What gets rooted…

…is what is allowed to grow in the heart.

No, not my arm; but jealous nonetheless.

The other day, I happened to find myself in a local bookstore—one of my happy places though not always a healthy choice for my bank account. Sometimes I have a specific book in mind, other times I just want to soak up the energy of the wisdom and soul that is within the whole place. Bookstores do that for me—they are places of energy exchange…for the better. My better. (Note: though you can sadly get just about everything else there, you can’t get this at Amazon—Amazon isn’t a happy place for me, and it definitely has no soul!)

On this particular visit, I did have a specific book in mind. After pulling it from the shelf, I also browsed. Because, yeah, that’s how I roll. I have way too many books on my TBR shelf but, heck, there may be a book “somewhere here” that I don’t yet know I need and maybe I just have to save myself a second trip and “just buy it now.” You know, to save gas and carbon emissions. Because, yeah, I roll like that too. This happens more often than not when I’m in these kinds of happy places—the buying of books I didn’t know I needed, that is. If you’re gonna have an addiction, it might as well be found in a bookstore.

This particular book, the one I needed but had no idea existed a mere 10 seconds prior, was laying flat on a display table so that the entire cover was showing. It was laying amidst a couple dozen other books likewise displayed. A paperback. The display table, I think, was labled “Of Interest.” Boy was that prescient!

The content, at first glance, was nowhere near being on my radar—the fact I like tattoos and that I’m a “heart” guy notwithstanding. Nor the fact its subtitle was “The Power of Boundless Compassion” or seeing it was written by a Catholic priest or that it had a picture of two Virgin Mary candles on the cover illustration. Okay, I stand corrected—the book itself was nowhere on my radar, but just about everything else about it, typically, always is. (You know: heart, compassion, service… love.) Or at least I try to live so that they are.

Have you ever been captivated by something? It’s a wondrous experience, right? To be under the spell of captivation? In order to be under the spell of being captivated, the object of captivation had to have come to your attention for some reason. This is, after-all, the definition of “captivation.”

The book was luminous laying there on the table. It wasn’t because the cover or position was in any way unique to the 24+ other books that were packed with it on the table. It was not separated from the other books nor under a special light. But it had an inexplicable glow and warmth that apparently only I saw which forced me to pick it up—and that was that. The blurb on the back sealed the deal. I found the book I hadn’t known I needed. So I surrendered to it—there are no accidents in the Unverse. I’m learning to trust and follow the inexplicable, the mysterious paths the Universe puts in front of me whispering “This is for you; you just need to take it. Your choice.”

I chose.

After all, I was captivated.

📚

Fr. Gregory Boyle is a Jesuit Catholic priest who serves in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles, the gang capital of the world. He founded the largest and most successful gang-intervention program known as “Homeboy Industries.” Fr. Boyle is a living Saint. Ever hear of him? If not, you are being so now.

Truthfully, I had a very faint memory of having learned about Fr. Boyle, and his work, somewhere in my past. Remember, I’m a recovering Catholic who has always been captivated (that word again!) by charismatic souls who have devoted their lives in some kind of deep service to something much greater than themselves. But I obviously had no interest in learning more about him—let alone any interest in any books he may have written. What I didn’t realize was just how much in common a hop farm-boy from Moxee Washington could have with a gang-banger homeboy from east L.A., or the priest that lives among them. Turns out, more than meets the eye.

(Isn’t that true for everything? And everyone?)

“Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion” is a selection of the true stories Fr. Boyle lived as he served (and continues to serve to this day) the Souls and Beings in that local drug-ridden, gun-ridden, and violence-ridden community. I can honestly and unabashedly tell you, with every story and anecdote he shared, I either teared up, choked up, or laughed out loud. Or grew incredibly indignant. Great books do exactly that, all that, and so much more that cannot even be articulated. With great books, you feel them to the point they change you. I haven’t been touched like this by a book in quite a while.

“Tattoos on the Heart” is a great book. And here, had I not casually browsed in a bookstore after finding the book I wanted, I never would have known it existed. This book found its reader. And now, I need to buy his other books too. Likely all at once—you know, to save gas and carbon emissions.

📚

Okay, all the above is good and fine and fun. I provided it only as context and prelude. The real reason for this post goes WAY deeper.

I hope you are a reader—everyone should be, needs to be, a reader. A deep reader. As a teacher, I discovered that there was something sadder and more distressing than seeing someone, especially a child, who’s growing up illiterate—and that was seeing someone who knew how to read, but chooses not to. Maybe this is a judgment of mine, but I don’t think it is.

To continue. If you are a reader, than I’m sure you have read certain words, phrases, sentences, or paragraphs that have captivated you (see what I did there?). Many times after reading something that catches me, I pause a moment and will even say out loud “Wow, that is a beautiful line!” Oftentimes, those lines end up written in my Common Book (me being a collector of words and quotes)—a journal of quotes, and sayings, and ideas, and just damn good words I want to keep as Soul nourishment. (I’ll share more about my Common Book in a future post.)

And then, less frequently, because they are much more rare, are the words combined together in a book that stop my world. And this I mean almost literally. Sometimes I’ll read upon something that causes me to stop everything in order to find some way of metabolizing and incorporating those words into my very Being. Perhaps I should be tattooing them on my Being. Even though the entire book is incredible, on page 192 of my Free Press paperback copy, Fr. Boyle wrote a line that stopped time for me—two sentences, actually, that made everything in my current world heart-breakingly clear and that I’m still metabolizing:

“The wrong idea has taken root in the world. And the idea is this: there just might be lives out there that matter less than other lives.”

Let that seep in for a bit; just how deeply is up to you.

“…there just might be lives out there that matter less than other lives.”

And yes, it’s rooted. Just how deeply has always been up to us.

📚

“[Though they may not believe it, their voice matters too. Their lives matter. EACH life matters and has significance!] To that end, we choose to become what child psychiatrist Alice Miller calls ’enlightened witnesses’—people who through their kindness, tenderness, and focused, attentive love return folks to themselves. It is a returning—not a measuring up….

“At Homeboy Industries, we seek to tell each person this truth: they are exactly what God had in mind when God made them—and then we watch, from this privileged place, as people inhabit this truth. Nothing is the same again. No bullet can pierce this, no prison walls can keep this out. And death can’t touch it—it is just that huge.

“But much stands in the way of this liberating truth. You need to dismantle shame and disgrace, coaxing out the truth in people who’ve grown comfortable believing its opposite.”

(Fr. Gregory Boyle. “Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion.” Free Press, 2010. p. 192-3.)

To serve the community in which he landed, Fr. Boyle, aka “G-dog” in the hood, would tell you he’s done nothing special. Just: listened, showed an interest, provided his presence, supported grief, celebrated success (even if only minuscule), mourned death, bore witness, celebrated mass, said funerals, baptized and buried, spoke truth, stayed, removed tattoos, dismantled shame and disgrace, found jobs, became a father figure, and held high standards of responsibility and accountability.

In other words, he just loved on them until they could start loving themselves, themselves. And then, he just loved on them some more.

Yeah, you know, nothing special.

📚

To Root Something Better

My past couple of posts (here and here) have been dark—my meager attempts to lighten what has been heavy on my heart lately. I’m gonna end this post quickly now so that Fr. Boyles’ words, not mine, can be the ones that linger longest in your minds. “The wrong idea has taken root in the world.” Indeed! Maybe you’ll read them again—for the deeper meaning behind the words themselves; and then to see where they apply and get confirmed, in so many places, from too many people, about way too many other people, in our world today. I would only wish they’d eventually find themselves deeper inside us all—so that they become a beacon of light in our shared and shattering world, through our own inspired compassion. We can do better; we can root the right idea from “the better angels of our truer natures.” The world needs our enlightened witnessing; the world, and so many people on it, need your heart in service to loving them so they can “return to themselves,” their True selves. In that space, we are no different; no lives matter less than any other lives.

Who knows, if so captivated by Fr. Boyle’s words as I have been, you might even tattoo them on your own heart.

I have.

📚

Live, Laugh, and Love,

~ k

Always and Ubuntu.

🙏🏼

PS: Let this be the future we create.

---