The Healing Power of Father Gregory Boyle Hits Santa Barbara

It’s hard to feel anything but uplifted and optimistic when Father Gregory Boyle is in the room. I’ve seen him speak multiple times, thanks to UCSB Arts & Lectures, and while the topic and the format of the presentation varies from year to year, I always leave feeling better than I did when I walked in the door. 

This happens every single time. 

Every single time — including last week, when he appeared alone at the podium at Campbell Hall. Often he’ll have one or two of the homies with him from Homeboy Industries, the group he founded, which happens to be the world’s most successful and largest gang rehabilitation and re-entry program in the world, which is based in Los Angeles and employs and trains former gang members in a range of social enterprises, as well as providing a variety of critical services.  

The topic of the evening was Cherished Belonging: The Healing Power of Love in Divided Times, which is also the title of the Jesuit priest’s latest book, released in November and quickly climbing up the bestseller list to join his previous titles: Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion, Barking to the Choir: The Power of Radical Kinship, and The Whole Language: The Power of Extravagant Tenderness.

The goal with all of his endeavors, from writing books to speaking endeavors to working with the homies, is kinship, explained Boyle. “The homies have taught me everything of value in all of my years of walking with them. And the day won’t ever come when I have more courage, or I am more noble, or I’m closer to God than the thousands and thousands of men and women, all the homies I’ve been privileged to know.They’ve taught me everything that is essential in living,”

He continued, “But in the last couple of decades, they taught me how to text. And so that really sure beats the heck out of actually talking to people.” Luckily for us, he was joking, and kept on talking, on topics like empathy, love, sensitivity, and on working with former gang members (the key is “you create a place that’s safe, so they can be seen and then they can be cherished”).

And how we can make things better: “Systems change when people change. People change when they’re cherished. And if it’s true that the traumatized are likely to cause trauma, then it has to be equally true that cherished people will be able to find their way through the joy there is and cherish for themselves and others. And that’s the whole theory.”

Not a bad theory, in fact it’s pretty uplifting. I felt a little bit better about the world when I left that room and judging from the long lines of people in the sold out lecture, waiting afterward to get their books signed, I’m guessing they did too.