here I am today with one of my very favorite people that I rarely get to see but wish that I lived beside father Gregory Bole he is the founder of Homeboy Industries the largest gang intervention Rehabilitation and re-entry program in the world he is the author of books that make me cry in public or in my car like tattoos on the heart barking to the choir the whole language and his latest cherished belonging father boil I am obsessed with you I will keep that to a minimum during our time together but I've been so looking forward to this yeah likewise thank you I came to visit you last year like everybody wants to come visit you and I got this beautiful tour of places where people take classes or get therapy or tattoo removal and this big crowd of people waiting outside of your office because it reminded me of the like perfectly old timey the priest is the priest is you were in the headquarters you know and so we have 13 social Enterprises some of them operate out of there the cafe merchandise the bakery and then we have all these other like in the airport like in LAX in The Lax we had two and then they shut down all the eateries and American Airlines for some reason to rebuild and then uh silk screen electronic recycling wow we do uh a thing called called homeboy threads which is we get all this Fabric and toss away stuff from guest and all these different huge and then we repurpose them so that they don't end up in a landfill yeah so 10,000 folks a year walk through our doors trying to reimagine their lives you know we're not there for those who need it just those who want it yeah so you know they're all kind of looking around and they begin the process drug test orientation interview yeah so a lot of people I mean there's like a story of how it could go someone could describe this ministry and go well this is a story about people who come to you with potential you would never use the language of potential never yeah I me in fact I I had a board member uh a great guy who has since left us but he always said you know you see a gang member and all you see is potential but but then I thought no that's not maybe that's just imprecise but I I see goodness that's what I want to see yeah and hope to see and intend to see yeah but potential is kind of like you have potential you don't so much have it can't really see it in you yeah but but the goodness is kind of the pervasive unshakable thing that everybody has you know and then that's all you need to see and that's all you need to reflect back and that's all anybody needs to put one foot in front of the next is to say oh I'm unshakably good and and then resilience is born of that and a kind of a muscular hope is born of that and I wrote a book called good enough because I was thinking about our culture of exhausting perfectionism but this is like this is a deeper level than that this is this sort of substratum of what makes us human for people who don't have a sense of like how you're coming in strong on an argument where you could say well there's nothing here there's nothing here but violence and Decay and every good reason to believe that people are not fundamentally good yeah I said this at a LA Times Festival of books I don't know if you ever been to that you know the two principles that we Embrace at homeboy is everybody's unshakably good and we belong to each other and then I said you know do I think uh every vexing complex social dilemma would disappear if we embrac those two and I said yes I do well the whole audience a huge Auditorium burst into laughter which kind of startled me and then I said yes I do and I do you know I think it's kind of the starting point otherwise how do you get Beyond behavior in and see as God sees you know and I don't have any doubt at all that God sees the unmistakable goodness yeah and the yeah how we belong to each other so it's not waiting you know to measure up to somehow can we grow in goodness growing in love makes sense to me uhhuh but growing in goodness is I don't think God knows what we're talking about cuz you'll use like healing language in a way I really enjoyed well you'll say um help me out it would be like someone will come to you and say well you know I want to change you you say like it's not that I think that you're capable of change but I but I think that you're um that you could heal here yeah something like that yeah well part of it is like uh we've been punishing wound uhhuh Argo mass incarceration but what if we sought to heal it so that's the kind of the distinction rather than then you can start to imagine the day when prisons are empty and police are obsoletely and yeah and you go oh we've we shifted we decided to recognize Brokenness for what it is that it's not bad people doing bad things it's people who are wounded and and need you know you know healing what story comes to mind lately of somebody who you got to watch heal in some way I ran into this guy Louie yeah you know who I hadn't seen in a long time you know he yelled by name and he ran across the street big huge guy and uh and I hadn't seen him probably in well I think he said he eight years he's been working at this air conditioning Factory in monabell which is east of downtown yeah and uh and I had no idea what had happened to him and that was the job we got him he was with us for 18 months I remember Honda's last day you know of his 18 months he said can I speak to the other trainees nobody's ever said that sometimes they'll say goodbye and just kind of a thing no he wanted to give a speech and so he had the microphone and crying and he ended it by saying all of you are diamonds covered in dust you you can wipe your dust off here and he he did he was uh yeah he used to be drug dealer to the Stars and he used to tell me the Stars I go I don't need to hear this you know this too much information but he he was a g big bag gang member W he said all he wanted to do is be the be the baddest gang member and the the biggest drug dealer and then he kind of turned all that around and and you know found another way but he found Community you know a culture that really held him you which mattered when people come in they don't always just not know each other they might know each other for terrible reasons oh yeah there isn't anybody there who doesn't have multiple multiple enemies Rivals and real visceral kinds of and sometimes they can talk about that they can say hey remember that time you almost ran me over remember that time you shot at me and I was with my kids all these things that are yeah really hard but they managed to get to a place where they can yeah file it away somewhere and move on and and have a bond that's really deeper than anything they've ever known what do you think um do you think it's just like small acts of trust that kind of like is it like a sof like it's the softening that takes place that makes the bond deeper I always talk about the one false move God yeah as opposed to the no matter whatness of God and so you want people to kind of embrace this uh you know we moved Way Beyond Second Chances a long time ago so we're like in the ninth somewhere in the ninth range you know and so people know that and that's part of the culture yeah of you know yeah everybody's going to make mistakes rehab H happens another homie today was texting me I feel people are going to look down on me cuz he's has a heroin addiction and and it got we caught it and we said said let's do rehab and come back and and but the hardest part of them is people now look down on them said no everybody want you to get well you know and want you back so you know that's what you hope if you keep sending out that signal and everybody's giving a dose yeah not just me not the therapist we used to think that healing was go to a therapist once a week at homeboy yeah now nobody thinks that way it's all everybody holds a piece everybody's supplying a dose you know from the security guy out in the parking lot everybody's intentional in how they greet people yeah and see them I tried to replicate a story that you wrote about and I failed but I got a couple of the good lines when I was trying to tell it to my best friend Chelsea over the phone but it was a story where um somebody had that someone who was really tough to deal with and had that kind of like conditional like we this relationship is over feeling and you were trying very hard to convince them that like there's nothing they can do that means that they can't come back this is about a bridge it is I wondered if it could yeah well this a guy Chino who uh you know drinking became the thing and you have to go to rehab and you know we're not going to you know and so you kind of let them go and you kind of say do 30 days and we'll come right back and he wasn't having it and so a lot of time passed and he just kind of texted me again he said um can you give me some money and I said you know Chino I love you I've known you for 20 years since you were a kid but if I gave you money would I wouldn't be helping you so I look I know that you know and you know that rehab is what you need but and you've burned your Bridges with all your family all your friends you will never burn your Bridge with me I put sin he wrote me back your Bridge it's one of my favorite things and so I told everybody on my staff who are all Gang RS and uh and then that became our kind of Catchphrase with each other they'd hug me and they'd go your bridge and get in here and I and I was just I was to you know it was getting ver clamped you know so I like that yeah so yeah I hadn't heard I hadn't thought of that in a long time there's nothing that's going to keep you away nothing nothing and I was trying to do this big no matter what in this speech is this like stereo above your head yes exactly exactly and uh but he wasn't having it and it just made me laugh but I also was one of those exercises of uh because things do sting I mean you can't deny it where somebody will reject or tell you to you know yeah shove it and then so that was for me it was an exercise because I knew this kid so well and love this kid and and so I you let the sting in like praise and blame you let it in for just a moment you don't ever let it oh my God you know he's he said this to me and and as opposed to when I've done this before you know you know well let me tell you where I've been for you you know and then it's a Chronicle of yes you called it the litany yeah the litany I call I've always called it the list yeah and I always notice that I have a list list is more accurate the list is like they don't sing it no litany is funnier though because for people who are not um religious might not know that it is the whole recitation of all the good works of God a lot of sacred hands yeah but I um the list I noticed comes out if someone doesn't know me very well and say they bring up a like they bring up a story and you want to be like well like what's the shorthand for you know this person at my work screwed me over or I'm mad at my parent or and then you have the story and the story is this always this calcified wound but it's a human temptation but PMA Chon do you read her she's a Buddhist U monk I guess and she's great and she she always talks about catch catching yourself that's part of her practice and so that's where you have to catch yourself you go you know you want to tell somebody to mhm and the horse you rode on kind of thing and you catch yourself you go no I'll just yeah let this go I find that really hard I've my best version is I just try to make sure at least the list is new yeah so like I want to clear out the old items the list if any of that gets forgiven good for all of us yeah and like see if I can create some new grievances yeah that's right I'm never I'm not going to remember exactly who said it but it was something like um in thinking about the image of God this God who is conditional the God who doesn't necessarily let us come back right away The God Who wants us to do better um you quoted somebody saying something like why do we always keep drawing pictures of God that scare us well that's my heart oh yeah it's a lie any talk of God that doesn't comfort you I was on a panel once where it's kind of of the you know at the margins with the poor like if it doesn't hurt you're probably doing it wrong and I'm about costing you and I just don't buy that stuff I mean I wouldn't trade my life for anybody's and I know it's where the joy is that's why you feel vaguely fraudulent because people go oh my God it must be so hard even here people do this you know and it's kind of a how do you do it thing uhhuh and I go well gosh they say it like it's hard I feel I mean identically about very sick people yeah it's a it's such an it it feels like it should be a burden to hear the story yeah but every time it really feels like they gave me a gift oh my gosh and then there is a like marrow of the universe feeling I won't say it's like easy but it feels beautiful and that part I feel like there's a there's an endless there's just like an endless love for that well it's kind of fullness even if it isn't Joy it's yeah you feel like you're you're inhabiting some yes uh hidden wholeness a thing that sort of was not available before brought to you by somebody who's you know suffering it you know but it's it's a way of accompaniment where you're kind of feeling um what a privilege what a gift what you say I'm going to like argue for you and against you for a second this costly love thing cuz I think I would say yes love should hurt you only because I'm so tired of the upper middle class spirituality as part of a self-improvement program stuff and that's usually how they decide whether a spiritual practice is good is if it inherently has itic benefits and I think this has been I mean the 70s ruined a lot of things yeah polyester fine yeah but like I think at that really we've had about 50 years of American culture being obsessed with the idea that that that religion or spirituality or or anything true is supposed to make you feel good yeah I but I I part of the thing is the harder thing is the better thing which yeah I say well no it's actually just the hard thing I think the problem is with that kind of notion of uh you know will I be the sort of the therapeutic process yeah you know the the point of it is you know it can't be about you and and the thing about like burnout you know yeah and people go oh my God I guess I'm just too compassionate I I had no idea that I was this compassionate you know no you let it to become come about you people we should rest and you should sleep and you should exercise and you should do the those things but if it's about success if it's about you know somehow uh uh you know people completing you know outcomes that are uh verifiable and we had this many kids graduate and this many homies never went back to prison we do that kind of stuff you know people are always evidence-based outcomes but but I don't believe in it at least I don't believe in it as an engine that drives things you know yeah I you just be as loving as you can be yeah and kind of leave it at that but you know if a senior staff comes to me and says I need a month off because I guess I'm I just let myself be too compassionate and I said no you allowed it to become about you and and you're not allowing yourself to be reached by people or to receive people or to allow your heart to be altered which is the whole thing I mean that's so I think the key that that prevents that from becoming displaced and disordered is is uh it can't be about you and so so even as people are going is this going to get me to whatever Nirvana or I think more like optimization some kind of replacement for like a mindfulness app yeah except that you know the people's notion of God Is So linked to the bad parent you know who is um and all this stuff mirabi I was telling you about her you know she always says the once you know the god of love you fire all the other gods and so the other gods are the ones that are are operative saying it's all about you and make sure that you're happy but that's that kind of Journey that you described is really the goal there is happiness yes but the goal in going to the margins and allowing the folks at the margins to make you different yes the goal is is joy that everybody inhabiting it in exquisitely Mutual Way if that makes any sense studying happiness culture has been a very interesting way to see how we've secularized the Prosperity Gospel I just spent so long looking at theologies of show and tell where you do certain things you deserve certain things and then God is supposed to hold up God's end of the bargain and give you yeah the happy family and the health and the and I see especially like women struggling under the weight of so much showand tell and it really has dominated almost all cheap paperbacks almost everything at Target or Walmart or like anywhere you get an an affordable book it's going to tell you a five-step plan to do something like this yeah so I was trying to understand more about how can we get how can there be we have greater capacity for Joy without accidentally swapping it out for some of our ceptions of happiness and I've really understood joy as a gift I've really understood joy as something that happens like way out where nobody expects it with people who are not cultural winners I've and I've understood it intermittently like like an anvil sometimes but I I guess I wasn't sure if we could expect joy and so I just was kind of letting it happen if that makes any sense yeah like inadvertent because I don't want to I don't want to then say well then I can have joy and then and then spend so much time staring at my own emotions worrying that I'm making it like another form of showand tell I guess but the randomness of Joy kind of was teaching me something I thought about how there's not like an economy here that I get to predict it's just try to live in love and then you really get the bonus feature of Joy sometimes does that sound yeah it does but except that you know the prerequisite is somehow to move into some other centered Universe where you're actually greeting the other person you know like the homies always say at homeboy they're used to being watched they're not used to being seen in order to actually see people yeah you really have to have some kind of eego less as much as you can I don't know how you move out of your yourself so the minute you're stuck in some kind of you know mild Darkness you know the antidote is to just you know leap into a concern for somebody else and then you know you you move from other centered and part of your own practice is to arrive at being loving centered and then you go oh my God loving is my home and now I'm never going to be homesick and that becomes you know the place of Joy but it's that's why practice is so inextricably connected to being able to you know know my joy yours your joy complete where you kind of yeah you can catch yourself you're cherishing With Every Breath You Take you're you're not um I don't know you're not allowing yourself to get caught up in the the story lines is another thing that pemma Chon says you get caught up in the story lines so you're you're yeah you know rehashing Grievances and and you're and it is show and tell you know how do you move beyond that there's a singularity to who God is you know God is just loving you and then then people will say well isn't God pleased with some things and displeased with other things no to to busy too busy just adoring you and then that's kind of disquieting people go God you know here I've been measuring yeah and God is saying what's all the measuring about yeah you know I have to admit I've been having a little bit of a hard time lately with um with with sin like really thinking about it because I'm a very doctrinally boring person we do bad things I mean I know there's different atonement theories there's a wide variety of atonement acceptable atonement theories I think it's because most of the people who are so worried about it like I really can't see what they've done that's so that's so very wrong that it takes up that much time yeah I mean certainly it's taking up way more of the church service I feel like it needs to yeah yeah it kind of made me wonder if my understanding of sin is just that it's out of order like you had this story about this um man who had he' done some really terrible things and then eventually he got a house and when he got the house he he said I he was talking to you and he said I can't believe that I that this is the life that I have and he it made him start to think about all the things he'd ever done wrong and that at that moment you like catch him to like restore him to a Feeling of loving himself again like and I kind of wondered isn't it kind of wild that maybe confession can happen so much after restoration as opposed to the normal order of stuff which is like you fallen short say you're sorry God War perer see you later go out into the world and that's a long rant called I think I'm not Presbyterian yeah well I don't I remember that story I think this was Fernie who said in the middle of the night called me and said you know for the first time in my life I feel bad for all the things that I've done so I mean yeah just humanly you kind of go well that's you know that's feels healthy and right and good you know you want to move quickly Beyond it I think but but I think try to if you try to tap into the longing of God you know is it to be God hoping that will that will be less sinful or more joyful and I think the joyful part is kind of the hope you know I don't know how to like describe her this fancy lady once listen to me talk for a bit about God and about life and whatever and I do I have a very large shame and embarrassment button so I always think that I've done something wrong and she leaned forward and she put her hands on my cheeks and she said Kate I want you to believe in your own innocence I have to admit I was like I don't I don't know I don't really think that's the language I want at all yeah but I felt like when I'm listen to you I'm getting so much closer to because I wouldn't say innocence but I would say it's how I feel when I put my hands on the cheeks of my of my son with his sweet little giant face yeah and I would and I would know I would know immediately like that flicker of perfection that is his the gift of his life in the world you know like the whole words sin Amara it's like Miss the mark well everybody thinks the Mark is oh here is perfection in the middle of the yeah you know P Bullseye oh and here boy you missed the mark you're not there but if you change the mark that we're missing to Joy that yeah no what you just did as you would tell your kid or somebody yeah that you could be more joyful if you kind of chose this and I just want joy like this kid today texting me kid he's an adult but you know he doesn't want to go to rehab and and I going oh people just want you to be well and joyful nobody's judging you yeah you know big whoop heroin um half the people in the building you know were heroin addicts what are you talking about let's go you know but it's not about stop doing the bad thing yeah or even shaking my head and oh I'm so disappointed that you relapse yeah it's all you know the mark that we miss is is Joy yeah yeah and don't settle for happiness when you could have joy and don't settle for all these other things it's about Joy come on you know no judgment it's just Joy it's so emotional listening to you um shrug at what other people are so ashamed of I mean like heroin so what there's all kinds of I believe it was big whoop heroin big whoop but there's so many versions of there's a chapter heading somewhere in there heroin Co and B W the GRE the father the father boil story no it's more of a chapter it wouldn't be a whole yeah yeah we I like the um but the sweetness I mean the like the gift of a shrug when you were I mean I just picture all the times when people must have been so scared to tell you or I would be so scared to be it's that feeling where you know you've done something you're coming in late at night and the idea that your parent would shrug yeah and instead of be furious at you yeah so I um a homie I know uh just hung himself and this was just a few days ago so I was talking to his uh the mother of his children they were separated but you know and she was saying you know he diagnosed as psychotic she said and uh you know and they were try to get take meds and and he was working a labor job and then he did this and uh and she was of course distraught but it was it was all about the she said something like you know before she could say suicide she said he did What Judas did so I knew that she was it was so wrapped in but in in a kind of a shame and yet I said well oh my gosh he he never chose this mental anguish it chose him now I don't understand fully yeah how how mental anguish will choose somebody and not somebody else yeah but he didn't choose it so gang members taught me this so long ago you know when probation officers are saying that kid's evil don't waste your time on them and I go it was so clear at the gate that that didn't make any sense that you could see yeah you know the goodness and the hidden Holiness and and and all the you it's not IAL but it's really is goodness and then you see complex trauma then you see real mental illness and then you see stuck in a despair that they don't know how to lift their heads above it so you see all that and you see all the behavior that's connected to all that and you go oh it's about a lethal absence of Hope oh it's about wound not bad people yeah oh it's about real Mental Health challenges that have led to all these things but once you get um yeah you know distracted by the behavior you can't get underneath the homies always say find the thorn underneath which I love because it's there's always a thorn you know though your first impression is this guy's a dick you know and but then you go no what's this about what language is this Behavior you're speaking and then then all of a sudden you can roll up your sleeves and and say oh I want to I want to get at this and then heal the wound and warm the heart you know some of the things you say after somebody feels like they're unlovable anymore find it very emotional when when you'll say something like um what a gift it would be to have a some yeah I always do a variety of that it's lovely but I always feel it too I I I never feel like it's not true no you know you know but have versions of it yeah I would have thought I had won the lottery if if if I got a son like you you know and I always feel that very deeply you know for all of them yeah yeah we long to hear these things that confirm even like our tiniest hope that we are lovable enough that we are that we are the feeling that I've always noticed with people who are sick is like that when the bad thing is everywhere that you are the bad thing that you are the thing that happens to people yeah instead of this beautiful irreducibly lovable thing I don't think we're entering into a next few years where people are exercising that kind of problem solving yeah I think we're I mean the amount of like rhetoric that every other group is beyond hope that there's like there's no point in communicating anymore there's no point in corporate problem solving but meanwhile like I guess I always think about that list in the scripture about like you know who are you supposed to love the you know the Widow the orphan the imprison the it just just like who's the list of the people who who who are going to who are going to need the shelter of everybody else problems solving because some of us sometimes will need to be carried and like I guess I'm just worried that because people are putting less and less faith in our institutions as places where we can solve these problems then we see the we see the Fallout from that almost immediately yeah except that you know even on trust trust of Institutions yeah for me it's a it's kind of a flag that that says well you're not yet whole you you know it's like you kind of like this is an odd thing that's happened in The Last 5 Years mainly or maybe a little bit before CO as well but mainly since Co where homies will come and say oh my God my grandfather died he was 91 and he died in the hospital and we think the hospital killed him I go well he was 91 you know and you kind of but you know what I mean there's that kind of distrust absolute distrust of the medical profession and then you're faced with this notion is is somebody who's distrustful Savvy or wounded and I'm going with Wounded I think I think trusting people aren't naive they're just healthier you know and there's that's not a judgment call that's a health assessment you know if somebody is so distrustful you know I.E conspiracy theories and deep state or whatever the hell you know you just go no this isn't Savvy this is somebody who's quite broken yeah and and our you know invitation is to walk people home to wholeness you know not in a kind of a a cheap kind of way except that that you may be whole like my heavenly father is whole yeah and so anyway I think one way to get out of feeling scared about the chaos of Institutions or about tragedy is to just assume that God has a plan that we just then have to find the clues and follow and I have to say I do find it really refreshing that you are not a God has a plan person yeah which brings me comfort and joy yeah I mean I don't believe in God's plan I I believe that I Believe In The Singularity of God's loving us and then that is this clarifying thing that says oh okay loves us so much that we you know are being directed always to Joy and and then so that decides kind of what happens so I you know I believe God protects me from nothing and sustains me in everything so then you can kind of you stay anchored in the sustenance and then we become sustenance for each other we become God's sustenance in in the world yeah you know that's all it's supposed to be so I you know always W you know homies always say God has a plan uh everything happens for a reason I don't believe any of those things ever you know and so sometimes if I have a moment where I can talk about it you know with a homie but I usually don't because usually they're saying that at a moment of great upheaval you know yeah and I so I'm not going to say it doesn't work that way but when it's quieter yeah I will kind of say yeah I don't think that's how it works because it gets us into trouble endless are the text messages with a photograph of a car that's total sent to me by a homie and then he'll say I was in this car with my two kids and we got out without a scratch God is good and I I don't say it then you know but if one of the kids had been killed now what do you say that's because you can't have that both ways yeah if God is good because you were saved then God is a jerk yeah if one of the kids is killed yeah so it's a setup yeah you know I have a friend who always says we have to upset the setup you know which I think is kind of a goal yeah you know where where you can kind of say no let's chip away at this yeah because this gets us into trouble and so I never say things like God is good you know I go well what else would God be of course you know but it also is kind of a reward structure yeah God is good to me because I am a thoroughly good person and I do all the right things and now I have a big house you know yes I don't know yes I don't know how that works yes I mean I'm not so versed in the Prosperity Gospel except to say it's nonsense by like this hand yeah I really want to understand ex I want to be more joyful in the way that you're describing it's like the byproduct of seeing through God's eyes for a second from getting out of yourself from from letting go of the fear of not being enough or having enough and just being a part of loving and then being loved by other people sounds like there is a a magic that happens when we do that that bubbles up into something like Joy am I saying that right yeah I mean I I think because we're saved in the present moment we have to be in the present moment and it's Brea in the spirit that Delights in your being and breathe it out cuz the world needs it but a brief little story I have a a one of my best friends is Paul Paul lipsum and I did his wedding and and we've known each other for half a century and he has a 40-year-old daughter and she's so severely disabled that she requires 24-hour care and uh he can sign a little bit with her and uh but Total Care and she can walk with different difficulty and it's always falling and and her name is Catherine every virtually every day at the end of the day he rocks her in this huge rocking chair for 40 years since she was a little tiny baby and to now she's 40 and he was we were on a zoom we connect once in a while once in a month and uh he's rocking her and she's a gangly 40-year-old woman yeah and he says normally he will sing some kind of nonsensical Diddy and she just flails her arms and she screams with delight she's not having it today she's throwing the blanket over her head and she's biting on her arm signs and he goes oh and he does a kind of calculation in his head as to the time of the month and and he's going I'm rocking my 40-year-old pmse daughter and and I'm aware that there's nothing missing here and that's it for me it's an awareness that there's nothing absolutely nothing missing in this present moment now if you're you know lamenting what happened yesterday you're missing the moment or if you're fretful about what will happen tomorrow yeah you're missing the moment but he says here there's nothing missing here which I I think is a mystical kind of understanding of things and and that's where the practice comes in where you can yeah stay anchored breathing hear cherishing yeah greeting attentive only here nowhere else yeah really hard to do yeah yeah cherishing people is not hard yeah remembering to cherish is really difficult and so reminding ourselves to remember is kind of connected to our breathing yeah fine I guess I'll do that then yeah well I would say that settles it I really like you so much the best grateful for you always this was a delight yeah thank you thanks I was looking forward to this and you didn't disappoint I