Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right doing is a field. I will meet you there. — Rumi

 

 

 

I don’t know where your political, mental, spiritual or emotional energies are now, but for many of us it’s all a whirling haboob bringing nothing but hot wind and wtf [whiskey tango foxtrot (: )] . Doesn’t matter where we stand, sit or fall.

So, for me, it is time to return to one of the most amazing stories of reclamation and love triumphant that I have ever had the great gift of knowing about.

Father Gregory Boyle, Jesuit priest, has spent the last 30 years creating and building one of the most successful street “ministries” ever. HOMEBOY INDUSTRIES is the largest gang intervention program…in the world. Thousands transformed – hundreds buried. Homeboy Industries has grown to include multiple businesses all run by homies who have found their way there. (Homies is the preferred term now – since there is no gender exclusion.) Father Boyle, or “G” as he is known mostly has baptized many in prison, some more than once. Once they are part of this, they remain so – a fall from ‘grace’ simply means a delay in being welcomed back ‘home’.

Homeboy’s only and unwavering principles:

We are ALL unshakably good – no exceptions.

We belong to each other – no exceptions.

Why is it that the simpler the rule, the harder it is to actually follow?

Father Boyle’s books are available through Abebooks.com, Stacks Books, and likely, Bookmans locally, as well as Amazon. Maybe Tattoos on the Heart is already on your own bookshelf. His latest, Cherished Belonging, is a fine place to start but they are all worth a read and the realization that the most amazing things are indeed possible.

I periodically try to remember that we are all living essences of God and despite actions to the contrary, that is the actual Truth. My experience is quite mixed. The more separate the ones identified as “transgressor” are from my world, the easier they are to accept and love.

However, when the “transgression’ happens on my turf: physical, emotional, mental – well, my response tends to be guided with a lot that happens on the lower end of Life choices.

Because it is all by choice. True we have been trained not just in this life, but through centuries of “might makes right”, Manifest Destiny forever, and so on.

And, yet an alternate view of the rules above has been with us for just as long. From Jesus the Christ to Islam (which actually incorporates them) to say nothing of the Baháʼí.

We probably aren’t the mother in Cherished Belonging who while visiting her son in prison, waits for the guards to be momentarily distracted and then reaches into her bra and pulls the still warm burrito from his favorite store with the comment ‘it’s the special one’.

But we do all have those opportunities to share rather than glare. It usually is f’ing hard. From fear, from disdain, from simply not understanding.

If we start from a distance, it’s a start. Checks written, clothes donated, holiday meals served – but if we truly desire a better world – not just for thee and me – but for all. This is the best possible time to start. Everywhere.

It really is beautiful, and hard.

In Peace, Mariann

How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world. — Anne Frank