Compassion and Kinship: Fr Gregory Boyle at TEDxConejo 2012

thank you very much it's a privilege to be with you I I want to apologize some of you have probably heard me talk before it happens I was speaking at a Foster Grandparents gathering some years ago and I had spoken at it the summer before they I don't know why they invited me to summers in a row but after the second talk a grandmother came up to me I think she liked the talk she had big tears in her eyes and she grabbed both my hands and she said I heard you last year it never gets better so kind of kind of hoping she was miss speaking there anyway thank you for your attention you know anybody just wants some attention especially folks on the margins I had a homey a gang member a step into my office the other day very earnest 16 year old gang member standing in front of my desk and he says look I need your divided attention I said you are in luck you know I suppose there's a vision that brings you to a place like this a theater for the day and it's a vision of wanting to see the world looking differently than it currently looks the Prophet Habakkuk writes the vision still has its time presses on to fulfillment and it will not disappoint and if it delays wait for it but nobody wants to wait for too long we want to make something happen and that's what I want to suggest in the brief time I have with you that what we all want to create and form is the community of kinship such that God in fact might recognize it I suspect that mother Teresa diagnosed the world's ills correctly when she suggested that the problem in the world is that we've just forgotten that we belong to each other so how do we stand against forgetting that how do we create and imagine a circle of compassion and then imagine nobody standing outside that circle and to that end what we hope to do all of us I think is to inch our way out to the margins so that we can stand with the poor and the power Burlison the voiceless and that we can stand with those whose dignity has been denied with those whose burdens are more than they can bear occasionally you get very fortunate and blessed to be able to stand with the easily despised and the readily left out with the demonized so that the demonizing will stop and with the disposable so that the day will come when we stop throwing people away I suspect that if kinship was our goal we would no longer be promoting justice we would in fact be celebrating it for no kinship no justice no kinship no peace so for 25 years it's been the privilege of my life to work with gang members and they've taught me everything of value really but especially in last couple of years they taught me how to text and I'm so grateful to them like I find that it sure beats the heck out of actually talking to people and and so I'm pretty dexterous at at lol and oMG and bTW you know and and the homies have taught me a new one Oh H n which apparently stands for oh hell no and I've been using that one quite a bit lately and so there I am with two homies Manuel and bunch old there older BOTS those who work in my at homeboy industries we have 400 employees there and guys been to prison and tattooed they do a variety of things they're going to help me give a talk in Palm Desert at a high school and so we meet at 9:00 we get in the car 15 minutes on the road Manuel's in the front seat and he gets an incoming text and he chuckles to himself I said what is it he goes oh it's dumb is from Snoopy back at the office why he just seen Snoopy Snoopy gave me a big hassle - as the day began and Snoopy and Manuel worked together in the clock in room where they clock in all our all our workers it's a tough job I said well what's he say oh gosh hang on it's dumb a dog it's me snoops yeah they got my ass locked up at County Jail they're charging me with being the ugliest vato in America you have to come down right now show them they got the wrong guy well we died laughing you know and then I realize that Manuel and Snoopy are enemies rivals they used to shoot bullets at each other now they shoot text messages and there's a word for that in the word is kinship how can we achieve a certain kind of compassion that stands in awe at what the poor have to carry rather than stand in judgment at how they carry it for the measure of our compassion lies not in our service of those on the margins but in our willingness to see ourselves in kinship with them and mutuality I was a great privilege of my life to know SR Chavez as a friend and I can remember once a reporter had commented to him Wow these farm workers they sure love you and Sesa just shrugged and smiled and he says the feeling's mutual and that's what we want to achieve is this sense of mutuality where we obliterate once and for all the illusion that we're separate no us in them just us for there's an idea that's taken root in the world it's at the root of all that's wrong with it and the idea would be this that there just might be lives out there that matter less than other lives how do we stand against that idea well homeboy Industries was born on nearly 25 years ago when I was pastor of the poorest parish in the city of Los Angeles Dolores mission nestled in the middle of to public housing projects Pico gardens and Aliso village at the time they comprised the largest grouping of public housing West the Mississippi we had eight gangs there half of those gangs at war with the other half I buried my first young person killed because of the sadness in 1988 and I buried my one hundred and eightieth some months ago we did a lot of things started a school and then a jobs program and when we couldn't find enough jobs we started our first business homeboy bakery in 1992 a month later we started homeboy tortillas in the Grand Central Market not everything worked you know I'll be the first to admit it homeboy plumbing was not a huge success who knew people didn't want gang rooms in their homes I I did I did not see that coming and now we didn't intend to do this but we have backed our way into becoming the largest gang intervention rehab and re-entry Center in the country so 15,000 folks a year walk through our doors keep in mind there are 1,100 gangs in LA County and 86,000 gang members and so you name anything that might be helpful we do it from curricular things like anger management and parenting lots and lots of mental health counselors case managers job developers free tattoo removal no place on the planet removes more tattoos than we do we have a designated clinic three laser machines 29 doctors 800 treatments a month and it was all started because of a guy named Frank who wandered out of Corcoran State Prison two days out of prison and he wanders into my office and he's sitting in front of me and tattooed on his forehead like a banner like a billboard and pardon my french it says the world yeah and he said you know I'm having a hard time finding a job and I say well but Frank you know maybe we could put our heads together on this one you know so anyway I found a doctor who donated some time and little by little we chipped away at his forehead and we have our chips and salsas and all the Ralphs and the food for less and we have a homeboy diner the only place you can get food in the city hall we're about to move into the LA X American Airlines terminal have put a restaurant there homeboy bakery homeboy silkscreen homeboy homegirl merchandise where we sell our logo stuff we're in 24 different farmers markets we have the solar panel installation training program and homegirl cafe were women with records young ladies from rival gangs waitresses with attitude will gladly take your order last year you know at the cafe we had a visit from Diane Keaton the oscar-winning actress movie star Annie Hall Godfather movies and she's there with a regular guy who's there once a week and her waitress this day is Glinda and Glenda's a homegirl been there done that tattooed been to prison the felon the parolee she doesn't know who Diane Keaton is and so she's taking her order and Diane Keaton says what do you recommend and Glinda rattles off the three blood deals that she particularly likes and and deinking says I'll have that second one that sounds good and then something dawns on Glinda exactly that moment she says wait a minute I I feel like I know you from somewhere like maybe we've met and dine Keith decides to deflect it humbly oh gosh I don't know I suppose I have one of those faces you know that people think they've seen before and then Glinda goes no now I know we were locked up together but that just took my breath away when I heard it and I don't believe we've had any further Diane Keaton sighting since that moment but suddenly kinship so quickly oscar-winning actress attitudinal waitress exactly what God had in mind and if you'll permit me to speak for God Jesus says it pretty clearly that you may be one that's the whole thing that you may be one that's the hope anyway all of us are called to be what Alice Miller the late great child psychologist calls enlightened witnesses people who through your kindness and tenderness and focused attentive love returned people to themselves you don't hold the bar up and ask anybody to measure up you just show up and you hold the mirror up and you tell people the truth you say you are exactly what God had in mind when God made you and then you watch people become that truth you watch them inhabit that truth and no bullet can pierce it no for prison wall can't keep it out and death can't touch it because it's huge but sometimes you have to reach in and dismantle messages of shame and disgrace that get in the way so that the soul can feel it's worth know homie I resisted my offers have helped more than a kid named bandit a gang member lived in Aliso village housing projects I would ride my bike in the middle of the night and I'd see him run up to cars and sell crack cocaine and walk away counting his money I'd say how about a real job and he was very polite you know that's okay gee thanks though until one day 15 years ago he shows up in my office I couldn't believe he was there and he says what gang members often say I'm tired of being tired so I walked him to one of our job developers and as luck would have it they locate an entry-level unskilled low-paying job first kind of job in a warehouse now cut to today bandit runs the whole thing he's the supervisor of the supervisors owns his own home he's married has three kids I hadn't heard from him in in like two years and he calls me one Friday afternoon a little bit breathless and panicky he says gee you got to bless my daughter I said get by so me cuz she's sick is she in the hospital oh no no on Sunday she's going to Humboldt College he imagined my oldest she's going to college but she's a little chap I'd eat then we're afraid for you you think there's you any way you could give her a blessing before she goes like oh are you kidding I'd be honored look tomorrow's Saturday I have baptisms at 1:00 why don't you come at 12:30 we'll do a little send-off and sure enough bandit and his wife and the three kids show up at 12:30 and we situate everybody in front of the alter and I said well let's put Jessica in the middle let's surround her with our bodies and with our love everybody touch your connect to her put your hands on her shoulder on on her arms go ahead put trance on your head and I say you know bow your heads close your eyes and as the homies say I do a long-ass prayer you know I go on and yeah and somewhere in the middle of this prayer I noticed we've all become chiana's you know we're all crying we're all sniffling I don't know why we're crying except for the fact that bandit and his wife don't know anybody who's ever gone to college except me certainly nobody in their families so you know we kind of wipe our eyes and we laugh about how mushy we got and and so to change the subject I look at Jessica eh what are you gonna study at Humboldt College she was very quick forensic psychology I go damn forensic psychology and bandit chimes in yes she wants to study the criminal mind and Jessica very deadpan looks at her father and she does one of the internet and and he sees her and says yeah I'm going to be her first subject so we walk up to the car and big IVA rustles and they pile in the car but bandit hangs back I'm glad he has and I say hey can I tell you something I give you credit for the man you've chosen to become for choosing to walk in your own footsteps I'm proud of you and as eyes well up with tears and he says I was gay I'm proud of myself all my life people called me a low-life a bundle but another good-for-nothing I guess I showed them I said yeah I guess you did and the soul feels it's worth people always ask me got enemies who work together it's kind of tense at first a homie will come in and say I'm ready I'm ready and I'll say okay I have an opening in the bakery but you have to work with X Y & Z and I rattle off the names of rivals and they always say the same thing they always say I'll work with them but I'm not going to talk to them but you know that used to bother me in the early days but you know the truth is human beings can't demonize people they know it's hard to sustain that really so I had a homie named youngster little tiny guy every he called him youngster and I thought he was ready so I bring him into the homeboy silkscreen Factory and I introduce him to all his thirty co-workers it's our biggest business huge factory and I watch him as he shakes hands with everybody looking them in the eyes even enemies until he gets to the last guy a guy everybody called puppet and puppet seems to be avoiding this encounter all together and when puppet and youngster are in each other's vicinity they kind of mumble something they start their shoes they don't shake hands well I know they're enemies but he just finished shaking hands with other enemies I discover later that this is a hatred that's quite personal and deep beyond which neither of them think they can get past so I sense that at the moment and I say eh if you guys can't hang working together let me know I got a bunch of people want this job and they say nothing six months later puppet is walking to a corner store not far from his home and buy something and but on the way home he kind of takes a detour a shortcut cuts into an alley suddenly he's surrounded by ten members of a rival gang ten against one they beat him badly he falls to the ground while he's lying on the ground they will not stop kicking his head until he's lying there lifeless somebody finds his body takes him to White Memorial Hospital where he's declared effectively brain-dead though it's the policy there to keep you connected to machines for 48 hours so the doctors can get two days of a flat read then they sign the death certificate this allowed family and friends to gather I was in st. Louis University giving a talk I flew home I've seen a lot of horrible things in my life but nothing to compare to the sight of this young man with his head swollen many many times its size it was horrifying you could barely train your eyes on him so at the end of the 48 hour period I gave him a blessing i anointed his forehead with oil we disconnected and a week later I buried him but in the first 24 hours I'm alone in my office it's 8:30 at night and the phone rings and it's youngster from the silkscreen Factory puppets coworker hey he says that's the best stuff about what happened to puppet I said yeah it is and then with a certain kind of eagerness even he says is there anything I can do can I give him my blood and we both fall silent under the weight of it until finally he breaks the silence choking back his tears and he says with great deliberation he was not my enemy he was my friend we work together now can I say that always happens at homeboy industries yeah any exceptions no and it shouldn't surprise us that God's own dream come true for us that we be one just happens to be our own deepest longing for ourselves it turns out it's Mutual for the vision still has its time presses on to fulfillment and it will not disappoint and if it delays we can wait for it thank you very much you

Channel: undefined

Views: 334,342

Rating: 4.9247336 out of 5

Keywords: English, Los Angeles, United States (Country), Hope, Inspiration, resolution, United States, tedx talks, ted talk, US, tedx talk, ted talks, ted x, ted, friendship, tedx, Gangs

Id: ipR0kWt1Fkc

Length: 20min 39sec (1239 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 20 2012