May 11, 2026 • 53 mins
In this deeply moving episode of Sacred Lessons, host Mike de la Rocha sits with Gregory Boyle, founder of Homeboy Industries and a father figure to thousands, for an intimate conversation about love, belonging, and the fathers we find along the way. Together, they explore what happens when men grow up without the guidance, tenderness, or affirmation they needed and how healing becomes possible when we are received with compassion instead of judgment. Drawing from decades of walking alongside formerly incarcerated individuals, Father Greg reflects on chosen family, unconditional love, and the radical belief that no one is outside the circle of belonging.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
What are the cycles fathers passed down that son so
or left to heal? What if being a man was
about holding it all together but learning how to let go.
This is a space where men speak truth and find
the power to heal and transform. I'm Mike Dela Rocha.
Welcome to Sacred Lessons. Some men grow up without the
(00:23):
father they needed and spend the rest of their lives
searching for him. Welcome to Sacred Lessons on Mike Dela Rocha.
Today's episode asks a different question. What happens when the
father you needed wasn't there? But love finds him anyway. Today,
I'm honored to sit with someone who has become a
father figure to thousands, including myself, Father Gregory Boyle, founder
(00:47):
of Homeboy Industries, the largest gang intervention agency in the world.
For decades, Father G has walked alongside men and women
who have been abandoned, incarcerated, demonized, and discarded, offering not
judgment but something far more radical love. In his latest book,
(01:07):
Cherish Belonging, he reminds us that healing doesn't come from
fixing people. It comes from loving them exactly as they are.
And for so many men, especially those who grew up
without fathers. That kind of love can change everything. Thank
you so much for being here. I wanted to start
(01:31):
by just honoring honoring you because so many people that
are near and dear to my heart, from Hector and
Jose to others, I have seen the imprint that you've
made in their life. And the thing that is the
most loving thing for me is they don't call you
(01:54):
Greg or father, greg or g They call you Pops.
And it was such a term of endearment, but they
say it with such care. It's like they hold it
like I this is everything to me. This word. I
might not be able to say love, but I can
say pops.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
And so I want to say thank you for blessing
my life person, but also blessing my life through the
guidance and love and support that you give to so
many people that are important to me and so many
people that I that I don't know. And I wanted
to kind of start with that, which is you oftentimes
say that Homeboy in your work doesn't rescue people, it
(02:38):
receives them. And I wonder if you can just start
by elaborating on that concept.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Yeah, well, you know you began by talking about you know,
kind of how we know each other. Yeah, and and
I was thinking as you said it, you know, it's
really exquisitely mutual. You know, that they're that if there
is no kind of sense of being extensive towards another person,
(03:07):
and that it's a one way thing that you really
don't go to the margins to make a difference or
rescue or save or fix. You go there to have
your heart altered, you know. And now that feels passive,
but it really is really quite active because what it
(03:28):
does is it engages in people to inhabit their own
dignity and nobility, which are you're doing mutually? You know.
So all those people you mentioned, you know, and I
include you in that, you know, are people who have
altered my heart, you know. And then you receive people,
(03:49):
and you don't go to any kind of place to
change people, but to be changed and to be to
receive who they are, you know. And then I think
that's how it works. You know, It's not you're not
going to a gas station and getting your tank filled.
(04:12):
It's a whole other model, which is a dosing of
care and cherishing, and then pretty soon people are inhabiting
the truth of who they are. That they're exactly right
and they find their true selves and loving, which is
kind of the key thing because then they're forever sturdy
(04:35):
and resilient because they know that love, loving is their
home and now they're never going to be homesick. So
and that's a powerful thing, especially right now in our
world where there's the kind of the the love of power.
But this is what we're talking about, is the is
(04:57):
you know, the power of love that somehow that this
is our resistance in the time in which we find ourselves,
which is utterly unique in my experience as an old
ass man, but so.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Well, I wanted to ask my My second question came.
I was at the coffee shop yesterday and Gabriel, who
has gone through as a trainee and is excelling at
the BEATO, He's like, oh, Mike, who you who are
you interviewing tomorrow? And I go through and I was like, Oh,
I'm interviewing gee. What can you ask him a question?
(05:33):
For me? I was like, for sure, what's the question?
Can you ask him? Like why does he really love us?
Gang members?
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Like what happened?
Speaker 3 (05:45):
Like does he really love love us?
Speaker 1 (05:48):
And I was like he does, but I will ask
him for you can hear yourself, but he was. He
was genuinely like, why does he care so much about me?
And I wonder if you could.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Just well, I mean again, I never set out to
do anything, you know. You know, you don't find a calling.
I don't think from outside someplace, you know, but once
you're inside a place, namely, I was, you know, a
priest in a parish, very poor, highest concentration of gang
(06:23):
activity in the whole city. Eight gangs at war. So
then that this became a reality. It actually wasn't. When
I first got there eighty six to eighty eight was
kind of immigration, much as we're experiencing with ice now.
It was really as you recall, back in those days,
it was horrible and miga and raids and that kind
(06:46):
of thing. And then I buried my first young person
in nineteen eighty eight. So then it became this, you know,
the scales falling from my eyes. I started to see
all these A lot of them were homegrown born gangs,
you know, in the late eighties. They weren't from back
(07:09):
in the forties and the old you know, cholo kind
of thing. So then there they were in the world
was demonizing them. They were on the lowest rung of
the totem pole and the most reviled and despised. So
that was kind of intriguing. And so then I, you know,
(07:30):
I would just walk out in the projects and I
got to know them, and I got to know their names,
you know, and you're doing this as a as a pastor.
And then i'd visit them in hospitals, I visit them
in juvenile hall and jails, and so then you have
it creates a disconnect where you go, wow, society really
(07:52):
demonizes this group, especially right now in Los Angeles in
those days forty years ago. And then I go, well,
I'm finding them, you know, really eternally interesting and funny
and and gatignoso and and so you know, i'd have
(08:16):
probation officers say to me really specifically, don't help that
guy Fernie because he's evil, pure evil, And I go,
so that it sent me on a search, and I go, wow,
why would somebody say something like that? And then you discover,
of course that this kid, like all of them, are
caring more than I've ever had to carry, and I
(08:37):
would not have survived a single day of their childhoods.
So you start to experience that, and then you go, wow,
these are really you see them, I think you really
see them. And then that's you know that, then all
of a sudden it was a vocation within a vocation
within a vocation, and they just couldn't see myself doing
(09:00):
anything else except accompanying this group, mainly because initially because
it most reviled, and so I thought, well, that's where
we need to be. Like say Ignatius of Loyola, who's
the founder of the Jesuits, used to say, see Jesus
standing in the lowly place. So the lowly places, you know,
(09:23):
who are the easily despised and the readily left out,
stand there with them. So that kind of ignited my
own kind of spiritual side of it. And then you know,
people like you are your sons and daughters, and so
that's that's that's why, I mean, there's no other thing
(09:44):
except the day won't ever come when I have more courage,
or I am more noble, or I'm closer to God
than all jose Aano and Hector Radugo and Stevie Avolos,
and the list is long. And Gabriel, you know, so
you kind of go, yeah, I'm what a privilege to
(10:05):
to stand with these folks. So that's how it as
best I can, not as people describe it.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
And then you know this book, I mean, I highlighted
so much, but I really think right now and we're
living in such divided times, algorithms, ice, rays, gender, violence,
and what I there's so much I got from it,
But just can you elaborate on the healing power of love?
(10:35):
Because folks, you know you you quote bal Hooks in
here that love is in action and that when when
when someone is harmed or the structure is harming you,
or a person has harmon you, the last thing you're
thinking about is love. But you offer a different way
to look at it.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
Correct, Yeah, I mean I think what we want to
take seriously for for me, you know, are the same
things that Jesus took seriously with inclusion, nonviolence, unconditional loving, kindness,
and compassionate acceptance. And then those become how you guide
so to the extent that our stance in the world
(11:16):
excludes then you say, well, no, that's the opposite of
where we need to be. Or if it's violent, or
if it puts conditions on your loving, or if it
doesn't know that the answer to every question is compassion.
So then you find where you want to be and
(11:39):
how you want to be in the world, you know,
like in the height of the ice rays that we're
happening here in Los Angeles, And we were talking about
it with homies in the office and one homie said, well,
what do we do now? And before I could even
formulate an answer, another homie said, love is always the
(12:01):
next thing to do, and I brilliant, absolutely brilliant. So
then you decide to put one loving foot in front
of the next, and that's all you need to know
in a way, you know, because and then you do
the most loving thing that you can imagine, you know,
(12:23):
and that's always next. And sometimes you have to be creative.
You have to say, well, how are we going to
do this? Or like right now, I just was hard
to leave my office. But you know, so I was
leaving and we were dealing with a lot of situations
and people and you kind of go, she's really hard
to love. But that's exactly where we're invited to be,
(12:47):
you know, because she's comes at you sideways, and she's demanding,
and she's and she has real mental anguish that comes
out in ways that are violent, and she's in people's faces,
but you know, I watch everybody. We were all kind
of having a concerted effort to say, you know, to
(13:12):
stand in awe at what she's carrying rather than judgment
at how she's carrying it. And so how do we
get to that place where we are you know, reverent
for the complexity of this woman's life. And if I
were to be honest about how how have things changed
(13:33):
over forty two years? What is most pronounced as you
had that litany earlier about division and maybe social media
and whatever people are feeling our isolation or algorithms, is
I have not really encountered unless in the last ten years,
(13:57):
probably exacerbated by COVID and other things. Is just the
level of mental anguish, you know, and how people are
really struggling with real mental health is yeah, And we
never saw this before. You know, you saw violence, and
(14:17):
you saw all sorts of things, people processing their anger
and their rage. But people who are you know, really
hearing voices and really quite distraught. And so there's a
kind of a compounding exacerbation that comes from you know,
(14:37):
social media and isolation and people are not connected to
community and so but that's new. I find that to
be really new.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
Do you think that newness in the last ten years
is because we're not approximate as much to each other?
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Absolutely? Absolutely, because flourishing happens in community, and I mean
it always does, and it's about healing. It's the relationship
that heals. So the more you can you know, like again,
right now, place was packed, but you can watch people.
(15:13):
Everybody's giving a dose. The security guys, you know, you know,
senior staff. You can see how they are with people
and they're they're pulling the favor out of folks and
people are walking away and they're feeling favorable and that's
never happened to them before. But if enough people do that,
(15:35):
it's not like you walk into one office like a
therapist and then you're going to get the only dose
you're going to get. You can see a bombardment. Everybody's
doing it. Everybody's paying attention, and then you kind of
notice the notice of God and then you become that
notice in the world and it's paying loving attention to folks.
(16:00):
And it's hard to do, especially when there's so many
people and you're trying to notice everybody you know, as
you're walking down the hall to get to the restroom,
you know, and you're passing the tattoo removal clinic and
you're just seeing people standing in the hall. I mean
it's just really cheek to jowl and people you're you know,
(16:23):
you how you doing? And and you remember people's names
and you try to give them a dose and and
and and systems change when people change, and people change
when they're cherished. And that's like the only I think,
the only way it happens is where if people are
(16:44):
on the receiving end of that and entering into a
surrender to it. I mean, that's that has an impact,
you know, and the more we can trust that, I think,
the better better.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
So it seems like that that love and action and
practice is the consistency and the wrap around that. Like
when you described your morning at homeboy, you were what
the person felt seen, they felt value. But it wasn't
just in the therapist chair. Was every interaction that they have, right,
(17:26):
and the first person that welcomes up from security to
them waving at you in the front desk, to the
person that said, hey, how was your day, But they're
feeling the sense of cherished belonging.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Yeah, well, yeah, exactly, and and you think it's a
small thing, you know, like there was a homie who's
twenty two, and he said today, he said, you know,
he's been taking what he calls Zanni bars, you know,
since he was twelve. He has not stopped in ten years,
(17:58):
since he was twelve years old, making xanax. And I thought, wow,
you know, until March one and he stopped and he
was in a sober living and anyway, you know, you
say things that are they don't feel that special, you know,
(18:18):
but you go, wow, I'm so proud of you because
you've done you know, two months almost of sobriety and
you're in recovery and it's hard for him. And then
he just sobs and he says, nobody has ever said
(18:39):
in my life that they were proud, and you know,
certainly not his father. You mentioned his father had never
said that. And you go, wow, it's a small thing.
You don't think that much about it. But then you go, yeah,
this is what we're meant to do for each other,
(19:00):
catch each other in the act of being their fullness
and underscoring it and to highlight it. And look what
you just did. Look look at the accomplishment of the
last two months. You know. So I don't know, but
if all hands on deck, everybody needs to do it,
(19:21):
and it's a powerful tool Homeboy in that sense. And
I would even say like debat though. You know, it's
like these are things that want to be not just
one thing like a business or a rehab re entry program.
(19:42):
It wants to be the front porch of the house
that everybody wants to live in. And that's really key
because then you maintain this sense of community and your
workers there feel like they're valued, and then they value
people and they receive tender glance from you, and then
they become that tender glance is so I think that's
(20:05):
how it works. Yeah, you know, it's like nothing is
one thing. It shouldn't be anyway. It shouldn't just be
a business, or it shouldn't just be a social services center.
It should also announce a message what if we lived
like this, we could live like this? You know.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
Yeah. You know. One thing that always strikes such a
deep cord. I mean, gee, is that there's this level
of compassion. And in your book there there was a
couple of lines you wrote around I'm not making I
(20:44):
forgot what we said. It was something like, I'm not
making excuses, I'm providing a context. I'm paraphrasing, And I
think right now, that's I think the hard part because
the pain and the mental anguish, like you're saying the
last ten years, is so deep and so many people
that it's they forget about that compassion, or they can
forget about the context to forget about like, hey, there
(21:06):
is a reason why someone's acting violently. That's right, and
that doesn't excuse the harm, but there's a reason.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
Fully explains it. It helps you kind of find your
way to something correct, you know. I think that's the
problem is because I feel people feel like, you know, accountability,
They need to be responsible, especially when you want to
dismantle the prison system. You know, will the day come
when we no longer punish wound but we seek to
(21:36):
heal it. That's kind of what the whole prison system
has completely wrong. So but then then that gets into
this who's soft and who's tough and yet getting underneath
the homies always talking about finding the thorn underneath, And
just the other day, one of the homies senior staff,
(22:00):
you know, somebody had colored outside the lines pretty egregiously,
and he said, I know what he did. I want
to know what has he been through, which is, you know,
a very savvy and reverent stance, you know. But then
you can kind of say, well, now we can do
something effective. But in the early days of Homeboy, you know,
(22:23):
first ten years, bomb threats, death threats, hate mail, not
from gang members because they knew what it represented, but
from people who demonize game members, so we hate you
for helping them. And it really was a steady diet
of that, and then it stopped because people no longer
(22:44):
thought that the choice was tough or soft. They thought
it was tough or smart. And then people thought, well,
this is smart to get underneath and to say what's
this about. And you know, if you think it's about
bad people doing bad things, then you just try to
(23:04):
round them up, which of course fails because it doesn't
understand it. But if you think it's about a lethal
absence of hope, well wait a minute. So if we,
you know, infuse hope to kids for whom hope is foreign,
(23:25):
that will have an impact on the violence. And that
was kind of the understanding. People started to see that,
you know, and you know, so we had a thousand
gang related homicides in nineteen ninety two, and now it's
been cutting half and then cutting half again. And I
think frankly, you know, if you gave truth serum to
(23:50):
law enforcement, they acknowledge Homeboy's role in that because we created,
in the imagination of one hundred and twenty thousand members,
an exit ramp. Whether they walked through our doors or not,
they went, oh, we can get off this violent freeway.
We didn't think we could do that, even if they
(24:12):
do it in their own way. And somebody asked me
the other day, I can't remember, like in a classroom
or something. You know, how do folks come to Homeboy? Well,
I mean we never recruited. We don't go to some
street corner and say hand out flyers. You know, we
(24:32):
haven't had to do that in thirty eight years, you know.
So you know, every gang member knows where we are
and what we do, and they know that Hope lives
on Yeah, Hope has an address and when you're ready,
come and so in the old days, you know, we
used to fret. We did this so much if somebody
(24:55):
left or relapsed or went back to jail or just
disappeared on us and we would say, wow, you know,
I hope they come back. Nobody says that. Now we
all say, oh, they'll be back. There's a total confidence
in it because once somebody has had a palpable experience
of having been seen and cherished, they'll be back right.
(25:21):
And the truth is they all come back because then
it's like more home than home. And even you know,
with folks that I'm sure hopes they wouldn't mind be
saying this, who had took three attempts, you know, And
we always say the same thing, you know, especially if
(25:43):
they've done something. We always think you're great, we love you.
Come back when you're ready, which is why you know,
people will go to a rehab twenty times. I know
a bunch of homies who have and it was only
the twenty first rehab center that they went to that
it kicked in. It wasn't like he had found the
(26:06):
one rehab that's really good. It was he there was
a readiness and that he never had before.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
And I think this is the pig that given all
the stuff that's happening around gender violence in particular that's
being played on and everything from the raids to what
have you, is when when I give a context of
like why someone's acting the way they do, and I'm
(26:37):
not responsible for their actions in the sense of like
they have to choose. Like you're saying, when you're ready,
you can come. And I know a lot of people
would be like, well, you already tried. They just must
they're just bad. Just cancel them, just for just hold
them accountable. This lineup, You gotta hold them accountable. When
(26:57):
I'm like, the most account thing we could do is
continue to show up lovingly and guide them. But they
have to choose them. When they're ready to choose, we
will be there. But I wonder, like, how do you, like,
what do you tell that person says, no, they're not
going to change, or they need to they need to
be punished for the harm that they did, so egregious
(27:18):
punish them, you know, the accountability and the transformation that dance.
Speaker 3 (27:24):
How do you respond to folks that say that, yeah, well,
I mean we're in the kind of a climate at
the moment that you know wants to win the argument,
and and that's understandable.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
You want to persuade people and pull them over onto
your side of things. But then still there are always
undergirding issues like I remember I was at at the
La Times Festival Books many years ago. I was on
a panel with a rabbi and Steve Lopez, you know,
you'll calumnus, and I don't know what we were talking about,
(27:59):
but I was saying, you know, there are two principles.
We embrace it at homeboy, everybody's unshakeably good, no exceptions,
and we belong to each other, no exceptions. And then
I said, now, do I think that every complex social
dilemma that we have to address would actually disappear if
(28:22):
we embrace those two principles? I said, yes, I do. Well.
It was a packed auditorium. The whole place burst into laughter,
and I admit I was startled. I thought wow, And
when the laughter subsided, I said, yes, I do you know,
(28:43):
and yes I do. So that's part of the thing,
you know, Canceling never happens if you if you embrace
those two principles, you know, then you can kind of
but that's kind of the starting point. But if you
think there's such a thing as good people and bad people,
then you're always going to be d lines instead of
erasing them. And and that's what happens with gender violence.
(29:05):
That's what happens with you know, immigration issue.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
It.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
So I was privileged to go to Minneapolis and and
with witnessed during that time, you know where so Trump
had just said, you know, so Malli's are garbage. I mean,
obviously he's not well to say something like that. Nobody healthy,
(29:32):
well or whole could ever utter that sentence. But as
soon as that sentence was uttered, people in the twin cities,
Minneapolis in particular, left their homes. You know, they went
to mosques, and they went to Somali community centers and
they said you are a neighbor so and they just
(29:53):
rolled up their sleeves and and the resistance there became neighborism,
and and it was powerful, you know, signs that said
we love our migrant neighbors, you know, or leave our
neighbors alone. But it was about neighbors and it had
(30:18):
no exceptions in it. I have to admit, I mean,
this is kind of off the subject, but I've been
at every No Kings and all every single March, and
I was even if I'm not in town, I find
it in Boston. But I have to admit I was
having been in Minneapolis so recently. The one in LA
(30:40):
recently and I thought, what was the sign the flag?
The poster most prevalent was fucked Trump, and I went, yeah,
that's not the thing that moves me. I mean, it's
obviously he needs to be stopped, and obviously twenty fifth
(31:00):
Amendment and all sorts of other things, but I don't
want to trade in demonizing for another kind of demonizing.
And it just doesn't make sense. And it felt if
the vibe felt so off from the previous places that
were joyful and clear and you know that had no
(31:25):
tinges of anything that was the kind of oppositional that
should create discomfort in us. So because that you know,
everybody belongs and everybody's unshakably good, then what GAG members
have taught me is that things sometimes you're impeded from
(31:49):
having access to your goodness. You can't see it. Because
you can't see it, you're going to say things like
Somali's are garbage. That's just because you don't know your goodness.
And that's a powerful thing to know, and it's a
powerful thing not to know. You know, so in terms
of freedom or accountability or they know what they're doing
(32:11):
or whatever we say, you know, but the truth of
the matter is if people can't access their goodness, they
can't live from their goodness. And it doesn't mean they're bad.
It just means, well, they can't see it. Their trauma,
their despair, their malignant narcissism, whatever it is, it's keeping them.
(32:37):
And how do we help people be unimpeded in their
pursuit of recognizing the truth of who they are. For me,
that's the great equalizer, you know, and that's just true
of everybody. But that's a hard one. People still want
to draw the lines that say us and them when
(33:01):
there's only us, you know, right, Oh, my gosh, there
it is there. I was not prompted by that shirt
because it was mainly uncovered.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
Yeah, you mentioned the hard and soft. I want to
kind of we oftentimes associate hard with masculinity and soft
with femininity, and I think what you're teasing out is
that soft is actually hard in a lot of ways, right,
and that you know, I feel like there's a lot
(33:40):
of men that come through homeboy. And my question around
this idea of manh had masculinity is what do you
think the greatest lie that men have been taught that
leads to particular kind of behaviors. I won't even judge
the behavior, but just what is that lie that you think?
Is it that we can't find our goodness, that we
forgot our goodness, or what do you think that that is?
Speaker 2 (34:03):
Well, I don't know if that's a line necessarily, you know,
that's just what they would call a scotoma, which is
like a blind spot where you can't see the goodness,
but the minute that gets released. That's kind of the
idea of you know, holding the mirror up and telling
people you're exactly right, You're exactly what God had in
(34:26):
mind when God made you. But I remember, for a
brief time I worked as a chaplain at fulsome prison,
and the guards the CEOs would say the same thing
that the the inmates. The homies would say that they
were kind of careful because they would use this one line.
(34:51):
I don't want him, the CEOs or the CEOs would
say this about the inmates. I don't want them to
mistake my kindness for weakness. And that's kind of that's
a big lie if you could capture it, because the
truth is everybody, once they you know, know their true
(35:16):
selves and loving they know that kindness is the only
strength there is and so. But once you know that,
it's not about soft it's it's not understanding what real
strength is. And that's why it's so false. What's happening
on the national stage. You know, it's belligerent's we're going
(35:36):
to wipe out civilizations. And you go, wow, boy, I'm
glad I voted for him because he's really strong. No,
this is the opposite of strength. This is this is
exactly what weakness is. And so, but that's important to underscore,
and people discover it finally, you know, I mean people,
(35:59):
I think I get homeboid. People discover that, especially as
they let go of you know, not just the masculinity issues,
but prison code, you know, things the dues and dots
that are born of being locked up where you just
kind of have that and then you have to kind
(36:20):
of say, no, you're here now, you don't need to
do that anymore, you know, and invite them to a
new way of strength or recognizing what strength is. Otherwise
they get stuck in this old mindset, not just this
is what a man does, but this is this is
(36:42):
how I show my strength by getting in your face.
And but you know, there are a lot of models there,
people who could show the homies. Oh, this is what
integrity looks like. This is what an authentic man looks like.
And h And that takes a while for everybody.
Speaker 1 (37:08):
You know, I guess the thing that keeps coming up
the world, that keeps gonna as I hear you speak, apologee,
is grace, like just having the grace to allow someone
to find themselves again. There's no timeline, there's no right
or wrong, there's no judgment. There's just like unwavering belief
(37:31):
that they will find themselves if I if I'm present enough.
And you know, you you are a father to so
many folks. I was wonder now and even growing up,
like who were those father figures for you? Like was
it your biological father? Were there other folks in your
(37:51):
life that came through?
Speaker 2 (37:52):
Yeah, I would say my father was for sure. But
you know, you also kind of get to a place
in your life where you and then from your book
as well, where you that you can move to a
place that's merciful and better than forgiveness. It's merciful where
(38:12):
you kind of you know, everybody's doing the best they can.
So I look back at you know, my father would
be one hundred years old now and he died thirty
years ago when he was younger than I am. And
so but you look back and you go, yeah, he's
from a certain generation. You know, they weren't very demonstrative.
(38:35):
They weren't getting Joso at all really, but you know,
he was a figure who you know, I had total
admiration for me. He was what a man looked like,
you know, and not in any negative way. But still
he's of that generation that was you know, in the
(38:55):
military and during World War Two and the Greatest Generation
as they call you know, so there's strong, silent, not
really emotionally available. But I you know, I have five
sisters and two brothers, and I watch them with their kids,
and they're the opposite from my parents, you know, just
(39:18):
because they're of another generation. They're not really repudiating because
we adore my parents, but but you know, their kids
don't go to bed without coming down and hugging and
kissing their parents and and and they're constantly being told
you know, I love you. And at home, everybody nobody
(39:42):
leaves the office, and it's just it's just not as
second nature, not just staff people who work there, but
you know, you're without saying that I love you without
saying I love you. You know, one big huge I
mean again, he doesn't even work there. I mean he
worked there for a time, but he has real mental
(40:03):
health issues and we're about to bring him back in,
you know, and big huge guy. And I just noticed
how you know, he turned around, he goes, I love you.
I said I love you too. But its second nature
was like, how extraordinary that somebody says that. No, it's
(40:23):
not extraordinary because then it becomes part of your culture.
But that's a generational shift, because you know, my parents
didn't do that. I'm not sure they ever we knew
we were loved.
Speaker 1 (40:36):
He just didn't hear it.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
But they just never said it right.
Speaker 1 (40:39):
Well they've never heard it, probably in themselves.
Speaker 2 (40:41):
Probably, you know. And then they had weird notions like
if they told you, hey, wow, I'm proud of you.
That's really great, good job, then they thought you would
get a big head and you're just cool. So now
I can look at that at being another generation now
(41:02):
and say, well that's preposterous. They were doing the best
they could. But that's a preposterous notion that if you're
giving affirmation to your kid and my experience of it
with gang me versus. It's like it's a dry sponge
and that little affirmation is this drop of water that
(41:22):
transforms the sponge. I mean you just go wow, it's palpable.
You see it, and you don't do it in a
way that's calculating. You do it because you are proud.
You know, that is an accomplishment. And if you really
see people, then you see, wow, you've you've been sober
(41:44):
for two months. That's huge, you know, and then that,
you know, contributes to a positive way of seeing. Whereas
they all had the experience of their parents telling them
you were absolutely worthless, I mean extraordinary things, and as
(42:06):
you pointed out, certainly they must have received the same
thing as when they were children. You know. There was
a guy who went to a number of years ago
who worked at Homeboy, and so he was telling a
story in front of a whole gym filled with high
(42:28):
school students and he said, well he was I was
five and my mother and father were fighting, as they
always did. It was very physical, but I got in
the middle, you know, because I was always going to
try to at five. You know, it's hard to imagine
that's preschool. I guess I'm trying to stop him from
(42:50):
beating down on my mom. And they were in the
kitchen and the father there was a big old oh
yeah beans bubbling over on the stove, and he grabbed
the pot and he dumps it on his five year
(43:10):
old kid's head. And he said, my mom was frantically
wiping the beans off. But as she's wiping the beans,
my skin is coming off. And he said all his
skin came off, and they had to take him to
the hospital. And it's in this family, we don't snitch.
Tell them some accident happened. I remember when he told
(43:33):
that story, which I had never heard before, the whole
gym of high school students just gasped, you know, and
he was startled at the response. Really well, now cut
to you know, it was probably four years later, he's
come back to homeboy. I took him on another trip
(43:55):
to San Francisco and he told his story. Now he
tells the story, same story, and it's just filled with
mercy where he talks about his father, how you know,
how wounded his father was, and so it was he
(44:17):
had come to this new place where forget forgiveness. It
was merciful, you know, he just had total understanding of
what his father's life had been that led him to
the moment that he dumps a burning pot of beans
(44:39):
on his son. And remarkable. So I think a lot
of that is born of you know, of Well, that's
what healing looks like, you know, where people kind of
make sense of their wound and they you know, find
(44:59):
room their compassionate heart for perpetrators, for people who inflicted
harm on them, you know, and the people who you're
most reliant to love you even harder, but then they
do it. You know. It's I found it remarkable to.
Speaker 1 (45:22):
Witness this, you know, before we close, g I wonder
if you could just further to find this. There's a
difference between mercy and forgiveness. Oftentimes I always hear about forgiveness,
but you're one of the few people that really centers mercy,
Like even in the story you just shared, what is
(45:44):
that difference? Obviously they're they're family members, but what is
the difference between mercy and forgiveness.
Speaker 2 (45:50):
Well, you know that notion actually comes from this homie
named Sergio, who I call my spiritual director, and we
write every morning to each other emails and he runs
a program called God's pantry out in Pomona. I don't
know if you know. Yeah, yeah, he's great. But out
of the blue. What we do is we read the
(46:11):
readings for the day and then we comment back and forth.
So it must have been triggered by that. So he says,
you know, I'm not really big on forgiveness, you know,
which is kind of a startling thing to say. He says,
because there's too much back and forth, back and forth,
back and forth. I just believe in fourth And he says,
(46:32):
Foth is mercy, and mercy is God. And I thought
that's exactly right. So you have the prodigal son's story.
You have the father the son was scandless to him.
Finally he comes home. He's sobbing. He's running down the road.
All the neighbors are saying, oh my god, he's running
(46:54):
down the road to greet him after he's been so
terrible to him. And and the Sun has a fake
ass speech prepared about how I've sinned against you. He
doesn't want to hear it. I thought you were dead,
you know, I thought you were lost. But you're alive
(47:15):
and you're found and let the party begin, you know.
So there was no there's no kind of conos brassos
grusavos saying well do you have to say, you know,
what do you need to express to me in order
for there to be repair? And that's forth, you know,
(47:36):
And there is no back and forth because forgiveness, you know,
waits needs to wait. But mercy, there's no waiting period.
You go straight to it and that's what you want.
So and I still learned that too, because then you
then you don't hold on to any resentments, then there's
(47:59):
no need to. Then you keep yourself in a total
loving stance, and that's how you want to greet people,
you know, So no back and forth, just foth just
for yeah.
Speaker 1 (48:19):
Well we end each episode was something we call the
Sacred Five. I'm going to ask you five questions. You
answer in a word or a sentence, and it's our
way just for folks who are listening or watching to
take practical things with them in their daily lives. The
first question, name three things that make you feel safe,
(48:40):
connected and whole.
Speaker 3 (48:44):
Well?
Speaker 2 (48:44):
Relationship, friendship and homeboy industries beautiful.
Speaker 1 (48:50):
What song, book or prayer brings you back home to yourself?
Speaker 2 (48:57):
You know, I have mantras, you know, like resting in
you and resting in me. They're just kind of mantras
that keep me anchored and centered and grounded.
Speaker 1 (49:09):
What's one daily ritual or practice that grounds you.
Speaker 2 (49:14):
I pray every day, I meditate every morning, really early great.
Speaker 1 (49:20):
What's one small action that listeners can take on their
healing journey?
Speaker 2 (49:25):
One small action? It's thing anchored in the present moment.
To remind yourself to be right here, right now.
Speaker 1 (49:36):
And share a one line blessing or quote that inspires you.
Speaker 2 (49:42):
Well. I always, you know, say, may you continue to
be a remarkable sign of the God who loves us
without measure and without regret. So that's kind of what
I wish for people.
Speaker 1 (49:55):
Beautiful well and ending, I'm gonna read something from your
book if I may just feel such a strong connection
with you. G just wanting you to know how grateful
I am for your blessings that you instill, that you exude,
(50:18):
that there's not a difference between what you say and
who you are and what you do. It's just one
beautiful tapestry. And when I read this, I was thinking
about you, and I was thinking about my father in
a lot of ways. And it's a short thing where
a person runs into the Buddha and asks him a
(50:39):
series of questions, thirst sacred five, if you will. This
person goes up to the Buddhen and says, are you
a God? And the Buddhat says no, Are you a magician?
Speaker 2 (50:52):
No?
Speaker 1 (50:53):
Are you a man? Buddhas says no, then what are you? Then?
I am awake And I just want you to know
that when I'm in your presence, I feel awake and
I get emotional because I've seen, like when I see
(51:15):
Jose on a daily basis, I see my own family
members and I see like, man, if they had a
G in San Jose or they had a G somewhere,
but they do. We just got to find them. And
people always ask me what happens when G is no
(51:36):
longer around? And I say, the foundation is G and
the foundation is God and the foundation is awake. So
what happens is it just goes to scale and impacts
more people. And so I want you to know from
the deepest part of my soul how much I love
you and appreciate you for reminding us that we are
(51:57):
just mirrors of each other, that if we enter the womb,
we can find the love and the blessings that I've
always been there. And I know that's hard work, and
I know that's not for everyone to do, but gosh,
it's so grateful that we have so many people doing
the work. And one of the things that I took
from your book is like love is personified in relationships,
(52:18):
and when there's times of terror and war, like we're
living it in, it's easy to just go to that
and forget the beautiful, loving relationships that I maybe I'm
a hopeful romantic, but I think there's more beauty than
there is non beauty, and if we can just focus
on that completely, maybe we could be a better people.
And so I love you. I thank you. You always
(52:42):
have been the cherish belonging for me and so many
and I just thank your ancestors, your father, your mother,
your brothers, and your sisters for allowing us to have
so much time with you. And so thank you.
Speaker 2 (52:53):
I thank you.
Speaker 1 (52:56):
Sacred Lessons is a production of My Heart's Michael through
It our podcast network, Sacred Lessons Media, and the Prince Group.
For more of your favorite shows, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
What are the cycles fathers passed down that son so
or left to heal? What if being a man was
about holding it all together but learning how to let go.
This is a space where men speak truth and find
the power to heal and transform. I'm Mike Dela Rocha.
Welcome to Sacred Lessons. Some men grow up without the
(00:23):
father they needed and spend the rest of their lives
searching for him. Welcome to Sacred Lessons on Mike Dela Rocha.
Today's episode asks a different question. What happens when the
father you needed wasn't there? But love finds him anyway. Today,
I'm honored to sit with someone who has become a
father figure to thousands, including myself, Father Gregory Boyle, founder
(00:47):
of Homeboy Industries, the largest gang intervention agency in the world.
For decades, Father G has walked alongside men and women
who have been abandoned, incarcerated, demonized, and discarded, offering not
judgment but something far more radical love. In his latest book,
(01:07):
Cherish Belonging, he reminds us that healing doesn't come from
fixing people. It comes from loving them exactly as they are.
And for so many men, especially those who grew up
without fathers. That kind of love can change everything. Thank
you so much for being here. I wanted to start
(01:31):
by just honoring honoring you because so many people that
are near and dear to my heart, from Hector and
Jose to others, I have seen the imprint that you've
made in their life. And the thing that is the
most loving thing for me is they don't call you
(01:54):
Greg or father, greg or g They call you Pops.
And it was such a term of endearment, but they
say it with such care. It's like they hold it
like I this is everything to me. This word. I
might not be able to say love, but I can
say pops.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
And so I want to say thank you for blessing
my life person, but also blessing my life through the
guidance and love and support that you give to so
many people that are important to me and so many
people that I that I don't know. And I wanted
to kind of start with that, which is you oftentimes
say that Homeboy in your work doesn't rescue people, it
(02:38):
receives them. And I wonder if you can just start
by elaborating on that concept.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Yeah, well, you know you began by talking about you know,
kind of how we know each other. Yeah, and and
I was thinking as you said it, you know, it's
really exquisitely mutual. You know, that they're that if there
is no kind of sense of being extensive towards another person,
(03:07):
and that it's a one way thing that you really
don't go to the margins to make a difference or
rescue or save or fix. You go there to have
your heart altered, you know. And now that feels passive,
but it really is really quite active because what it
(03:28):
does is it engages in people to inhabit their own
dignity and nobility, which are you're doing mutually? You know.
So all those people you mentioned, you know, and I
include you in that, you know, are people who have
altered my heart, you know. And then you receive people,
(03:49):
and you don't go to any kind of place to
change people, but to be changed and to be to
receive who they are, you know. And then I think
that's how it works. You know, It's not you're not
going to a gas station and getting your tank filled.
(04:12):
It's a whole other model, which is a dosing of
care and cherishing, and then pretty soon people are inhabiting
the truth of who they are. That they're exactly right
and they find their true selves and loving, which is
kind of the key thing because then they're forever sturdy
(04:35):
and resilient because they know that love, loving is their
home and now they're never going to be homesick. So
and that's a powerful thing, especially right now in our
world where there's the kind of the the love of power.
But this is what we're talking about, is the is
(04:57):
you know, the power of love that somehow that this
is our resistance in the time in which we find ourselves,
which is utterly unique in my experience as an old
ass man, but so.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Well, I wanted to ask my My second question came.
I was at the coffee shop yesterday and Gabriel, who
has gone through as a trainee and is excelling at
the BEATO, He's like, oh, Mike, who you who are
you interviewing tomorrow? And I go through and I was like, Oh,
I'm interviewing gee. What can you ask him a question?
(05:33):
For me? I was like, for sure, what's the question?
Can you ask him? Like why does he really love us?
Gang members?
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Like what happened?
Speaker 3 (05:45):
Like does he really love love us?
Speaker 1 (05:48):
And I was like he does, but I will ask
him for you can hear yourself, but he was. He
was genuinely like, why does he care so much about me?
And I wonder if you could.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Just well, I mean again, I never set out to
do anything, you know. You know, you don't find a calling.
I don't think from outside someplace, you know, but once
you're inside a place, namely, I was, you know, a
priest in a parish, very poor, highest concentration of gang
(06:23):
activity in the whole city. Eight gangs at war. So
then that this became a reality. It actually wasn't. When
I first got there eighty six to eighty eight was
kind of immigration, much as we're experiencing with ice now.
It was really as you recall, back in those days,
it was horrible and miga and raids and that kind
(06:46):
of thing. And then I buried my first young person
in nineteen eighty eight. So then it became this, you know,
the scales falling from my eyes. I started to see
all these A lot of them were homegrown born gangs,
you know, in the late eighties. They weren't from back
(07:09):
in the forties and the old you know, cholo kind
of thing. So then there they were in the world
was demonizing them. They were on the lowest rung of
the totem pole and the most reviled and despised. So
that was kind of intriguing. And so then I, you know,
(07:30):
I would just walk out in the projects and I
got to know them, and I got to know their names,
you know, and you're doing this as a as a pastor.
And then i'd visit them in hospitals, I visit them
in juvenile hall and jails, and so then you have
it creates a disconnect where you go, wow, society really
(07:52):
demonizes this group, especially right now in Los Angeles in
those days forty years ago. And then I go, well,
I'm finding them, you know, really eternally interesting and funny
and and gatignoso and and so you know, i'd have
(08:16):
probation officers say to me really specifically, don't help that
guy Fernie because he's evil, pure evil, And I go,
so that it sent me on a search, and I go, wow,
why would somebody say something like that? And then you discover,
of course that this kid, like all of them, are
caring more than I've ever had to carry, and I
(08:37):
would not have survived a single day of their childhoods.
So you start to experience that, and then you go, wow,
these are really you see them, I think you really
see them. And then that's you know that, then all
of a sudden it was a vocation within a vocation
within a vocation, and they just couldn't see myself doing
(09:00):
anything else except accompanying this group, mainly because initially because
it most reviled, and so I thought, well, that's where
we need to be. Like say Ignatius of Loyola, who's
the founder of the Jesuits, used to say, see Jesus
standing in the lowly place. So the lowly places, you know,
(09:23):
who are the easily despised and the readily left out,
stand there with them. So that kind of ignited my
own kind of spiritual side of it. And then you know,
people like you are your sons and daughters, and so
that's that's that's why, I mean, there's no other thing
(09:44):
except the day won't ever come when I have more courage,
or I am more noble, or I'm closer to God
than all jose Aano and Hector Radugo and Stevie Avolos,
and the list is long. And Gabriel, you know, so
you kind of go, yeah, I'm what a privilege to
(10:05):
to stand with these folks. So that's how it as
best I can, not as people describe it.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
And then you know this book, I mean, I highlighted
so much, but I really think right now and we're
living in such divided times, algorithms, ice, rays, gender, violence,
and what I there's so much I got from it,
But just can you elaborate on the healing power of love?
(10:35):
Because folks, you know you you quote bal Hooks in
here that love is in action and that when when
when someone is harmed or the structure is harming you,
or a person has harmon you, the last thing you're
thinking about is love. But you offer a different way
to look at it.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
Correct, Yeah, I mean I think what we want to
take seriously for for me, you know, are the same
things that Jesus took seriously with inclusion, nonviolence, unconditional loving, kindness,
and compassionate acceptance. And then those become how you guide
so to the extent that our stance in the world
(11:16):
excludes then you say, well, no, that's the opposite of
where we need to be. Or if it's violent, or
if it puts conditions on your loving, or if it
doesn't know that the answer to every question is compassion.
So then you find where you want to be and
(11:39):
how you want to be in the world, you know,
like in the height of the ice rays that we're
happening here in Los Angeles, And we were talking about
it with homies in the office and one homie said, well,
what do we do now? And before I could even
formulate an answer, another homie said, love is always the
(12:01):
next thing to do, and I brilliant, absolutely brilliant. So
then you decide to put one loving foot in front
of the next, and that's all you need to know
in a way, you know, because and then you do
the most loving thing that you can imagine, you know,
(12:23):
and that's always next. And sometimes you have to be creative.
You have to say, well, how are we going to
do this? Or like right now, I just was hard
to leave my office. But you know, so I was
leaving and we were dealing with a lot of situations
and people and you kind of go, she's really hard
to love. But that's exactly where we're invited to be,
(12:47):
you know, because she's comes at you sideways, and she's demanding,
and she's and she has real mental anguish that comes
out in ways that are violent, and she's in people's faces,
but you know, I watch everybody. We were all kind
of having a concerted effort to say, you know, to
(13:12):
stand in awe at what she's carrying rather than judgment
at how she's carrying it. And so how do we
get to that place where we are you know, reverent
for the complexity of this woman's life. And if I
were to be honest about how how have things changed
(13:33):
over forty two years? What is most pronounced as you
had that litany earlier about division and maybe social media
and whatever people are feeling our isolation or algorithms, is
I have not really encountered unless in the last ten years,
(13:57):
probably exacerbated by COVID and other things. Is just the
level of mental anguish, you know, and how people are
really struggling with real mental health is yeah, And we
never saw this before. You know, you saw violence, and
(14:17):
you saw all sorts of things, people processing their anger
and their rage. But people who are you know, really
hearing voices and really quite distraught. And so there's a
kind of a compounding exacerbation that comes from you know,
(14:37):
social media and isolation and people are not connected to
community and so but that's new. I find that to
be really new.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
Do you think that newness in the last ten years
is because we're not approximate as much to each other?
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Absolutely? Absolutely, because flourishing happens in community, and I mean
it always does, and it's about healing. It's the relationship
that heals. So the more you can you know, like again,
right now, place was packed, but you can watch people.
(15:13):
Everybody's giving a dose. The security guys, you know, you know,
senior staff. You can see how they are with people
and they're they're pulling the favor out of folks and
people are walking away and they're feeling favorable and that's
never happened to them before. But if enough people do that,
(15:35):
it's not like you walk into one office like a
therapist and then you're going to get the only dose
you're going to get. You can see a bombardment. Everybody's
doing it. Everybody's paying attention, and then you kind of
notice the notice of God and then you become that
notice in the world and it's paying loving attention to folks.
(16:00):
And it's hard to do, especially when there's so many
people and you're trying to notice everybody you know, as
you're walking down the hall to get to the restroom,
you know, and you're passing the tattoo removal clinic and
you're just seeing people standing in the hall. I mean
it's just really cheek to jowl and people you're you know,
(16:23):
you how you doing? And and you remember people's names
and you try to give them a dose and and
and and systems change when people change, and people change
when they're cherished. And that's like the only I think,
the only way it happens is where if people are
(16:44):
on the receiving end of that and entering into a
surrender to it. I mean, that's that has an impact,
you know, and the more we can trust that, I think,
the better better.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
So it seems like that that love and action and
practice is the consistency and the wrap around that. Like
when you described your morning at homeboy, you were what
the person felt seen, they felt value. But it wasn't
just in the therapist chair. Was every interaction that they have, right,
(17:26):
and the first person that welcomes up from security to
them waving at you in the front desk, to the
person that said, hey, how was your day, But they're
feeling the sense of cherished belonging.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Yeah, well, yeah, exactly, and and you think it's a
small thing, you know, like there was a homie who's
twenty two, and he said today, he said, you know,
he's been taking what he calls Zanni bars, you know,
since he was twelve. He has not stopped in ten years,
(17:58):
since he was twelve years old, making xanax. And I thought, wow,
you know, until March one and he stopped and he
was in a sober living and anyway, you know, you
say things that are they don't feel that special, you know,
(18:18):
but you go, wow, I'm so proud of you because
you've done you know, two months almost of sobriety and
you're in recovery and it's hard for him. And then
he just sobs and he says, nobody has ever said
(18:39):
in my life that they were proud, and you know,
certainly not his father. You mentioned his father had never
said that. And you go, wow, it's a small thing.
You don't think that much about it. But then you go, yeah,
this is what we're meant to do for each other,
(19:00):
catch each other in the act of being their fullness
and underscoring it and to highlight it. And look what
you just did. Look look at the accomplishment of the
last two months. You know. So I don't know, but
if all hands on deck, everybody needs to do it,
(19:21):
and it's a powerful tool Homeboy in that sense. And
I would even say like debat though. You know, it's
like these are things that want to be not just
one thing like a business or a rehab re entry program.
(19:42):
It wants to be the front porch of the house
that everybody wants to live in. And that's really key
because then you maintain this sense of community and your
workers there feel like they're valued, and then they value
people and they receive tender glance from you, and then
they become that tender glance is so I think that's
(20:05):
how it works. Yeah, you know, it's like nothing is
one thing. It shouldn't be anyway. It shouldn't just be
a business, or it shouldn't just be a social services center.
It should also announce a message what if we lived
like this, we could live like this? You know.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
Yeah. You know. One thing that always strikes such a
deep cord. I mean, gee, is that there's this level
of compassion. And in your book there there was a
couple of lines you wrote around I'm not making I
(20:44):
forgot what we said. It was something like, I'm not
making excuses, I'm providing a context. I'm paraphrasing, And I
think right now, that's I think the hard part because
the pain and the mental anguish, like you're saying the
last ten years, is so deep and so many people
that it's they forget about that compassion, or they can
forget about the context to forget about like, hey, there
(21:06):
is a reason why someone's acting violently. That's right, and
that doesn't excuse the harm, but there's a reason.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
Fully explains it. It helps you kind of find your
way to something correct, you know. I think that's the
problem is because I feel people feel like, you know, accountability,
They need to be responsible, especially when you want to
dismantle the prison system. You know, will the day come
when we no longer punish wound but we seek to
(21:36):
heal it. That's kind of what the whole prison system
has completely wrong. So but then then that gets into
this who's soft and who's tough and yet getting underneath
the homies always talking about finding the thorn underneath, And
just the other day, one of the homies senior staff,
(22:00):
you know, somebody had colored outside the lines pretty egregiously,
and he said, I know what he did. I want
to know what has he been through, which is, you know,
a very savvy and reverent stance, you know. But then
you can kind of say, well, now we can do
something effective. But in the early days of Homeboy, you know,
(22:23):
first ten years, bomb threats, death threats, hate mail, not
from gang members because they knew what it represented, but
from people who demonize game members, so we hate you
for helping them. And it really was a steady diet
of that, and then it stopped because people no longer
(22:44):
thought that the choice was tough or soft. They thought
it was tough or smart. And then people thought, well,
this is smart to get underneath and to say what's
this about. And you know, if you think it's about
bad people doing bad things, then you just try to
(23:04):
round them up, which of course fails because it doesn't
understand it. But if you think it's about a lethal
absence of hope, well wait a minute. So if we,
you know, infuse hope to kids for whom hope is foreign,
(23:25):
that will have an impact on the violence. And that
was kind of the understanding. People started to see that,
you know, and you know, so we had a thousand
gang related homicides in nineteen ninety two, and now it's
been cutting half and then cutting half again. And I
think frankly, you know, if you gave truth serum to
(23:50):
law enforcement, they acknowledge Homeboy's role in that because we created,
in the imagination of one hundred and twenty thousand members,
an exit ramp. Whether they walked through our doors or not,
they went, oh, we can get off this violent freeway.
We didn't think we could do that, even if they
(24:12):
do it in their own way. And somebody asked me
the other day, I can't remember, like in a classroom
or something. You know, how do folks come to Homeboy? Well,
I mean we never recruited. We don't go to some
street corner and say hand out flyers. You know, we
(24:32):
haven't had to do that in thirty eight years, you know.
So you know, every gang member knows where we are
and what we do, and they know that Hope lives
on Yeah, Hope has an address and when you're ready,
come and so in the old days, you know, we
used to fret. We did this so much if somebody
(24:55):
left or relapsed or went back to jail or just
disappeared on us and we would say, wow, you know,
I hope they come back. Nobody says that. Now we
all say, oh, they'll be back. There's a total confidence
in it because once somebody has had a palpable experience
of having been seen and cherished, they'll be back right.
(25:21):
And the truth is they all come back because then
it's like more home than home. And even you know,
with folks that I'm sure hopes they wouldn't mind be
saying this, who had took three attempts, you know, And
we always say the same thing, you know, especially if
(25:43):
they've done something. We always think you're great, we love you.
Come back when you're ready, which is why you know,
people will go to a rehab twenty times. I know
a bunch of homies who have and it was only
the twenty first rehab center that they went to that
it kicked in. It wasn't like he had found the
(26:06):
one rehab that's really good. It was he there was
a readiness and that he never had before.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
And I think this is the pig that given all
the stuff that's happening around gender violence in particular that's
being played on and everything from the raids to what
have you, is when when I give a context of
like why someone's acting the way they do, and I'm
(26:37):
not responsible for their actions in the sense of like
they have to choose. Like you're saying, when you're ready,
you can come. And I know a lot of people
would be like, well, you already tried. They just must
they're just bad. Just cancel them, just for just hold
them accountable. This lineup, You gotta hold them accountable. When
(26:57):
I'm like, the most account thing we could do is
continue to show up lovingly and guide them. But they
have to choose them. When they're ready to choose, we
will be there. But I wonder, like, how do you, like,
what do you tell that person says, no, they're not
going to change, or they need to they need to
be punished for the harm that they did, so egregious
(27:18):
punish them, you know, the accountability and the transformation that dance.
Speaker 3 (27:24):
How do you respond to folks that say that, yeah, well,
I mean we're in the kind of a climate at
the moment that you know wants to win the argument,
and and that's understandable.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
You want to persuade people and pull them over onto
your side of things. But then still there are always
undergirding issues like I remember I was at at the
La Times Festival Books many years ago. I was on
a panel with a rabbi and Steve Lopez, you know,
you'll calumnus, and I don't know what we were talking about,
(27:59):
but I was saying, you know, there are two principles.
We embrace it at homeboy, everybody's unshakeably good, no exceptions,
and we belong to each other, no exceptions. And then
I said, now, do I think that every complex social
dilemma that we have to address would actually disappear if
(28:22):
we embrace those two principles? I said, yes, I do. Well.
It was a packed auditorium. The whole place burst into laughter,
and I admit I was startled. I thought wow, And
when the laughter subsided, I said, yes, I do you know,
(28:43):
and yes I do. So that's part of the thing,
you know, Canceling never happens if you if you embrace
those two principles, you know, then you can kind of
but that's kind of the starting point. But if you
think there's such a thing as good people and bad people,
then you're always going to be d lines instead of
erasing them. And and that's what happens with gender violence.
(29:05):
That's what happens with you know, immigration issue.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
It.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
So I was privileged to go to Minneapolis and and
with witnessed during that time, you know where so Trump
had just said, you know, so Malli's are garbage. I mean,
obviously he's not well to say something like that. Nobody healthy,
(29:32):
well or whole could ever utter that sentence. But as
soon as that sentence was uttered, people in the twin cities,
Minneapolis in particular, left their homes. You know, they went
to mosques, and they went to Somali community centers and
they said you are a neighbor so and they just
(29:53):
rolled up their sleeves and and the resistance there became neighborism,
and and it was powerful, you know, signs that said
we love our migrant neighbors, you know, or leave our
neighbors alone. But it was about neighbors and it had
(30:18):
no exceptions in it. I have to admit, I mean,
this is kind of off the subject, but I've been
at every No Kings and all every single March, and
I was even if I'm not in town, I find
it in Boston. But I have to admit I was
having been in Minneapolis so recently. The one in LA
(30:40):
recently and I thought, what was the sign the flag?
The poster most prevalent was fucked Trump, and I went, yeah,
that's not the thing that moves me. I mean, it's
obviously he needs to be stopped, and obviously twenty fifth
(31:00):
Amendment and all sorts of other things, but I don't
want to trade in demonizing for another kind of demonizing.
And it just doesn't make sense. And it felt if
the vibe felt so off from the previous places that
were joyful and clear and you know that had no
(31:25):
tinges of anything that was the kind of oppositional that
should create discomfort in us. So because that you know,
everybody belongs and everybody's unshakably good, then what GAG members
have taught me is that things sometimes you're impeded from
(31:49):
having access to your goodness. You can't see it. Because
you can't see it, you're going to say things like
Somali's are garbage. That's just because you don't know your goodness.
And that's a powerful thing to know, and it's a
powerful thing not to know. You know, so in terms
of freedom or accountability or they know what they're doing
(32:11):
or whatever we say, you know, but the truth of
the matter is if people can't access their goodness, they
can't live from their goodness. And it doesn't mean they're bad.
It just means, well, they can't see it. Their trauma,
their despair, their malignant narcissism, whatever it is, it's keeping them.
(32:37):
And how do we help people be unimpeded in their
pursuit of recognizing the truth of who they are. For me,
that's the great equalizer, you know, and that's just true
of everybody. But that's a hard one. People still want
to draw the lines that say us and them when
(33:01):
there's only us, you know, right, Oh, my gosh, there
it is there. I was not prompted by that shirt
because it was mainly uncovered.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
Yeah, you mentioned the hard and soft. I want to
kind of we oftentimes associate hard with masculinity and soft
with femininity, and I think what you're teasing out is
that soft is actually hard in a lot of ways, right,
and that you know, I feel like there's a lot
(33:40):
of men that come through homeboy. And my question around
this idea of manh had masculinity is what do you
think the greatest lie that men have been taught that
leads to particular kind of behaviors. I won't even judge
the behavior, but just what is that lie that you think?
Is it that we can't find our goodness, that we
forgot our goodness, or what do you think that that is?
Speaker 2 (34:03):
Well, I don't know if that's a line necessarily, you know,
that's just what they would call a scotoma, which is
like a blind spot where you can't see the goodness,
but the minute that gets released. That's kind of the
idea of you know, holding the mirror up and telling
people you're exactly right, You're exactly what God had in
(34:26):
mind when God made you. But I remember, for a
brief time I worked as a chaplain at fulsome prison,
and the guards the CEOs would say the same thing
that the the inmates. The homies would say that they
were kind of careful because they would use this one line.
(34:51):
I don't want him, the CEOs or the CEOs would
say this about the inmates. I don't want them to
mistake my kindness for weakness. And that's kind of that's
a big lie if you could capture it, because the
truth is everybody, once they you know, know their true
(35:16):
selves and loving they know that kindness is the only
strength there is and so. But once you know that,
it's not about soft it's it's not understanding what real
strength is. And that's why it's so false. What's happening
on the national stage. You know, it's belligerent's we're going
(35:36):
to wipe out civilizations. And you go, wow, boy, I'm
glad I voted for him because he's really strong. No,
this is the opposite of strength. This is this is
exactly what weakness is. And so, but that's important to underscore,
and people discover it finally, you know, I mean people,
(35:59):
I think I get homeboid. People discover that, especially as
they let go of you know, not just the masculinity issues,
but prison code, you know, things the dues and dots
that are born of being locked up where you just
kind of have that and then you have to kind
(36:20):
of say, no, you're here now, you don't need to
do that anymore, you know, and invite them to a
new way of strength or recognizing what strength is. Otherwise
they get stuck in this old mindset, not just this
is what a man does, but this is this is
(36:42):
how I show my strength by getting in your face.
And but you know, there are a lot of models there,
people who could show the homies. Oh, this is what
integrity looks like. This is what an authentic man looks like.
And h And that takes a while for everybody.
Speaker 1 (37:08):
You know, I guess the thing that keeps coming up
the world, that keeps gonna as I hear you speak, apologee,
is grace, like just having the grace to allow someone
to find themselves again. There's no timeline, there's no right
or wrong, there's no judgment. There's just like unwavering belief
(37:31):
that they will find themselves if I if I'm present enough.
And you know, you you are a father to so
many folks. I was wonder now and even growing up,
like who were those father figures for you? Like was
it your biological father? Were there other folks in your
(37:51):
life that came through?
Speaker 2 (37:52):
Yeah, I would say my father was for sure. But
you know, you also kind of get to a place
in your life where you and then from your book
as well, where you that you can move to a
place that's merciful and better than forgiveness. It's merciful where
(38:12):
you kind of you know, everybody's doing the best they can.
So I look back at you know, my father would
be one hundred years old now and he died thirty
years ago when he was younger than I am. And
so but you look back and you go, yeah, he's
from a certain generation. You know, they weren't very demonstrative.
(38:35):
They weren't getting Joso at all really, but you know,
he was a figure who you know, I had total
admiration for me. He was what a man looked like,
you know, and not in any negative way. But still
he's of that generation that was you know, in the
(38:55):
military and during World War Two and the Greatest Generation
as they call you know, so there's strong, silent, not
really emotionally available. But I you know, I have five
sisters and two brothers, and I watch them with their kids,
and they're the opposite from my parents, you know, just
(39:18):
because they're of another generation. They're not really repudiating because
we adore my parents, but but you know, their kids
don't go to bed without coming down and hugging and
kissing their parents and and and they're constantly being told
you know, I love you. And at home, everybody nobody
(39:42):
leaves the office, and it's just it's just not as
second nature, not just staff people who work there, but
you know, you're without saying that I love you without
saying I love you. You know, one big huge I
mean again, he doesn't even work there. I mean he
worked there for a time, but he has real mental
(40:03):
health issues and we're about to bring him back in,
you know, and big huge guy. And I just noticed
how you know, he turned around, he goes, I love you.
I said I love you too. But its second nature
was like, how extraordinary that somebody says that. No, it's
(40:23):
not extraordinary because then it becomes part of your culture.
But that's a generational shift, because you know, my parents
didn't do that. I'm not sure they ever we knew
we were loved.
Speaker 1 (40:36):
He just didn't hear it.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
But they just never said it right.
Speaker 1 (40:39):
Well they've never heard it, probably in themselves.
Speaker 2 (40:41):
Probably, you know. And then they had weird notions like
if they told you, hey, wow, I'm proud of you.
That's really great, good job, then they thought you would
get a big head and you're just cool. So now
I can look at that at being another generation now
(41:02):
and say, well that's preposterous. They were doing the best
they could. But that's a preposterous notion that if you're
giving affirmation to your kid and my experience of it
with gang me versus. It's like it's a dry sponge
and that little affirmation is this drop of water that
(41:22):
transforms the sponge. I mean you just go wow, it's palpable.
You see it, and you don't do it in a
way that's calculating. You do it because you are proud.
You know, that is an accomplishment. And if you really
see people, then you see, wow, you've you've been sober
(41:44):
for two months. That's huge, you know, and then that,
you know, contributes to a positive way of seeing. Whereas
they all had the experience of their parents telling them
you were absolutely worthless, I mean extraordinary things, and as
(42:06):
you pointed out, certainly they must have received the same
thing as when they were children. You know. There was
a guy who went to a number of years ago
who worked at Homeboy, and so he was telling a
story in front of a whole gym filled with high
(42:28):
school students and he said, well he was I was
five and my mother and father were fighting, as they
always did. It was very physical, but I got in
the middle, you know, because I was always going to
try to at five. You know, it's hard to imagine
that's preschool. I guess I'm trying to stop him from
(42:50):
beating down on my mom. And they were in the
kitchen and the father there was a big old oh
yeah beans bubbling over on the stove, and he grabbed
the pot and he dumps it on his five year
(43:10):
old kid's head. And he said, my mom was frantically
wiping the beans off. But as she's wiping the beans,
my skin is coming off. And he said all his
skin came off, and they had to take him to
the hospital. And it's in this family, we don't snitch.
Tell them some accident happened. I remember when he told
(43:33):
that story, which I had never heard before, the whole
gym of high school students just gasped, you know, and
he was startled at the response. Really well, now cut
to you know, it was probably four years later, he's
come back to homeboy. I took him on another trip
(43:55):
to San Francisco and he told his story. Now he
tells the story, same story, and it's just filled with
mercy where he talks about his father, how you know,
how wounded his father was, and so it was he
(44:17):
had come to this new place where forget forgiveness. It
was merciful, you know, he just had total understanding of
what his father's life had been that led him to
the moment that he dumps a burning pot of beans
(44:39):
on his son. And remarkable. So I think a lot
of that is born of you know, of Well, that's
what healing looks like, you know, where people kind of
make sense of their wound and they you know, find
(44:59):
room their compassionate heart for perpetrators, for people who inflicted
harm on them, you know, and the people who you're
most reliant to love you even harder, but then they
do it. You know. It's I found it remarkable to.
Speaker 1 (45:22):
Witness this, you know, before we close, g I wonder
if you could just further to find this. There's a
difference between mercy and forgiveness. Oftentimes I always hear about forgiveness,
but you're one of the few people that really centers mercy,
Like even in the story you just shared, what is
(45:44):
that difference? Obviously they're they're family members, but what is
the difference between mercy and forgiveness.
Speaker 2 (45:50):
Well, you know that notion actually comes from this homie
named Sergio, who I call my spiritual director, and we
write every morning to each other emails and he runs
a program called God's pantry out in Pomona. I don't
know if you know. Yeah, yeah, he's great. But out
of the blue. What we do is we read the
(46:11):
readings for the day and then we comment back and forth.
So it must have been triggered by that. So he says,
you know, I'm not really big on forgiveness, you know,
which is kind of a startling thing to say. He says,
because there's too much back and forth, back and forth,
back and forth. I just believe in fourth And he says,
(46:32):
Foth is mercy, and mercy is God. And I thought
that's exactly right. So you have the prodigal son's story.
You have the father the son was scandless to him.
Finally he comes home. He's sobbing. He's running down the road.
All the neighbors are saying, oh my god, he's running
(46:54):
down the road to greet him after he's been so
terrible to him. And and the Sun has a fake
ass speech prepared about how I've sinned against you. He
doesn't want to hear it. I thought you were dead,
you know, I thought you were lost. But you're alive
(47:15):
and you're found and let the party begin, you know.
So there was no there's no kind of conos brassos
grusavos saying well do you have to say, you know,
what do you need to express to me in order
for there to be repair? And that's forth, you know,
(47:36):
And there is no back and forth because forgiveness, you know,
waits needs to wait. But mercy, there's no waiting period.
You go straight to it and that's what you want.
So and I still learned that too, because then you
then you don't hold on to any resentments, then there's
(47:59):
no need to. Then you keep yourself in a total
loving stance, and that's how you want to greet people,
you know, So no back and forth, just foth just
for yeah.
Speaker 1 (48:19):
Well we end each episode was something we call the
Sacred Five. I'm going to ask you five questions. You
answer in a word or a sentence, and it's our
way just for folks who are listening or watching to
take practical things with them in their daily lives. The
first question, name three things that make you feel safe,
(48:40):
connected and whole.
Speaker 3 (48:44):
Well?
Speaker 2 (48:44):
Relationship, friendship and homeboy industries beautiful.
Speaker 1 (48:50):
What song, book or prayer brings you back home to yourself?
Speaker 2 (48:57):
You know, I have mantras, you know, like resting in
you and resting in me. They're just kind of mantras
that keep me anchored and centered and grounded.
Speaker 1 (49:09):
What's one daily ritual or practice that grounds you.
Speaker 2 (49:14):
I pray every day, I meditate every morning, really early great.
Speaker 1 (49:20):
What's one small action that listeners can take on their
healing journey?
Speaker 2 (49:25):
One small action? It's thing anchored in the present moment.
To remind yourself to be right here, right now.
Speaker 1 (49:36):
And share a one line blessing or quote that inspires you.
Speaker 2 (49:42):
Well. I always, you know, say, may you continue to
be a remarkable sign of the God who loves us
without measure and without regret. So that's kind of what
I wish for people.
Speaker 1 (49:55):
Beautiful well and ending, I'm gonna read something from your
book if I may just feel such a strong connection
with you. G just wanting you to know how grateful
I am for your blessings that you instill, that you exude,
(50:18):
that there's not a difference between what you say and
who you are and what you do. It's just one
beautiful tapestry. And when I read this, I was thinking
about you, and I was thinking about my father in
a lot of ways. And it's a short thing where
a person runs into the Buddha and asks him a
(50:39):
series of questions, thirst sacred five, if you will. This
person goes up to the Buddhen and says, are you
a God? And the Buddhat says no, Are you a magician?
Speaker 2 (50:52):
No?
Speaker 1 (50:53):
Are you a man? Buddhas says no, then what are you? Then?
I am awake And I just want you to know
that when I'm in your presence, I feel awake and
I get emotional because I've seen, like when I see
(51:15):
Jose on a daily basis, I see my own family
members and I see like, man, if they had a
G in San Jose or they had a G somewhere,
but they do. We just got to find them. And
people always ask me what happens when G is no
(51:36):
longer around? And I say, the foundation is G and
the foundation is God and the foundation is awake. So
what happens is it just goes to scale and impacts
more people. And so I want you to know from
the deepest part of my soul how much I love
you and appreciate you for reminding us that we are
(51:57):
just mirrors of each other, that if we enter the womb,
we can find the love and the blessings that I've
always been there. And I know that's hard work, and
I know that's not for everyone to do, but gosh,
it's so grateful that we have so many people doing
the work. And one of the things that I took
from your book is like love is personified in relationships,
(52:18):
and when there's times of terror and war, like we're
living it in, it's easy to just go to that
and forget the beautiful, loving relationships that I maybe I'm
a hopeful romantic, but I think there's more beauty than
there is non beauty, and if we can just focus
on that completely, maybe we could be a better people.
And so I love you. I thank you. You always
(52:42):
have been the cherish belonging for me and so many
and I just thank your ancestors, your father, your mother,
your brothers, and your sisters for allowing us to have
so much time with you. And so thank you.
Speaker 2 (52:53):
I thank you.
Speaker 1 (52:56):
Sacred Lessons is a production of My Heart's Michael through
It our podcast network, Sacred Lessons Media, and the Prince Group.
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