Barking to the Choir

Boyle humorously opens this chapter by citing a quotation by a 19-year-old African American homie named Eric: “As Father Greg always says...it’s not about work for the homie, it’s about the homie working on himself” (109). Although Boyle never actually said this, he has quoted Eric ever since that day. 

To ground his own reflections about Homeboy Industries, Boyle quotes James Baldwin, who writes, “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced” (110). “The task at hand is not to change behavior but rather to see clearly,” Boyle says as he applies Baldwin’s wisdom to his own endeavors (110). 

In Boyle’s eyes, working on oneself is not a way to garner love or praise from God, as God’s love is not predicated on someone working on themselves. For him, God’s love is a constant—“But the work one does seeks to align our lives with God’s longing for us—that we be happy, joyful, and liberated from all that prevents us from seeing ourselves as God does” (111). 

In keeping with this chapter’s overarching theme, Boyle offers more wisdom from Ignatius. He says when Ignatius writes about consolation, “…he means any movement that propels us in the forward direction. Desolation, then, is its opposite: Not just feeling bad but also being kept from allowing our hearts to be cradled in God’s” (115). 

A story about a homie named Adolfo helps Boyle demonstrate his point. Boyle met Adolfo when he was only 11, and they crossed paths again when Adolfo was in his 40s. Adolfo felt he hadn’t amounted to much during the intervening years. But Boyle wanted Adolfo to know he personally was the achievement: “Without that emphasis, one is left only with the sadness of years spent ‘not amounting to much.’ Adolfo was already the accomplishment. He just didn’t know this yet,” Boyle writes (116). 

At Homeboy Industries, Boyle and the other senior staffers work “to make [the] distance stretching between the old and new versions of one’s self a comforting one” (117). And they do this without thinking they are personally perfect or fully-formed. Once, when Boyle was asked when he introduces his homies to Jesus, he answered, “Never, and immediately” (119). He clarifies: “The second any of us engage and enter into relationship with those on the margins, the Christ encounter is alive and well. After all, I don’t bring gang members to Christ, I always say. They bring me to Christ” (119). 

Boyle intimates the kind of resilience Homeboy Industries nurtures can only arise by building relationships with one another. For him, this resilience is always firmly grounded in the truth of “self-acceptance and openhearted awareness” (119). Boyle believes once the homies come into a full and deep understanding of themselves and of their own worth, a turn back to their former lives becomes impossible. 

A common criticism of Boyle is he coddles gang members. Boyle views this critique as a failure to understand both the concept of awe and the unique and profound difficulties facing the homies in their path to rehabilitation as they confront themselves and the events of their lives. In order to aid homeboys and homegirls in their journey, Homeboy Industries fosters “an irresistible culture of tenderness” (122). Boyle says, “We want this steady, harmonizing love to infiltrate the whole place” (122). And when he leads mass at detention facilities, he habitually issues a reminder prior to the Eucharist that humans are imperfect. Boyle paraphrases Pope Francis’ sentiment to extend his point: “Communion is not some grand prize for the perfect person but rather food for the hungry one” (123).

Boyle also offers an anecdote brimming with poignancy. He states the young people with whom he works are often attempting to reclaim a childhood they were not given. He remembers when Lica, a large man freshly released from prison, wanted to join the Baby and Me class at Homeboy Industries even though he did not have a child. 

Richard Rohr is the progenitor of Homeboy Industries’ slogan; he wrote: “If we do not transform our pain, we will most assuredly transmit it” (126). To this end, Boyle always counsels the older homies who administrate in the nonprofit that “it’s never about behavior, it’s about identity...versions of an old self have to die in order for a new, brilliant one to emerge and see the light” (126). 

Johnny was a homie who Boyle felt privately unsure about in terms of prospects for full rehabilitation and recovery. “It takes what it takes,” Boyle writes, a common refrain throughout the book (66). Four months into his work with Homeboy Industries, Johnny went into Boyle’s office to tell him a story. One day, when Johnny was riding the LA Metro Gold Line, he was wearing a Homeboy Industries sweater with the slogan “Jobs not jails” emblazoned across it. A slightly drunk gang member asked Johnny if Homeboy Industries was any good, and Johnny answered, “Well, it’s helped me. I don’t think I’ll ever go back to prison because of this place” (127). Then, Johnny stood and gave the man a piece of paper with the address to Homeboy Industries written on it. “Come see us [...] We’ll help you,” Johnny told the man. And then he looked around the train and saw that the other riders were looking at him approvingly. “For the first time in my life...I felt admired,” he told Boyle while a tear trickled down his face (127). 

Boyle ends the chapter with a Chinese proverb: “The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right name” (127). Boyle understands the human desire to name everything—including all the contours of our individual traumas. And for Boyle, the journey of revisiting one’s own history is the same as arriving at one’s true self. He calls this “The Good Journey” (125).