Video: Father Gregory Boyle in Conversation

On November 17, Father Gregory Boyle, the founder of Homeboys Industries, the LA-based gang intervention, rehabilitation and re-entry program, spoke about “The Power of Boundless Compassion and Radical Kinship” with Professor and Associate Dean of Faculty Adrian Pantoja P’18, P’24. Boyle is also the author of Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion, the first reading selection of Pitzer’s new Alumni & Family Book Club.

  • Transcript

    Professor Adrian Pantoja:
    Let’s go ahead and get this show on the road.

    I’ll start off by saying that some of my fondest memories at the University of San Francisco, a Jesuit university where I did my undergraduate schooling, were my long walks with the late father, Luis Quihuis. He would give me advice on a variety of things, politics in particular, life lessons, and I can still picture Father Quihuis with his flat cap and his cigars. I have since given up the cigars but I kept the flat cap. So I treasured those. He had such a profound influence in my life as so did the other Jesuits. So having read Tattoos on the Heart, the book and your work was very familiar to me, having spent time with the Jesuits. And so we have many questions and limited time. So let’s go ahead and jump right into this.

    I’ll start by saying, this is such a beautiful book. Thank you for sharing these stories with us. And so I guess like any story, let’s go ahead and start in the beginning. When I read Tattoos of the Heart, I was intrigued that it seemed like your time in Bolivia was a turning point. It’s the mid-1980s. And for those who may not know, the 1980s were a dark period in Latin America, Central America in particular. Ronald Reagan was waging a war against radicals, against the left, and that meant the Jesuits. So my first question to you, Rather Boyle, is to what degree…and the reason why they he was waging this war against these radicals was because the Jesuits had embraced something called liberation theology. So, my first question to you, Father Boyle, is to what degree were you influenced by liberation theology? And is this story a story about liberation theology in East Los Angeles?

    02:05
    Father Boyle:
    Yeah, thank you. What a good question. And Luis, we used to call him Louie Queuee, is he left us too early. Too soon. Yeah. Yesterday was the 31st anniversary of the two women and six Jesuits who were killed in Salvador. So that was 31 years ago. I was in Bolivia in ‘84. And Bolivia at the time was the poorest country in the hemisphere. Haiti has that role right now, but it was really poor. And Luis Espinal, who was a Jesuit, had been killed a number of years before I got there. And I lived in a house that I helped start and it’s called Casa Luis Espinal. So we had the base communities, which was sort of undergirded the whole theology of liberation theology. And the whole perspective (Spanish phrase – inaudible) de la basta, you know. It was about walking with folks on the margins and listening to them and allowing your hearts to be altered in allowing yourselves to be reached by their wisdom and their goodness. And it just turned me upside down. I was supposed to go to Santa Clara University to be kind of, in those days, they have that was the beginning of the notion of the immersion experience where they would send students to different poor places and have them have that experience, which is really a good thing. But when I returned, I went, I just can’t do it. It just wasn’t enough for me. So I went to my provincial though I had agreed with all the people in Santa Clara to do this. And it was just perfect timing, because rather than say, no, I assigned you there and that’s where you’re going, he needed a pastor at Dolores Mission, which I didn’t know was the poorest place that we operated. And so they sent me here. And so I’ve been here in this community ever since.

    Adrian Pantoja:
    So that experience, the theology and Bolivia, liberation theology, that profoundly shaped you, profoundly shaped your identity.

    04:37
    Father Boyle:
    Yeah, absolutely, and then it just kind of shaped how we operated it at Dolores Mission. So it became more, the heart of the place was not Sunday Mass. It was all these (Spanish phrase – inaudible). And they were all these groups inside the projects, mainly women I used to always ask, where the men? First of all, there weren’t that many men, it was mainly women with kids. That was the profile. But there were some men and I go, “Where are they?” And I expected the women to kind of say, “Oh, this is kind of women’s work,” or “Men you know, this is not for men.” I don’t know what they were gonna say. But instead, one woman said, “They’re not here because they are cowards.” And all the women in the group just nodded yes, oh, sure. Yes, that’s exactly right. They lacked the courage because in those days, the base communities were kind of on the cutting edge. They fed the poor they walked between gang gunfire, I mean incredible; Their focus, like when we had the drug, huge drug sales, they didn’t focus on the drug dealers as kind of the opponent. They would sit outside of the entrance, especially in the summer. And some Mercedes came in with some doctor wearing a white coat, and they’d hold up a sign that said, “If you come here to buy drugs go home,” and the car would turn around and leave. This pissed off the drug dealers, so we had that issue to deal with. But it was a kind of a thing, don’t poison our community, life is hard here, as it is. So anyway, that was the life of the parish. And it was hugely empowering because they had been used to turning to the (Spanish phrase – inaudible) and I don’t know what to say. And you tell us because you’re the leader and boy, that just was easy to say, No, you have a voice, and so they did. They took charge, and it was, it’s the way church should be, I think.

    Adrian Pantoja:
    The women played an influential role and I’m glad you’re sharing that story. But one of the things that struck me in your book was the absence of fathers in the lives of the homeboys, in the lives of these young men. And your Father Boyle, you’re the padrecito, and you refer to them as Mijo. So there is that that Father-Son relationship. And so while the women played an influential role, I wonder, having read this, could a woman have done what you did in terms of transforming the lives of these men, giving the absence of that father figure?

    7:41
    Father Boyle:
    Well, I mean, the women did do this and again, it cuts across gender, and it cuts across race, really. It’s anybody with the proud owner of a pulse was able to connect to gang members. But there’s a particularity about the depth of the Father wound. I had a homey, this was pre-pandemic but was not that long ago, and was a guy and he was trying to come in. We have a process, a drug test, and then a week later, you come for an orientation, then you come to a kind of an interview which we call Selection Committee, which is three homeys. And they interview you, then you will wait. If they approve you, and the council approves it, then you await your start date. So this guy came in and he wanted to get his start date, and he was covered in tattoos and really kind of belligerent. Normally, that’s who we want, but I’m kind of looking at him, I’m asking him questions. And I said, Well, let me go check with the council. I don’t know what they said, if they approved you or not. If they did, I’m going to give you a start date. And then he kind of changes gears and he points out to the reception area. He goes, “So, you’re a father.” And I said, Yeah. “And everybody here, they’re your children.” And I said, “Well, yeah, I guess.” I couldn’t understand where he was going with this. And then he puts his head in his hands and he says, “And I’m gonna tell you why I really stepped into your office.” And he just begins to sob, a big, huge guy out of prison. And he just said, “Can I be your son?” It was really a very… I’d never met him before. And he just sobs. And I leaned across my desk, and I said, “Oh, my God. Imagine what an honor it would be to be your father.” And he sobs all the more. And it really took a long time before he could compose himself. And then he looks at me and he says, “The one thing, the one thing I always wanted to hear from my father.” And I, the thing that struck me so much is I didn’t even know him. It wasn’t like this was after years of me knowing him. So it’s kind of a role a little bit, especially to folks who connect to the Father wound and want to repair attachment and somehow land in a place where they’re finally introduced to themselves, and they can get on with their lives. So it’s a kind of a, I’m honored, obviously.

    Adrian Pantoja:
    There are some wonderful moments where the homeboy calls you at three in the morning. And he said, “Am I like a son to you? And you said, “Yes.” “Sorry, are you awake?”

    11:06
    Father Boyle:
    And I always say the moral of that story was not that that night, he discovered that he had a father, but he discovered that he was a son worth having, which is, that’s the whole point. It’s not about filling a void. It’s about knowing your own unshakable goodness and your worth. And that’s kind of where this is going.

    Adrian Pantoja:
    Why is it important for men to do this kind of work? I teach Inside-Out classes, and I have a hard time getting men to participate in that. At Pitzer College, we do community engagement programs, and we have a hard time getting the men to participate in that. You mentioned the community-based groups and the women were very active. And yet there’s that Father wound that you talk about, and yet, I guess I’m trying to understand, why is it important to have the men there? And why is it so darn hard to get them involved?

    12:06
    Father Boyle:
    Well, I also think we’re kind of stuck in this role which is mentor-mentee, and that’s kind of how we see service. And service is the hallway that leads to the ballroom, but you want to get to the ballroom, which is the place of connection and kinship. But, men do this in a way that’s kind of different from women. The idea is, if you think you’re supposed to go to the margins to make a difference, then it’s about you, and it can’t be about you. You go to the margins so that the folks at the margins make me different, then it’s about us. But it’s generous, empathetic, it’s compassionate. And it’s exquisitely mutual. And so men have more of an inclination to save the world, rescue, fix, go to the margins and make a difference, as opposed to, I want to go to the margins, how do I reach them?

    A guy who worked with gang members in Houston, a former gang member himself, asked me that after a talk, “How do you reach them?” And I said, “Well, for starters, stop trying to reach them. Can you be reached by them?” This is a really good question. I’ve never thought about this before. But I really think that it’s just harder for men. Because you really have to kind of go into… The Jesuits are always talking about (Latin phrase – inaudible) recontra, which is you have to go against agreeing that wants you to fix and save and rescue and make a difference. Instead, can you receive people? Can you allow your heart to be altered? It’s not about going to the margins so much as what are you going to do there? No, the question is, what will happen to you there? Men have a harder time with that. I think that’s an excellent observation and something I’m going to kind of think about, because I think it’s really true.

    Adrian Pantoja:
    I think it puts you in a very vulnerable position then to open yourself up to others, and maybe there’s that reluctance. That’s something that’s worth exploring, thinking about.

    14:30
    Father Boyle:
    The homeys here will say it’s the relationship that heals. So vulnerability is the Velcro, that’s how people connect. And so it’s an essential piece, you have to be vulnerable. When you go to the margins and allow yourself to be reached, there’s no other way to do it except through kind of a vulnerable way.

    Adrian Pantoja:
    And that’s hard for men, I think. You write that the strategy of Jesus is not centered in taking the right stand on issues, but rather in standing in the right place with the outcast and those relegated to the margins. In the book, I hear your words, the way you communicate with homeboys. They’re craving love, and you give them love. But there’s also another important layer and that is presence. You are there and you have not left. In terms of social justice work, what’s the importance of presence and longevity? What role does that play in transforming the lives of these young men? Your mere presence and staying there, being there?

    15:45
    Father Boyle:
    You got to believe that I’ve done a million and a half Q and A’s like this. These are three of the best questions I’ve ever gotten. I used to always say, I’ve never met a question I haven’t met. But that’s a question I’ve never met. Again, it’s really good because it’s also a Jesuit thing because there’s a thing about move and go and don’t stay in a place. And again, that’s a very, I want to say, masculine model, go in, fix, rescue, save and move on to another place. But there’s another model about just kind of hanging in with people because it is about longevity because it’s about relationship.

    And ours is a God who waits. Who are we not to wait? There’s a homey I have in mind who I’ve known since he was a kid. I’ve known him, he got into a gang, and he was just one of the funniest damn kids I’ve ever known. And I always call him a pummeler; he’ll pummel me. If you get him on the phone, he won’t stop. And he’s just a firehose of trying to convince you to do one thing or the next. I’ve known him forever. And I know his torturous childhood and the kind of lethal absence of hope that led him to a gang. There was a period there where he was self-medicating and he was drinking so much. And I just couldn’t get him into rehab. And so finally, he texted me. And he said, “(Spanish phrase – inaudible), kick me down with some (Spanish phrase – inaudible), yeah?” And I said, “Well, no, because I love you, and I’m in your corner forever. But I will only help you and if I give you money right now, it’s not going to help you. But I will get you immediately into a rehab where you just need to stay 90 days and handle your drinking issue.” And I said, “Look” (and I’m texting all this); “Look, I know you’ve burned every bridge with family and friends. You will never burn this bridge with me.” And I push “send” and he wrote me right back. “Fuck your bridge.” And I kinda went “Whoa!” And yet it was a wonderful thing because he ended up going to rehab. But he was safe with me because I had known him for 30 years. And there was a kind of a comfort that’s so sacred and so holy. You allow those things to sting, and then you let it go. And then you’re curious about it, and then you savor it, and then you relish it. And then it leads you to joy. I went to my Council, which is all homeys, and I told them about it. And the homeys in the group, that became this little expression of affection. They’d hug me and whisper in my ear, “Fuck your bridge,” and we would howl laughing because it’s all good. Can you be elated by everything and not toppled by anything? And all violence is the language? What language is it speaking? And then you’re delighting in whatever comes your way. I think it’s the secret.

    Adrian Pantoja:
    You go to East LA and you’re in the heart of this poor community and the heart of gangland, and there’s violence and it’s violence that is coming within the community. Yes, there are structural factors, but at the end of the day was the homeboy that got the gun and pulled the trigger. Today, when I think about violence directed at Latinos, I can’t help but feel that it’s coming outside the community that’s coming from whites, that it’s coming from white supremacists, right-wing groups. Can your book help address that? Can your lessons your theory, your practices, can it help address that kind of violence that seems to be now coming outside and it’s directed at the homeboys, it’s directed at Latinos?

    20:30
    Father Boyle:
    Another excellent question. I have to say, I’m writing a third book. And so because a lot of that was written during this time of racial reckoning and COVID, it reflects some of that. And I just heard today that Rupert Murdoch wants to buy Simon and Schuster, so I need to hurry and finish this book because they’re my publisher. Yikes. So I addressed that a little bit because this time has pulled back the curtain in many ways. We’re all hit by the same storm of this odd thing of the pandemic. But we’re all in different size vessels. We’re all facing the same storm, but some people are in big old steamliners or yachts, and some are in rowboats and some are even just barely clinging to a piece of driftwood in the storm. But it’s the same storm. But then obviously, this is all hackneyed. Now everybody knows that poor people of color have been more greatly impacted by the pandemic. And that’s a way that the fault lines are revealed and you kind of go, okay, racism is hidden in systems. And that makes it hard and it’s vexing. But I think we’re in a kind of a glorious time for as weird as this time is, on both the electoral stage and on the racial reckoning and the pandemic. And yet, I’m kind of oddly hopeful and optimistic. I’m never both of those at the same time. Because I find that I get sort of triggered; it’s dispelled the myth of scarcity. And it’s kind of strange, it’s shining a light on the truth of abundance. And so there’s a sense that once you realize that what you have is more than you need, then you start to build a longer table instead of a higher wall. And I really do think that’s happening. I think we feared the other would happen at the beginning when we were all hoarding toilet paper and hand sanitizer, and then all of a sudden, you go, no, it ushered in some odd, magnanimous spirit of real generosity. So, I’m hopeful that a new language has awakened in us. And we have to figure out how to how to proceed.

    Adrian Pantoja:
    I love the optimism, the hopefulness, and reading your book and your work fills me with a lot of hope. And sometimes the election fills me with hope. But sometimes it also fills me with a bit of despair when I see how we use the word allies, and it seems like communities of color have few allies, fewer and fewer allies. How do we turn that around?

    23:51
    Father Boyle:
    Well, I don’t know. I always feel kind of, I’ve never lived in a place longer than now in Boyle Heights, in an extremely poor community that’s now starting to gentrify, I guess. But with close proximity to the projects, where people still really struggle, and in LA, where it to looks like we’ll probably hit 300 homicides by year’s end. And that hasn’t happened since 2009. Of course, in 1992 we had 1000. But 300, we didn’t hit that until 2009 and so, once we kind of stand against forgetting that we belong to each other, then you look at those homicides were mainly gang members and homeless. There comes a moment when you use stop looking at those homicides as things that happen someplace else, and you begin to see them as homicides against members of your family. And I think that’s possible. And they talk about diversity and equity and inclusion and that diversity is a fact and equity is a choice and inclusion is an action, but then they’ll say that belonging is the outcome. But at Homeboy we want to begin with belonging. And that’s your identity, and individuals, their true self is in loving. And so it’s about a community of beloved belonging or the Buddhists will talk about a sangha of practitioners, of tenderness. And that’s what Homeboy wants to be. It’s a solution, I guess. But it’s also a sign. We don’t want to point things out, we want to point the way. We want to suggests that Homeboy wants to be the front porch of the house everyone wants to live in. And the great John Lewis, I wish I had met him. He would say, we all live in the same house. And I always think that that’s really refreshing because he doesn’t say, he doesn’t condition and say, but some live in the basement, and some live on the third floor. No. Nor does he say, one day, we all may live in the same house. It’s the thing I love the most about it. It is straight out a declaration. We live in the same house. And to me, that’s thrilling. And I also think it’s our longing. I think it’s what Jesus says that you may be one. And it shouldn’t surprise us that that is God’s dream come true but it’s also our deepest longing for ourselves. And so the more people can tap into that longing, people will look at that and go, yeah, that is what I want. I don’t want tribalism, I don’t want the great divide. I don’t want to draw the lines. I don’t want to say us and them. Because it’s not about good or bad, or right or wrong. It’s about sadness or joy, and healthy people are joyful people. And healthy people are holy people. And that’s, again, if I can quote Jesus, who says, Mike, Joey, you’re joined, complete. That’s it. That’s all. And so, I was watching a woman, a pro-Trump supporter, who’s screaming at the news guy, “Why aren’t you reporting that China’s sending thousands of ballots to our country?” Well, I mean, the point is not to win the argument, to somehow, “Well, actually, no, China has not sent ballots to this country.” But how do we get underneath the sadness and the fear of that? Because none of us are well until all of us are well; none of us are whole until all of us are whole. And none of us can be joyful until all of us have upturned their sadness and their fear. So it’s about bringing people to health, not to convince them of the error of their ways.

    Adrian Pantoja:
    There are examples, there’s an example in your book that really intrigued me. And it was about these multiracial, those bridges that seem to divide communities right now, this us versus them. And I was really intrigued by what happened here. And this is your travels with some homeboys to Prichard, Alabama. And you write, “We take two hours to drive and walk around and what I think is about the poorest place I’ve ever seen the United States. Manuel and Miguel are positively bug-eyed. As they walk around, meet people and see a kind of poverty quite different than the one they know.” Why did the homeboys go to Prichard? Why was that important for you? And to talk about that, to mention that in the book?

    29:36
    Father Boyle:
    Well, we were actually at our Jesuit university at Spring Hill College. And so we spoke there, and that was the nighttime talk. And then the next morning there was, a lot of times they’ll have these what I call them stakeholder breakfasts. And the next morning, they invite the mayor and city council and all these stakeholders, people who work in the community and universities will sponsor kind of a breakfast and maybe a talk, I think we spoke, too. And afterward this guy came up to John and said, “I know your flight doesn’t leave till later in the afternoon, please come and see our community.” And I thought what the hell? We ended up becoming quite the partners. We sent homeys there many, many, many times. And so it was devastating. It’s a different kind of poverty. It’s like you go to Bolivia, that’s a different kind of poverty. You go to New York City, that’s different than Cabrini-Green which doesn’t exist anymore. But in Chicago, that was different than Pico Gardens in Los Angeles. So there’s a difference. But it’s funny you mentioned it; I haven’t thought of that in a long time. And one of the homeys I buried during this time of pandemic was a kid we called, his name was Mainer, I changed all the names in the book, but he was one of those guys. And he was killed two months ago. I have his picture up on my wall here. Sweetheart of a kid, very funny. And he was blown away by the poverty.

    Adrian Pantoja:
    And was there understanding that came from seeing a community that’s different than theirs, but yet also similar?

    31:28
    Father Boyle:
    Well, it was all about empathy, it was all about an ability to pass over into the pain and the suffering of someone else and so it was kind of a key experience for them and for me. There’s this movement, that’s always, you can’t warehouse your love, you have to allow it to flow and then overflow in it. And it’s outside of you. And that’s where the joy is. But you’re also getting impacted, you’re feeling people’s pain. And you’re… so we love our grievance, we love to kind of lament kind of what we’re suffering. But then, once you’re kind of, your intentionality is other-centered, then that’s a whole new ballgame; suddenly you are anchored in the other. So people aren’t selfish. People are self-absorbed, and there’s a difference. And they don’t know that the minute you go outside yourself (this is an exercise I do on planes because before the pandemic I was on planes a lot), and you watch people and they’re self-absorbed, they’re panicky. Will I get my carry-on in the overhead compartment? And I just fly so much that I watch them and they’re totally stressed out. And they’re not bad people, they’re not even selfish people, but they’re totally self-absorbed, hence their fear and their sadness. And of course, on every flight anybody has ever been on, the flight attendant has to say no less than three times, “Please step out of the aisle, and step into your seat so other people can walk by.” Well, that’s not because you’ve boarded a plane filled with bad people. It’s because everybody is self-absorbed, it’s where we begin. But the minute you turn a switch, I always do this on a plane, I go, I will be only anchored in the other. So you smile at the flight attendant when you get on and suddenly her life or his life, they’ve changed, it’s changed because you’ve let go of the self-absorption. Anyway, and then you’re sitting there and you’re watching people and you get up and you go, “Here, let me take that, I’ll put that up there for you.” And suddenly you feel this thing of you’ve let go of this absorption. And then you have a lighter grasp on life. It’s a kind of an exercise in intentionality where you say, “No, I’m going to try to be as other-focused.” And then you become, the practice is to become not other-centered, but loving-centered, where you love being loving. And suddenly you discover that we all share the same last name, which is love. And also we belong to each other and we’re connected. And no kinship, no peace; no kinship, no justice; no kinship, no equality; no matter how singularly focused you are on those worthy goals, they actually can’t happen unless we’re utterly convinced that we belong to each other.

    Adrian Pantoja:
    Let’s explore kinship a little bit more and this idea of belonging to each other. The Black Lives Matter movement has shown us that sometimes the perpetrators of violence come from the police. You don’t talk about the police in your book. What’s the relationship between the police and Homeboy Industries and how has that relationship evolved or changed over time?

    35:34
    Father Boyle:
    Well, it’s greatly changed, you know. I remember the bad old days where cops would pick up gang members and drop them in enemy territory and then yell out, “So and so is here!” That happened a lot. Does that happen now? No, it just doesn’t. As Barack Obama says, if you don’t think things have changed, you have not been paying attention. And that’s just my world. I remember when cops would take gang members to the back of the prod, to the back to the factories, and beat them down for purposes of intimidation and interrogation. Do they do that now? No, actually they don’t. And so again, that’s not to say that George Floyd’s murder wasn’t egregious and happened; it did. But there’s kind of no comparison, I’m just in LA, to what it was like in the horrible Daryl Gates Operation Hammer, wipe them out by any means necessary. I mean, horrible, horrible, horrible. And that’s when the demonizing was writ large. And we got bomb threats, death threats, hate mail, in that first 10 years of our existence, never from gang members, but always from people who demonize gang members. So it was a short hop to demonize me for helping gang members. There’s just kind of no chance of that happening now. It’s just not part of the air we breathe anymore. Do we need to make more progress? Absolutely. But no implicit bias training is going to change the LAPD. And the reason is, there’s an undergirding notion that there’s a good guy and there’s a bad guy. And that’s the most fallacious notion on the planet. It’s only led to everything bad. And it’s exactly the opposite of how God sees. So, at Homeboy, I always say that our cultural competence is therapeutic mysticism. You see the whole person. And I don’t know how you train for that. But that’s the whole ballgame. And sometimes I’ve heard Chiefs of Police say, it’s quite enlightened, just imagine that everyone you encountered today is having the worst day of their life. Well, that’s closer. That’s closer to it, it still maintains that notion, which is good, that we belong to each other. But if the guy you’re pulling over is, maybe he’s one of the bad guys or he’s your Uncle Louie, but you have to just see everyone you pull over as your Uncle Louie. Otherwise, it won’t work. And so, even not talking about race, wherever it was, Buffalo or Syracuse, upstate New York, where the 75-year-old man is protesting, part of the Black Lives Matter marching. And he’s pushed to the ground and suffers huge injury. He’s bleeding on the sidewalk. Well, it was a white cop and a white protester. Now what? Well, it’s again, I think this illuminates a lot. He was one of the bad guys. And if there’s such a thing as a bad guy, then all bets are off. You can do anything you want. Obviously, race is involved, obviously, my community is over-policed because the bad guys live here. And then the folks who aren’t bad guys are kind of their fraternizers with the enemy, so it’s like, which is, the truth of Homeboy is you can’t, homeys discover, you can’t demonize people you know. And in Los Angeles, anyway, there was that push after Parker and before Chief Parker was, you didn’t want to know the community. Because then you would become a fraternizer with the enemy because you were really policing. You were policing areas that were just filled with the enemy, which is of course racial but it’s deeper than race. It’s about a notion; we’ve drawn our family circle too small, and the wider the better. And so I look at Jesus and I want to take seriously what he took seriously. And he only took four things seriously: inclusion, non-violence, unconditional loving-kindness, and compassion and acceptance. And if you could somehow, quite apart from the Christian piece of that, if police officers, law enforcement, had that as part of their bloodstream, then it would be quite different, to say nothing of the fact that the largest mental institution on the planet Earth is the LA County Jail. So we’ve been punishing the wounded since the beginning of time. And wouldn’t that be something if we stopped doing that?

    Adrian Pantoja:
    Well, there’s been a change, and you’ve seen it. But there’s still a lot of work to be done and maybe Los Angeles has come further along than other communities. And I have this feeling that somehow Homeboy Industries played a role in that in building those bridges, despite what that homeboy might have said to you about “f” your bridges, I think you might have helped build.

    42:16
    Father Boyle:
    Yeah, and I think every chief of police has, maybe they begrudgingly acknowledged this, but they’ve all, since Bratton, have said, yeah, Homeboy has significantly, it has really had a singular impact on public safety in LA County, mainly because it just sort of posits this notion that what if we were to invest in people rather than just incarcerate our way out of things? And as odd as that seems now, that was really a novel idea. Because we were locked in this tough on crime or soft on crime. But then Homeboy said, “Well, how about smart on crime?” And everybody rushed to smart because if it was tough or soft, nobody’s gonna push, nobody’s gonna embrace soft. But if your choice really is smart or soft, everybody will embrace smart. And oddly, even politically, you can get ultra-right wingers and people more on the progressive left side, who embrace smart, which is a, it may well be the only issue in this country, really where you have some agreement. Now, I mean, you didn’t then but now you do.

    Adrian Pantoja:
    Let’s hope that work continues, moving forward, that people make the smart decisions. We talked earlier about your physical presence in the lives of these young men. And now we’re in the midst of a pandemic that makes it difficult to build bridges, maybe we’re now hiding behind walls. How are you dealing with this isolation that has come as a result of the pandemic? And how are the homeboys dealing with the isolation that has come?

    44:18
    Father Boyle:
    Well, we were shut down as everybody was in the beginning. But then the mayor named us as an essential organization. So we assumed our essence. And so we pivoted really early, early, early, to address food insecurity in the county. So we still have a lot of contracts, city, county and World Central Kitchen. So now we’ve produced almost 200,000 meals, something like 17,000 meals a week, that then get delivered. Homeys go out two by two and deliver these meals to seniors, shut-ins, homeless. And so that’s been a really, and we’ve been able to keep everybody working, which has been remarkable. It’s funny yet it didn’t just interrupt my plans, but it kind of torpedoed my identity. I mean, as you know, my life has really been on the road. On the road, giving talks with homeys, universities, hotel ballrooms, and then when I’m home on the weekends, I’m in all these detention facilities saying mass, and I’m kicking it in the office half the week. That’s sort of who I am, which is you grieve. And the idea is grief shouldn’t leave us where it found us. So you lean into the grief, you’re curious about it. You somehow want to relish it, savor it, and it’ll get you to joy if you keep on that path. So then you let go, the order of the day is surrender. And so you want to kind of let go of all this stuff, and not cling, which is the root of all suffering. But now they’re starting to open up the camps. So I still kind of tape, I’m going to tape a Thanksgiving mass on Friday that’ll get telegraphed into all the facilities, but now I’m actually going back, slowly, into some facilities.

    Adrian Pantoja:
    It’s so it sounds like the work hasn’t slowed down, and the work continues. But there is that sense of loss that you’re describing that grieving that comes on.

    46:56
    Father Boyle:
    Yeah, and there’s also, we’re open, and I was there today, and they’ve set up a tent for me out in the parking lot. So it’s a kind of a casbah, it’s like airy, and they’re petrified that I’m going to get it. So because I’m a geezer, and I have leukemia, they’re nervous about it, but I just go along with it, whatever they want me to do. So the homeys put up this amazing tent and so that’s my office. So I’m there three mornings a week, the rest of the time, I’m on crazy Zoomland. But homeys come in, and people are being brought into our program, and they’re doing a lot of Zoom classes and therapy. But the only thing we haven’t returned to is tattoo removal yet, but we will. And so, but it’s different.

    Adrian Pantoja:
    Yeah. And hopefully things… I don’t know if the idea of getting back to normal is a reality anytime soon, but maybe we’ll move a little bit closer to that over time.

    Somebody in the chatbox, you asked a question about the young men who are in gangs, and if they want out, and they come seek your help, can they get out? We know they can get out but are there any repercussions for them getting out; they turn their back on the gang and therefore they now are targets? Or because they’ve moved into Homeboy Industries, the gang has said, it’s a legit group, we trust them, no target.

    48:53
    Father Boyle:
    No, I mean, they’re more myths than you can shake a stick at, and the blood in-blood out myth is one of the larger ones, kind of crazy. But we’ve believed these things for years. And again, part of it serves the demonizing thing, because gang members are human beings, they all came into the world wanting the same thing as everybody else. And then stuff got interrupted. And anyone who walks through our doors is a 9 or a 10 on the ACEs study, which is outrageous. If you’re a 4 or 5, which is this 10-checklist Adverse Childhood Experiences study, nobody’s a 9 or 10. It’s just kind of off the charts where everybody’s a 9 or 10 who walks through our doors. They say if you’re a 4 or 5, and they’re all these things like parent in prison, parent mentally ill, parent drug addict, abuse, physical, sexual, emotional, so it’s 10 checklist. And they say if a kid is a 4 or 5 under the age of 18, and they’re a 4 or 5, they’re going to have real physical health issues and they’re going to have socializing issues. So imagine the 9 or a 10. And everybody wants the same thing. Everybody’s born wanting the same thing and everybody wants the same thing. But kids join gangs because they’re stuck in a despair and/or hugely traumatized and/or mentally ill. So as a society, you infuse hope to kids for whom hope is foreign, and you help heal the trauma, or you deliver mental health services. And so addressing the myths helps, because our diagnosis has been so off that you think kids join gangs because they’re seeking excitement. That’s cuckoo bird. No kid is seeking anything when he joins a gang, every kid is fleeing something. So address the thing they’re fleeing, and you’ve really done something as a society.

    Adrian Pantoja:
    Great advice. We’re nearing the end. And one of the final questions I have for you, and we have young people that want to change the world. But we know maybe that’s a difference. They maybe need to rethink that approach. But there’s young people that want to do good. They want to make a difference. And they look to you, they look to your book, and they see, well, here’s somebody that did that. What advice would you have to young people like our students about how they can do good in the world?

    52:13
    Father Boyle:
    I remember, I was, I don’t know where I was, in some city, and some state in this country. And I was being escorted somewhere through a school. And a teacher just called me in. And it was all these students there. And she says, say hi to my class, and then she leaned in and she says, “Tell them how they can make their mark in the world.” And, of course, all her students could hear her say that, and I turned to them and I said, “Don’t make a mark in the world. Go to the margins and have the poor and the folks who have had their dignity denied, have them make their mark on you.” That’s how it stays exclusively mutual. That’s how people don’t, won’t, ever burn out if that’s what they’re intending to do. If your intention is to make them your mark on the world or to make a difference, you won’t last because as long as it’s about you, you can’t last. But if you allow yourself to be marked and reached and receive people and have your heart altered, then it becomes about us. And that’s the only path. I have a book club I have to go to every Tuesday night for the last nine months. Homeys, sometimes it’s books, it was Bible, kind of Bible. And now and every Tuesday night, we meet at 6. So I told them, I’ll get there when I get there. But it’s been one of the most amazing things. They’re just like eight of us. And it’s very moving and I haven’t missed one.

    Adrian Pantoja:
    I don’t want to keep you from…

    Father Boyle:
    Thank you all it’s really great being with you.

    Adrian Pantoja:
    Thank you, Father Boyle. And if I ask great questions, I’ll attribute that to the Jesuits and my Jesuit education. Thank you very much.