Tattoos on the Heart

When I read this author's book Cherished Belonging this one had already been on my shelf so I decided to read it for Advent this year. It is different from his later book in the way it quotes spiritual literature for guidance only infrequently but the words of spiritual guides are definitely present.

It is a memoir of the work the author has done among the Latino community in Los Angeles to counteract the influence of violent gangs among the boys and girls growing up in poverty. The Homeboys community organization that he founded in turn showers him with boundless love and admiration. For many ex-gang members, he is the only reliable guide to a better, more humane, way of living and they recognize that. To most people coming to this book for the first time, the way it comes off is to put the author in the company of saints, which he tries to undercut by including the rough language and self-deprecating accounts of his own weaknesses, but I think he can't escape the characterization so easily. High profile individuals all the way up to the national level know him for his vision of a way to bring goodness out of some of the worst situations that can be imagined, and have giving him and his ministry accolades.

It isn't a chronological history but instead a series of stories over the decades which all demonstrate his heroic ability to relate to everyone as a real individual deserving of love. In many of the stories there is violence and incarceration and quite a few end up fatal for the young person he is remembering, but he never categorizes people as bad or wicked even if they have done very bad things. There is even one where a member of a gang which had killed a beloved friend of the author's was himself fighting for his life, and Fr. Boyle's reaction is to pray for that person to survive. He rejects the idea that a person who turns away from gang activity once and for all is the ideal success, preferring to see depths of worth even when the ones he ministers to are at their worst.