Barking to the Choir: The Power of Radical Kinship

by Gregory Boyle

What gets translated in Scripture from the Greek metanoia as “repent” means “to go beyond the mind we have.”

And the “barking” is directed at the “Choir”—those folks who “repent” and truly long for a different construct, a radically altered way of proceeding and who seek “a better God than the one we have.”

Our culture is hostile only to the inauthentic living of the gospel. It sniffs out hypocrisy everywhere and knows when Christians aren’t taking seriously, what Jesus took seriously. It is, by and large, hostile to the right things. It actually longs to embrace the gospel of inclusion and nonviolence, of compassionate love and acceptance. Even atheists cherish such a prospect.

Homeboy wants to give rise not only to the idea of redemptive second chances but also to a new model of church as a community of inclusive kinship and tenderness.

The Magnificat, in Luke’s gospel—where the powerful are brought low and the hungry filled with good things—was seen as so subversive that the government of Guatemala, at one time, banned its public recitation.

Living the gospel, then, is less about “thinking outside the box” than about choosing to live in this ever-widening circle of inclusion.

I’m not sure I want to spend eternity with a God who wants to be exalted, who longs to be recognized and made a big deal of. I would rather hope for a humble God who gets exhausted in delighting over and loving us. That is a better God than the one we have.

But our sense of who God is changes as we grow and experience God, and God is constantly nudging us toward that evolution.

This is why the Biblical interpretations of earlier generations aren't written in stone.

God leans into us so that we will let go of the image of God as unreasonable parent, exacting teacher, or ruthless coach.

“devotion,” which is a pervasive familiarity and union with God, a desire to want what God wants.

believe that God is good but also that God is too busy loving me to have a plan for me.

But God wasn’t in the Texas School Book Depository, aiding and abetting. God was—and is—in the heartbreak and in the insight born of sadness, and in the arms that wrap around our grief.

Some things are random and other things are meant to be in our control.

After all, nothing depends on how things turn out—only on how you see them when they happen.

Emmanuel: the name that means God with us is not moving the dials and turning the switches but tenderly holding us through it all.

But I suppose it would be more accurate to ask God this: What do you want FOR me? For starters: life, happiness, and peace:

Whenever Gato, a large, burly gang member, is telling a story and approaching the climax, he wants to say “And lo and behold” but says instead “And holy befold.”

But in your darkest place, or in what you believe is your most hidden hideousness—even there, God is dwelling.

Nothing is outside the realm of sanctity, for the world is infused with God’s presence.

Ignatius discouraged his Jesuits from meditating on lofty, abstract divine truths. Meditate on the world,

you begin to learn not to discount the power of a single thing to carry within it supreme holiness.

S. Lewis wrote that “holiness . . . is irresistible.” It is our inkling, naturally, to suspect that doing tiny, decent things possesses a great power.

“After all,” he continued, barely getting out the words, “how can I help others to heal if I don’t welcome my own wounds?” And awe came upon everyone.

We are at our healthiest when we are most situated in awe, and at our least healthy when we engage in judgment. Judgment creates the distance that moves us away from each other.

The embrace of our own suffering helps us to land on a spiritual intimacy with ourselves and others.

we will be tempted to despise the wounded.

the dark and shallow life of gang existence.

When homies are finally ready and able to tell their stories, they can claim that pain and take control of it. It would be hard to overstate the courage this requires or the time this kind of journey takes. A homie said to me once, “We got authenticity beaten out of us.”

but who was surely shaped by such a moment and could have used our empathy the most to prevent the cycle from continuing.

What the privileged consider “small stuff” are precisely the trips and traps that foil the folks at the bottom:

being poor means living in a continual state of acute crisis.

Homeboy Industries is not for those who need help, only for those who want it. A gang member, after all, has to actually walk through our doors.

persignarse

to make a commitment

paletas

to cross oneself

“Aquí no más,”

response to a greeting

The Buddha teaches that life is only available in the here and now. Jesus doesn’t teach differently.

The discovery that awaits us is that paradise is contained in the here and now. We let go of the desire to expect anything beyond

ranfla

car (Mex.) or slut

Paradise is not a place that awaits our arrival but a present

Abraham texted me. “I enjoyed myself today,” the message said. “The picnic was lovely.”

not something a homie would say

Now, if there is a more incongruous thing a gang member can say upon entering a room than “Voilà!” I have not heard

Scripture reminds us, constantly, that we are meant not to wait for salvation but to watch for it today. Heaven, then, is not a promise we await but a practice we fully engage in. What is entirely available to us is the Kingdom of God,

inquieta.

Restless

Rohr was right: “We don’t think ourselves into a new way of living.

We find ourselves on the lookout for moments of spaciousness and calm, when our hearts can be restored again to a place of beauty, innocence, and wholeness. Then we can hear what the Sufis call “the voice of the Beloved.”

We identify those things that close our hearts—grasping and anger, fear and pride—and turn to our world, instead, with a tender heart. We’re opened. We find the ability to be with anguish and pain without having to control or change it.

Homeboy’s message is not “You can measure up someday.” Rather, it is: “Who you are is enough.”

“All I have in my system is hope,” he says. “I will test positive for that.”

another fake-sounding quote

love is the answer, community is the context, and tenderness the methodology.

Just the other day, a trainee said to me, “Never ever in my life have I felt surrounded by love—till now . . . till here.”

another unrealistic quote