Recently, as part of the Incarnate Word Foundation's Project RECON, I was privileged to be present at a talk by Fr. Gregory Boyle, SJ. I wanted to share highlights from his remarks.
What brings you out tonight is not me, but a ongoing need for an alignment to bring us to the dream of relationship. In the end it is about being in union with one another. We hope the day will come when we stop we throwing people away. No kinship no peace, no kinship no equality. The only way that makes sense is if we anchor ourself in the God who loves us without regret. St. Ignatius says we want to know that God is always greater, and so how do we arrive at that God.
One of the homies was reading a Psalm, and he said 'The Lord is exhausted.' Not exalted. I remember thinking at the time that is way better. I like the exhausted God, rather than a God who wants to spend eternity being exalted. It's good to be exhausted if you are helping other human beings. It's a good tired. That's the God we actually have. A God who is loving you.
The God we settle for is a partial God. We always need to be on the look out for the God we actually have, not the God we settle for. When Dylan Roof killed those people in a Charleston church, a week later those families sat in his presence and said, 'We forgive you.' That is the God we actually have. But nine months later we settled for the partial God with the death penalty.
We can feel the tender glance of God and then exhaust ourselves in extending that glance to others. The depth of the God we actually have is this exhausted God who is inviting us to the margins to create a kinship with those who are out there. That is the God we know in the deepest part of us. We know that God only wants for us, not from us. We don't have to measure up, we don't have to perform. In asking us to create a community of kinship, God is not asking something from us, because it is in that community that the joy is. The joy for us.
That's the regular program. We want to role up our sleeves and be in kinship. It's about exquisite mutuality, about relationship.
Dreamer is a super smart kid. He's very intelligent though I don't recall that he every went to school. He is in his 40s now and is doing well. But in his 20s he was a yo-yo, in and out of jail. I'd find him jobs, but he'd find himself eventually doing things of vague criminality. And then he'd wander back. He cam back after 4 months in jail and then he said this time it will be different.
Homeboy started as a bakery. Then we started Homeboy Tortillas. We changed our name to Homeboy Industries. And things grow and evolve. We are the largest gang recently program in the world. We serve 55,000 individuals a year. There are 11,000 gangs in LA. We are healing people. Healing is what it's about. They come with chromic toxic stress strapped to their backs, and they need relief otherwise they are living for survival. They find sanctuary with us, and then they go home and are a sanctuary for their kids. We promote kinship.
Go to the margins. As I have loved you, so must you have a special referential love for the widow, orphan and stranger. These are folks who know what it is like to be cut off and because they have been cut off in this way God thinks they can lead us to the kinship of God. They are guides and we follow. You are not called to the margins to rescue someone. When we go out there, we all find rescue. The measure of compassion is not in our service to those on the margins, but in our ability to see our kinship with them. The folks at the margins are our trustworthy guides to get us to the community of kinship that is God's dream come true.
2015 was a rough and tumble year. Too many meetings. Too many projects, Too many expectations and opportunities. Life no longer was a matter of putting on foot in front of the other and slogging through but had twisted into running two marathons in opposite directions simultaneously.
At the end of the year I had a business trip to Washington. The trip did not begin well. Lost luggage led to a hotel with no room ready. All I wanted to do was crash. The hotel lobby–hard sterile white marble walls, glass and chrome furnishings, black and white photographs, very uncomfortable chairs–propelled me out of the hotel and to the museum.
A brisk walk through crisp winter air brought me to the echoing limestone lobby. I was feeling a bit more like myself when the docent stopped me as I tried to brush past. Even though I had been to the museum many times common courtesy kicked in when she caught me at the information desk. And that's when I heard that four Vermeers were in a small gallery on the first floor.
I made my way to the small gallery where visitors were taking selfies with the main attraction, a Vermeer from Amsterdam. Somewhat overlooked on an adjacent wall hung Woman Holding a Balance. At first glance, I was puzzled since it seemed like the woman was contemplating something unseen. It was only after reading the caption that I took a closer look and saw the delicate whisper-thin balance at perfect equilibrium, held by a woman ignoring the pearls and jewels tumbling out of the chest on the table.
I spent a few hours in the museum that afternoon and revisited the Woman Holding a Balance several times interspersed with intervals of reflection on benches in the neighboring galleries.
What distractions should I look past?
Can I learn to pull back?
When will I achieve equilibrium?
I learned later that the painting is sometimes called Woman Testing a Balance.