-mail] Send Fan Creations, Questions, Comments: [e-mail] Produced by: Kartik Chainani Executive Produced by: Ford Bowers, Samah Tokmachi Spring Green Films Production Supervisor: Mike O'Brien Voicing Change Media Theme Music by: Marcos Moscat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, Soul Boom Generation, I've got a really exciting announcement for you. We've got a substack. If you love the Soul Boom podcast and book and ideas, then you're going to want to get our weekly newsletter Substack sent to your inbox. It's magnificent. There's going to be fantastic guest authors. Some are written by me. A lot of them delve into the ideas around the podcasts that we're doing that week. So sign up. Please subscribe. Go to Soulboom.substack.com. Thank you. You're listening to soul. I think we're in a real pervasive, urgent mental health crisis in this country. And in 70 years of living, I've never really seen anything quite like this. Even loneliness, even all the combo burger of social media and then COVID and post-COVID.

Political strife and dissension. All the division that we feel like, how did that happen? Well, it's all part of the same disease. I think. Yeah. It's not so much mental illness. So talk about health. Is this the healthiest kind of response?

You know, you kind of go, no, this is not health. This is not what health looks like. It's not a value judgment. It's a health assessment. Hey there. It's me, Rain Wilson. And I want to dig into the human experience. I want to have conversations about a spiritual revolution.

Let's get deep with our favorite thinkers, friends, and entertainers about life, meaning, and idiocy. Welcome to the soul. Boom podcast. Father Boyle, I've known about your work for years and years and years. This seems to be the focus of a lot of your work over the last five or ten years is an ever deeper exploration of tenderness and forgiveness. In the beginning of the whole language, the power of extravagant tenderness, you have an entire chapter devoted to what God is not.

Yeah. And I found it. just beautiful and revelatory. I mean, I think we settle for a partial God, and that's sort of gotten us into trouble. So what does that mean? Well, a partial God is like, you know, the God we actually have is the fullness of mercy

and unconditional, the God who loves without measure and without regret. So we have a hard time getting there because we so project onto God all our odd stuff, you know, like resentment, and wrath and judgment and, you know, the God who's eternally disappointing. Why is that? Why is that?

And again, as a non-Christian, this seems to be something that Christians struggle with, and especially the Catholics struggle with. But everyone in the Judeo-Christian world struggles with that God is vengeful, judgmental. God is like Santa Claus figuring out who's naughty and nice. and kind of looking down at us and if you're good giving some bestowls and if you're bad, giving some punishment and keeping measure about when you die, like, you know, keeping tabs on your naughty and nice list. How have we gotten so off track with this view of the divine mercy?

Yeah. Well, I think we've, you know, we've lost the mystical sense of our connection to the of love. You know, Mirby Star, who I recommend, if you've never read her, she's really wonderful. She says, once you know the God of love, you fire all the other gods. And that's the point. Even in, you know, Islam, you know, the name, there are 99 names for Allah, you know, so things like the compassionate one. But there is no, of the 99, there is no, the wrathful one or the eternally disappointed one. There is none of those kinds of appellations. You know, so part of it is we just, you know, we've, even you go through the Hebrew

Bible and you kind of go, yikes, you know, God put Abraham to the test. And you go, well, no, you know, this is where he's being asked to sacrifice his son, Isaac. And you just go, you know, the world in life will throw endless tests at us, but God has never thrown one our way, you know. And then, you know, any, any father who hears a voice saying kill your son is mentally ill. So, you know, so. Are you on record right now saying that Abraham is mentally ill? No, but I think that's kind of how you, how are we supposed to sift through that stuff. So it's, you know, because if you know the God of love, you know that a wrap, God is not possible. And if you know the God of love, then there's a singularity to God's response

to you, which is love and mercy. And, you know, and those are the things that you want to be anchored in. And there's a theologian Carl Ronner used to say, you know, Christians of the future will be mystics or they won't be Christian. And I think that's the kind of the idea, because you have to somehow have a mystical lens and a mystical filter. But then you get to heaven and hell. So I think for a lot of people, the idea that this, quote-unquote, you know, all-loving mercy within merciful, unrequited, unqualified, loving force would cast people to eternal damnation.

How do you, I think that's where a lot of people hit a wall. Yeah, but, you know, so imagine what it would take, what would you have to do to be sent to hell? And then ask yourself, you know, how ill would you have to be to meet that requirement? Yeah. You know, I mean, it's, I mean, I don't believe in it, you know, I don't. You know, I just, I think, again, there's, God is too busy loving us to have any time left. over. And then it's a little bit like Jesus when he sees the guy having seizures, and he says, oh, he's possessed by a demon, as all the crowd thinks. But, well, no, he has epilepsy. Doesn't that

change it for you? You know, and I love Jesus. But, you know, he was wrong. It wasn't demon. It was epilepsy. Here's a pill, and that'll control your seizures. So you want to be able to say, we sometimes don't have a language large enough to explain this. But we're in a different place now in our own evolution and our own understanding. You know, they didn't know what epilepsy. They didn't know from epilepsy.

So how do you draw a bridge between that and hell? Because I do know that Jesus was drawing a metaphorical parallel to, what, is it Gahena. That is a place not only where was a garbage dump and where they would burn garbage, but also where there used to be a tribe that lived there that did human sacrifice and all kinds of horrific things. So when you talked about Gahena, it's an awful place.

And it's like, do you want to be in an awful place or do you want to be in a place of salvation? But are you, because I, this, my little theory is that Jesus was not saying, there is a place with limestone and a guy with red skin and you're going to be tortured forever if you're not a true believer. He's drawing a metaphorical parallel about suffering and distance from God. Yeah, but that's a human thing for us. That's a projection right there for us to say, you know, on God to say, how are we going to keep people in line? You know, and later on, how are you going to get butts in pews, you know?

Well, you're going to, you've created this unapproachable God who's distant and is wagging his finger at us. But like Meister Eckhart, who's a mystic, died like 1328 or so. And he would say his, one of the things that put him in the penalty box, you know, with the church was the church had this unapproachable, distant God. And he said, he felt that. God was saying approach, come closer. And he would say, it is a lie, any talk of God that doesn't comfort you.

Well, we don't like that kind of language. We go, whoa, what do you mean comfort? No, it should be a fire under your ass and the fear of eternal fire. You know, but he's going, no, no, that's not who God is. So, you know, I like that kind of stuff. So I've, you know, like the women mystics, like Teresa Vivalon, Julian O'Norwich, and all these women who kind of had this very tender sense of the God we actually have, who was just trying to...

Now, if this is a God who wants to alter our behavior, it's a God who wants to do it by inviting you. It's an invitation, not an indictment. So it's how does this God love you into the place of joy, which, which is where we're supposed to be. My joy, yours, your joy complete is what Jesus says. So, yeah, I mean, we're human beings and we did the best we could. And even in scripture, you look at it and you go, yikes. You know, there's endless things in it where you just,

if you don't have a mystical lens to it, you're going to, you know, pick up poisonous snakes or exclude women from inclusion in the church or whatever. Right. One of the things that I struggle with with all of Christianity, both Catholicism and Protestantism, as a Baha'i, is my Christian brothers and sisters, like, when do you believe that the stuff is literal and when do you believe that it's metaphorical? Because if you talk to, there's two billion Christians, you talk to any two billion of them, they're going to view this story as a metaphorical parable and this one as reality. And then someone else is going to say, no, that's a parable, and this is reality. And then when you get into stuff like raising the dead, there's a beautiful metaphor in raising the dead. I was blind and now I can see. I was dead and now I'm alive.

That's what faith has given me. There's a beautiful metaphor woven into that. But so many Christians, both on the Protestant and Catholic side, view that as reality. The resurrection of Jesus where his actual body went up, levitated that way. to be with the father, most Christians believe. And I don't want to, I wasn't there. I don't want to knock that at all. But one could also look at the resurrection completely metaphorically, that the spirit of Jesus went to be with his father. And that if the spirit returns, it would be the spirit, not the body of Jesus returning. And that's hope for all of us, that we can all be resurrected and we can

all go be with the father. My big question is, who does that? decides what's a beautiful metaphor and who decides what is literal and and and factual and actually happened. And how do we when we read the Bible and it's the Bible is like this Owege board of codes and stories and and similes and metaphors and parables and you're sifting through it, looking for the truth. The truth is really clear. Love, heal, mercy, service, right? But then there's all of these different events. Who decides and how do we decide? So I kind of let go of any kind of literal reading of the scripture,

because what's more experiential and more valuable, it seems to me, is knowing the God of love. Then you can read with a kind of a lens that's different. You kind of go, no, I don't believe that. I don't believe that. I don't believe that. So like you have Josea in the Old Testament, Hebrew Bible, where God is striking you and wounding you and then healing you. You know, and you go, and this is, it's sort of like the abusive father who beat your ass and then wipes your tears.

And you go, no, no. Well, there it is. I mean, I don't know what to say. There it is. And you just go, no, I don't believe in that God. I just don't. But I can understand how, as people are trying to figure out, you know, out, you know, even Eve giving birth, you know, you kind of go, people are asking, why is this

painful? Oh, so then they can invent a story. I'm okay with it. You know, I just don't, you know, take it literally. So how do you Easter? I think always with scripture is find the invitation. What's the invitation? It's in there. It's always there. So when I read scripture every day, you know, for the readings for the day, I kind of go, wow, that's hard, you know. I don't really buy that. Where's the invitation? Then you find it, because that's kind of the meeting of the spirit and your own sense of who God is, you know. So, I mean, it was love that made the cross salvific, not the, not the Mill Gibson suffering,

of it. You know, it's not the brutal, it's not the brutality of it that made itself epic. It's always about love, you know, and the incarnation is about God wanting somehow to make God's love more tender. Yeah. And then you discover, I think, tenderness as the highest form of spiritual maturity, and you want to be that. Say that again, tenderness is the highest form of spiritual maturity or human maturity. Yeah, yeah. Because it's... And why do you use the word tenderness instead of loving kindness or mercy? What is it about that? There's something about, and words are, you know, you're trying to land on something. You know how hard it is, especially as a writer, you know, that you kind of go, what gets the closest to it? So if love, you know, love can be in the ether,

and it can be in the air, and it can be in your head, and occasionally it might fall to your heart. but what gets it to your feet is real tenderness, it's connective tissue. You know, it's the only thing that really allows for exquisite mutuality in relationship between two people is this tenderness. You know, sometimes there are groups of Christians who will use this expression called, we went to the soup kitchen, we fed all those people on Skid Row, and you know what we did mainly? we loved on them. Right.

And I always go, what? Why wouldn't you just love them? But there's a kind of a sense, even love has that connotation. You know, we love, we're just going to love on you. Come to our youth group and we're going to love on you.

And maybe you'd love your kids, but at the youth group, I'm going to just love on you. There's a distance, you know, and a superiority. Like, I'm going to, I'm going to. That's how it makes me, it makes, when I hear that, I kind of like, we're here and we're going to choose,

to do because we're good people, we're going to go do this thing to the people down here. Yeah, and I kind of, I don't know, it kind of grapples me a little bit, but even the thing about love your neighbor as you love yourself, we're, you know, famously not good at loving ourselves. So I read somewhere about, how about, you know, love your neighbor as you love your kid. And the truth is you don't love your kids, you cherish your kids. Well, now that's the word. My next book is Cherished Belonging. So Cherish is even for me deeper.

Deeper than tenderness. Yeah. My sense of things is that if it's true that the traumatized are likely to cause trauma, then it has to be equally true that the cherished will be able to find their way to the joy there is in cherishing themselves and others. So cherish for me is what happens when you actually see another person. And you kind of recognize the kind of. precious soulfulness. You zero in on, you're seeing what God sees. What are you seeing in me that

God sees? Yeah. Unshakeable goodness. Wow. Yeah. I don't know if I can get behind that. Yeah. That's how God sees you. And the problem is, you know, once the blindfold falls, you inhabit the truth of who you are, that you're unshakably good. And then it's only from that place you're able to discover that that letting love live through you is the truth of who you are. And once you, once then all of a sudden loving becomes your home and you're never going to be homesick. It doesn't matter where you are. Yeah.

You're never going to be homesick. Yeah. So, but I'm not sure that can happen unless you know the truth of who you are. Is everyone listening, everyone watching right now, are they unshakably good? Everyone. So, you know, I have to say that I... And say, look in that camera. and tell everyone right now.

Everybody's unshakably good, no exceptions. And we belong to each other, no exceptions. Now, do I think that every complex vexing social dilemma that we face and need to address, do I think they would disappear if we embrace those two things? And I do. And I actually think it's sort of the reason why we get stuck and we can't make progress

is because we don't believe those two things. But if we believe those two things, it allows us to roll our sleeves up, you know, and then cherishing is love with its sleeves rolled up. You know, it somehow... Cherishing is love with its sleeves rolled up. Yes. You're like a quote monster.

This is insane. We need like a calendar a day. We need a saying a day of Father Gregory Boyle. Do you believe that? Do you believe about unshakably good? Do you believe, you know, because it raises the issue of, for me, for 40 years, I've worked with gang members, and I've never met anybody evil, ever. I've met traumatized, mentally ill, despondent, damaged, broken. Hurt people, hurt people.

I've never met anybody evil. And yet, I met my agent. But what do you think about that? Because that one's a tough one for me, because, because, because, you. because nobody agrees with me. Thanks for asking. I have a lot of opinions, so here they come. And I was very arrested by what you said.

I am unshakably good because I have done a lot of really shitty and terrible things in my life. I wrestle all the time with my ego. In the Baha'i faith, and I've told this story before, Abdul Baha, the son of the founder of the Baha'i faith, described Satan as the insistent self. So not a belief in a Satan outside of ourselves, but the insistent self that's always like,

you know, does Father Boyle like me? And how long are we going to go on this podcast? And I'm going to launch it and how well is it going to do? And how come I'm not, you know, up for the new Jurassic Park movie? And what, you know, why did my wife not ask how I slept last night? Like all of these little aspects of, of ego and I wrestle on not just a daily basis, an hourly basis with the insistent self.

So to say I'm unshakably good, I would say I'm unshakably conflicted. And I think most of the time, you know, if you do in Dungeons and Dragons, you roll a lot of multi-sided dice, like I had a 20-sided dice, and I would roll, I would say 19 out of 20 times I do the good thing.

but one out of every 20, I kind of do the insistent self thing. So I have forgiven myself for my past misdeeds. I have over years of therapy and prayer and meditation come to love, actually love myself. But that is an interesting hurdle for me that I struggle with the idea that I might be unshakably good. As you were saying that, I was thinking, what does your past behavior have to? to do with your goodness? You know, how does it touch your unshakable goodness? It just means that at a moment in time, you know, you couldn't see the goodness.

Because once you see the goodness, you walk towards, I mean, you write a lot about joy. And I think that's kind of a key thing, because the invitation to joy is the thing that says, yes, yeah, that's where I want to go. You know, it's not like do good and avoid evil. No. You know, you're being invited to joy. you know, and then behavior will work itself out if you're seeking kind of, you know, the joy that comes from being other-centered. I love the insistent self because I think sadness, the baseline kind of sadness for people is distracted self-absorption.

You know. That's another good one. This has got to go on the calendar. Greg Boyle calendar, quote a day. Say that again? Well, I think sadness, it's kind of. the baseline is distracted self-absorption. You feel this on planes because everybody's going, what about me? Will I get my, you know, carry on in the overhead thing? You know, what about me?

I'm worried about me. Will there be enough for me? And what would you, why would you call that sin? That's just not helpful. It's just self-dis. But the minute you become other-centered, the minute you're on the plane and you're going to help that woman, here let me put that up there for you, you know, in the overhead compartment. Suddenly, you are in this place of joy. But the other thing I want to say is Buddhists will say things like essential goodness, basic goodness.

What would be another one? There's another one that's kind of in that line. Foundational goodness. Yeah, it's like, yeah. Yeah, you know, and I always think it's hedging bets. You know, it's too wobbly. That's why I say unshakable, because it's like, you know, otherwise we think that goodness is a potential. You have potential for goodness.

No, like you have artistic potential. No. Who you are is unshakably good. Now, you know, stuff fucks you up throughout the whole your life, you know, where you are traumatized and beat down and told that you're nothing. And anyway, the list is long of how you are prevented from seeing your unshakable goodness. But that's kind of what I've learned at homeboy is that, you know, folks who are just beat down, you know, who are barricaded, you know, behind a wall of shame and disgrace. And how are you going to scale that wall? Well, tenderness will do it.

You know, if people feel cherished, it'll do it. And then all of a sudden, it's not like they're being. becoming their best selves, which I don't like as an expression, you know. And homies will say to me, I, you know, I just want to be, I just want to be a good man. And I go, stop. You couldn't be one bit better. You couldn't be. And that's your truth.

Now, whether you live out of that truth, you know, is where the joy is. You know, and so you want to invite him to joy. We're not trying to create a behaving community. but a cherished, a community of cherished belonging, you know. And so behaviors, I don't know why we, what's it got to do with goodness? That's why I don't say, you know, I try to avoid everything, you know, he's really a good man. I might say great, but I would never say good because good is like, or like a Jesuit. I had somebody once got up and was touting this guy who had agreed to go to Siberia or someplace, you know, that's a good Jesuit.

And I went, ouch, no, because you can only have such a thing as a good Jesuit if there's such a thing as a bad Jesuit. And I've been a Jesuit 52 years. And I've never met a bad one. I've met damaged folks, broken folks, folks on the spectrum. I've met folks who are, you know, are strangers to themselves. But I've never met a bad one. And I- That sounds like a movie, bad Jesuit.

Can you picture like the robes and like a little oozy? I can see it. And like a cigarette. And I also want to say, just for history, folks, we made history here. We have a father who dropped an F-bomb. Boom, boom, boom. right here on this podcast. You heard it here. Anyway, I think you should be cast as bad Jesuit. Can we

get Bill Kane to write it? Oh God, he could write it in his sleep. The hell out of that. He could write it. I think, you know, there are things that shut off conversation and sin and evil are the things. The notions. But let me ask you this. So you talk a lot about forgiveness. My wife is at home. a burglar breaks in, she startles him, he hits her with a lamp and kills her, he's on trial. Is that a good man?

It is a good man who made a mistake, who's damaged and hurting and hurting others? How do I process that? Again, for all these years that I've known gang members, and obviously, you know, a lot of them have done 30 years in prison and have killed people.

For murder, yeah. Yeah. You know, and none of it, addresses the core of who somebody is. But it's also why we don't make progress, because, you know, rewind the tape. Who was this guy? What was happening?

Was he addicted to something? Yeah, I mean, it's just a million and one things, you know. So, you know, we have people who call her outside the lines all the time at Homeboy. You know, she's, you know, stop taking her meds and she's on meth and she just kicked in the front of our glass. This actually happened. You know, it's like nobody's going. We hate her, you know, this home girl who's, you know, really troubled.

So what do I do? I go into the courtroom. There's the guy who killed my wife with a lamp. What is my, what is my job? What is my, where's my invitation? Yeah, well, you know, this. I know it's a terrible hypothetical. It's so obvious and kind of high school, but.

But so I'm actually not a fan of the word forgiveness. Oddly, I have a book called Forgive Everyone, Everything. That's what it was. Yeah, that's the name of the book. But which is a bumper sticker. That's how I got that thing because I saw it on the back of a car. So I have a homie who writes me every morning. His name is Sergio.

I call my spiritual director. And he'll read the scripture. I'll read the scripture. We'll send to each other little pithy statements that can be put in a calendar for 365 days ago. So he wrote me, and it was something about forgiveness. And he says, you know, I'm just not a fan of forgiveness. Because in forgiveness, there's too much back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. I just want fourth, which I thought was brilliant.

And then he said, fourth is mercy. And then he said, God is mercy. And I went, that's the whole law and the prophets right there. Just fourth. That's all I want is force. because forgiveness sort of there's a waiting period. I want fifth. I could want a fifth.

Boom. I want a fifth. I used to want a fifth back in the day. Believe me. The homie say, if if if was a fifth, we'd all be drunk or something like that. Because they always say, if only I hadn't done that, you know. Sorry. But I think that's, mercy is the thing because there's no waiting.

And even the prodigal son starts. where the father's running down the road. It's all mercy. It's not, what do you have to say to me? There's none of that. Even though he has this fake-ass apology memorized, he doesn't want to hear it. He puts his hand over his mouth.

No, no, no, no, no, you were dead. No, you're alive. But this is interesting because that's true. Forgiveness has a kind of a dance is there's a little bit of a quid pro quo in it. It's kind of like... Apology extended. Yeah, I will, if you, if...

Because I fall into this a lot. If someone has hurt me and they come and they apologize and they say, hey, I know I did that thing and it was really shitty, please forgive me. I then feel beneficence in my heart. I'll go, I forgive you. And it's done. And we let it go. But mercy is beyond that. It's it doesn't, there's no, there's no traffic in apologies.

Yes. And doesn't that feel more full? It's more, it's more generous. And that's the kind of God we have. So if you want to be in the world who God is, are you forgiving? Why would you settle for forgiveness when you could hold out for mercy? Do you remember in the January 6th congressional hearings? So a guy who was one of the insurrectionists got up and testified.

But behind him were all these police officers who had been, you know, victims of the insurrection. And he turns around and he shakes hands with one of the... police officers. And then he posts a picture and it says, uh, apology given, apology accepted. And then the police officer reposted it. And he, and it just says apology given, period. And so that's the forgiveness dance that I, I'm not that interested in because then it's about you only love, you know, if people return that love. And, and that's, not where the joy is.

The joy is in being loving. So then it's like, you know, people tell me to go to hell all the time, and you kind of go, I feel the pain. Oh, well. You know, you have to learn how to take it in and not hold on to it. Yeah. But don't let it derail your loving, you know, because that's where the joy is. It's all selfish anyway, you know, because you're in being.

invited to joy. Rumi says love is the whole thing, everything else is only pieces. Yeah. What's holding us back from living in total mercy and tenderness? Well, I don't think we name things correctly, you know, so like I was thinking there was an anniversary, I think, of the Covenant school shooting, which was in Nashville. And they, you know, they asked a congressman, what are you going to do about this, you know, presumably about gun safety, I guess. And he said, criminals are going to be criminals. And then he says, you can't legislate against sin and evil. And you go, well, case closed, you know.

I mean, there's nothing else to say. But if you talk about people who are wounded, what if we healed wound rather than punished it. And then, you know, what if we said, what is this about? It's about brokenness. And what if we saw the goodness and included this person in our belonging? You know, would that prevent, you know, a shooting at a school in Nashville? Yeah, probably, along with all the other things you need to address.

But sin and evil ends discussion. that's it there's nothing there's nothing you can do about it and but what we've been talking about you know keeps the conversation going you know mercy and and you know loving and and cherishing people you know and then how do you find the thorn underneath what's the thorn underneath which is what the homies always say find the thorn underneath if somebody colors outside the lines and behaves badly. You go, well, you know, what's the thorn underneath? Then you go, yeah, his mom's dying a pancreatic cancer.

That's why he slugged that guy. Yeah, what's the story behind the story? Yeah, it's not, you know, remove all responsibility from people and consequences which people love. But you kind of go, well, we're not going to be tripped up by behavior because none of it touches your unshakable goodness. I ask myself this question a lot in my spiritual practice, in my prayer and in my meditation. It's kind of like rain.

What is holding you back from living in total love and mercy and selflessness and tenderness? And I guess what I bump up against is the insistent self is what. is what's holding me back. But I want to be on that path, Father. I want to be on that path toward being ever more radiantly loving and giving. And I certainly don't always get there. Yeah. So I don't think it's the thing you fail at so much as you mentioned practice. You know, what's the misconception about practice? It's like one and done. Or people say this in Christian circles where they'll say, well, I'm saved.

It's done. Or you have your rendezvous, you know, in the morning, say. And where you, that's your practice. Then you think you're done. It's like people in recovery, the homies in recovery will say one day at a time. And I go, whoa, no, that's way too long. You know, it's like one breath at a time. So your practice then has to be this ongoing thing.

So I think cherishing is not hard, but remembering to cherish is really difficult. And so that's where the practice comes in. How do you, your intentionality, how do you connect your breathing to your cherishing? How do you cherish with every breath? because we always think it's once and for all and it's never once and for all. Not because of sin, but because you have to bring it to your intentionality. You know, I get easily known on planes. I fly a lot and you just go, oh, my God, you know, and whatever, million things.

I love to hear that you struggle too. Oh, I do, but part of my shift. And as I walk in that door to board a plane, I try to be, I just try to anchor my intentionality in being other-centered, smiling, choosing to brighten, making eye contact. You know, whatever it is, you're trying to do this thing that because it's the most, it was one of the places where the insistent self becomes. Yeah. And maybe that's why flying got just so goddamn turned upside down in COVID and post-COVID because, and I've seen it. I flew post-COVID and there was a fist fight and you read about these stories all the time. And like it wasn't that way in 2018. Well, I think that has a lot to do with, I think we're in a real pervasive, urgent mental health crisis in this country. And in 70 years of living, I've never really seen anything quite like this. So the road rage and the airplane rage are indications.

What's the thorn underneath? That's right. The thorn underneath is that. Those symptoms pointing beyond themselves to something that needs our attention. And even loneliness, even all the combo burger of social media and then COVID and political strife and dissension. All the division that we feel like, how did that have? Well, it's all part of the same disease.

I think, I think, you know, and people get tripped up by talking about mental, it's not so much mental illness. So talk about health. Is this the healthiest kind of response, you know? Is it, does a healthy person threaten the daughter of a judge online? You know what I'm saying? You know, and you kind of go, no, this is not health. This is not what health looks like. It's not a value judgment.

It's a health assessment. And if none of us are well until all of us are well, none of us are healed until all of us are healed. And like Ram Dass talks about, you know, we're all just walking each other home. Well, then what's that look like now where we are really, I think, in the grip of a mental health crisis that's, I see it in our office, you know, at Homeboy, because, you know, there's just a kind of. of a, people are caring more than they ever have, I think, you know, in terms of anxiety and disconnection. I think the antidote is for people to feel safe, seen, and cherished. But, you know, but I don't think I ever saw that kind of level of people being strangers to themselves, really, I think, you know. And even fentanyl. I've buried more kids.

who have died because of fentanyl overdoses. And that's not just because, you know, fentanyl is kind of a newer thing. It's more than gang violence. I've buried fentanyl overdoses. And so, well, what does that indicate? What's that pointing to? What's that telling us? You know, that people are self-medicating in a way that, you know,

perhaps they didn't. I mean, we always have. but not at such an alarming rate, you know. Even the Surgeon General who's such a good guy. Yeah, Vivek. We're supposed to get him on the show. Please get him on your show. Yeah.

He's really a kind of a singular voice and a singular person. Yeah. And what he presented in that about kind of, you know, loneliness, that it's not about being alone. It's really about belonging and not feeling. connected to some kind of larger love and a larger, you know, kind of connection. Let's go back to the Bible. The Lord's prayer has a kind of an aspiration for the future. My kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. But in another place, Jesus says

the kingdom of God is within you. And so the divine is within us. And sometimes we can tap into that kingdom of God. So can you talk about it. this seeming paradox about the kingdom of God? Is it something we're building outside of ourselves or something we're building inside of ourselves? Have you given much thought to the kingdom of God? Yeah, I mean, it's at hand. That's another thing that Jesus says, which is to say it's within reach, you know, and it's realizable, you know, and it's a thing that can happen right here and now. So none of us will live forever, but all of us can live in the forever, which is right now. which is the kingdom, which is kinship, you know.

And so that's kind of what's so heartening that none of it is, is, you know, awaiting us beyond this life. And so we endure this life so that our reward, you know, people used to talk that way. You know, you're ready for your reward and you just go, yikes. is kind of a missed opportunity, you know, so you want to be able to stay completely anchored in the present moment. We're all saved, we're only saved in the present moment, so you might as well stay here, you know, and so that's the hope is that will somehow be attentive and astonished

at the, in delighting at the person right in front of you, you know, what else do we have, you know, except that. And that is the kinship of God, you know, where that's what is, I think we, we so don't believe in a God who's self-effacing, who is saying, oh, why are you looking at me? Don't look at me. I remember a homie said, what is, what is this song, you know, come let us adore him? And, and then the homie looked at me and he said, my God adores me. Well, perfect. That's exactly right. We don't believe it, you know, that we're thinking God is like us, you know, saying, let's hear it, you know, or a God who fishes for compliments, you know, I mean, we're that way. But, you know, but, and we impose that on God, you know. Do you know Richard Roar? Yeah. You should have him on your show.

But he says, you know, we're created in God's image, but he says, our image of God, creates us. And I think that's so profoundly true. Well, that's interesting. We're created in God's image, but our image of God creates us. So if we're... So if God is all tender mercy, then we're tender mercy. Exactly. But if God is petty and punitive and judgmental and... How can you not be like that? Yeah. Yeah. Because that's... And I think that's really brilliant because I think that's so true. That's beautiful. Yeah. Yeah. Can we go back to the very beginning. How does homeboy arise out of that journey? Well, you know, so as a Jesuit, you know, you study a lot in philosophy and theology. And so I did all that stuff. And I did stuff

on the side, you know, soup kitchens and, and learned Spanish. And so I went to Bolivia and that turned my heart inside out. And so. How? How? Well, because it was, it was the poorest country in the hemisphere. And so you kind of encountered people in kind of dealing with the most abject poverty in our sight of the world. And so it really kind of, and I saw the people. And the people were just extraordinary. They were so caring with each other and in this together, you know. So anyway, I was supposed to go to Santa Clara University to kind of be campus minister there and work in that department. And when I came home, I had just, it had altered my whole way of seeing.

So I went to my provincial, I said, please, I can't. Nothing against Santa Clara. I can't. I can't go work with the rich kids. I can't. It was just too much for me. And he said, well, you know, I need a pastor at Dolores Mission, poorest parish in the city.

And that was under the, you know, administration of Jesuits. So I love how Bolivia opened up your heart. Totally. to the poorest Latino community in the L.A. Basin. It's what I wanted to do. I said, I'm getting life from this. You know, I feel, and God's will is not different from what you most deeply want. I don't think, because it's not possible for that to be different.

I really most deeply want this, but God wants me to do that. That's impossible, I think. So the trick is to try to, how do you stay completely anchored and set? in a kind of knowing yourself enough to know that this is what I most deeply want. So I kind of found it. You went to Dolores Mission. Yeah, they sent me there. I became pastor, quite the youngest pastor in the history of the diocese, which didn't happen.

But it was kind of people had left, and it's a hard place. And there I was with the short straw, you know. And so the first two years was kind of immigration and trying to figure out how to speak better Spanish. And then I buried my first young person killed in 1988. And then it was, you know, eight funerals in a three-week period. And then it was, oh, my God, shooting morning, noon, and night. It was intense. So you're just responding. And that was right during the decade of death, as you call it. Yeah. Yeah. And so you, gang activities, kind of pre and post-riots. In the whole city, you know, 92 was a thousand gang-related homicides in the

the whole city. So you do stuff. You know, we started to school, we started a jobs program. And then it all was evolving. So if people go to our headquarters today, you know, and they always ask me, how'd you think this up? And you kind of didn't. You know, you backed your way into it, you know, evolved, you know. And so then I found a vocation within a vocation within a vocation. Then I was like, you know, I'm finding so much joy in this. And then immediately I found, you know, gang members eternally interesting and hilarious. And I just found them so wonderful. And yet they were the most demonized population at that time. Yeah. In the city, you know, which led to death threats, bomb threats, hate mail against me because I was, you know, helping them.

Never from gang members. Gang members. Yeah, yeah. And that came from parishioners? Not parishioners, but it would come from people at large, you know. Police Benevolent Association. Oh, exactly. And police themselves.

You know, I'm an LAPD. I'm a sheriff. You know, we hate you. You're part of the problem. Yeah. And. Because you're working with, because you're resolving. Or analyzing with the enemy, you know.

So if you've demonized. These people have shot children. in drive-bys and you're giving them sandwiches and giving them high-fives. That's right. How dare you? Yeah. So if you've demonized gang members, it's a short hop to demonize me for helping them. So that was the first 10 years.

And then the bakery burned down in October of 99 and then electrical fire, you know, though we thought it was arson because we were getting so much hate mail, so much hostility. Right, right. And then as soon as that happened, it's funny how tipping points, L.A. Times editorial board said, this Homeboy Industries doesn't belong to Father Greg Boyle, belongs to the city of Los Angeles. It's why we were able to build our headquarters where we have it, because suddenly something shifted where people went, oh, this is smart on crime. You know, instead of, we don't care about, we don't care about tough anymore. We want smart.

That's interesting. It happened all right. That rehabilitation, mercy, seeing the unshakable good in people, can be smart on crime. Right. And healing is the only thing that will, you know, reduce crime. Nothing else does, you know. And so it embraced healing. You know, we became, we went from job center.

Mass incarceration doesn't reduce crime. Yeah, yeah. I mean, proven ineffective. Yeah. But people haven't caught up with. that yet. Father Gregory Boyle and thank you so much. What do you have, what books are coming out and what books just came out and what books are coming out? Just, I need a little plug. I need a little plug-a-room. Oh, well, come on. I was surprised. Somebody told me that you can pre-buy my book on

Amazon and I haven't written it. So it's October 8th and it's called Cherished Belonging. The power of love in divided times. So I officially put a fire under my butt to finish it. I love that being available on pre-order on Amazon would be a motivator. Oh, my God. I can order your book and I go, oh, I got to write it first. Thank you so much for coming on. I'm honored being with you.

The Soul Boom. Thank you. Thank you. The Soul Boom Podcast. Subscribe now on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever else you get your stupid podcasts.