Barking to the Choir: The Power of Radical Kinship

by Gregory Boyle

I’ve learned from giving thousands of talks that you never appeal to the conscience of your audience but, rather, introduce them to their own goodness.

How do we awaken from the dream of separateness, from an abiding sense that the chasm that exists between us cannot be reconciled? For it would seem that the gulf in our present age could not be wider between “Us” and “Them.” How do we tame this status quo that lulls us into blindly accepting the things that divide us and keep us from our own holy longing for the mutuality of kinship—a sure and certain sense that we belong to each other?

Arrival at the heart of God is often impeded by one’s own history of trauma. This healthier sense of God may be achieved through a concept called “object constancy,” the capacity to hold on to the existence or “sense” of the caregiver, even when the caregiver is not physically present.

I believe that God protects me from nothing but sustains me in everything.

“Ever since Happiness heard your name,” the poet Hafez writes, “it’s been running down the street trying to find you.”

Every single moment of our lives asks us to be charmed, captivated, enticed, thrilled, and pleased. We don’t wait for such moments to fall out of the sky; we just put ourselves on high alert to catch these moments as they happen.

“stay close to any sounds that make you glad you are alive.”

It would seem that, quite possibly, the ultimate measure of health in any community might well reside in our ability to stand in awe at what folks have to carry rather than in judgment at how they carry it.

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 it. The awareness of this keeps us from the suffering generated by resisting life as it is.

We all clamor for praise and recoil at blame. They are oddly and equally seductive. They pull us away from our center, and yet we strangely have grown dependent on blame and praise. Instead, we have to find our way to notice and return. Notice the positive sheen of praise and still refuse to cling to it. Choose to move quickly back to the center. Let the pang of this blame wash over you, abide in it, and then return immediately to your center.

Moral outrage is the opposite of God; it only divides and separates what God wants for us, which is to be united in kinship. Moral outrage doesn’t lead us to solutions—it keeps us from them. It keeps us from moving forward toward a fuller, more compassionate response to members of our community who belong to us, no matter what they’ve done.

We always seem to be faced with this choice: to save the world or savor it.

A lanky tattooed gang member befriending his own wound and inoculating this room from despising the wounded.