Tattoos on the heart

Dear People of Christ Church,

This morning, I've been trolling the internet for quotes to promote our summer book group-we're reading: Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion by Gregory Boyle, a Jesuit priest who works with gangs in LA. The motto of Homeboy Industries, the group he founded, is "Nothing stops a bullet like a job."

I've wanted to read it since I heard the author on the NPR show Fresh Air, a whole year ago. It came to mind again when I saw an online slideshow about the California prison crisis, brought to light during recent Supreme Court hearings about the overcrowding there. The pictures--the whole situation--is an invitation to complete hopelessness. 60-70 percent inmates released from prison in California return, one of the highest rates in the country. It's hard to compare figures from different studies, but one researcher found that the rate in Massachusetts was just a little more than half that: 39%.

So I spent the morning researching this priest-Gregory Boyle-and his work in LA. Looking for stories of redemption and hope, thinking I'd find the thing that would make it OK--a story about those 30 percent who don't go back to jail. The thing is, every article I read has a version of the same sentence: in X years, Father Boyle has done the funerals of X current and former gang members. And the number kept increasing-175, 200, 225. It's a vivid reminder of how this will not be a pleasant book study about inspiring work done far away. This will not be a time to gather together, maybe to send $50 when we're done to help support the project. Hardly enough.

At its heart, this is a spiritual and theological problem as well as a social one. You can only go so far with training and aid programs. Even striving for just and fair laws that both protect society and provide the opportunity to redirect the lives of criminals will still not make us into a peaceful society without violence or hatred.

The thing is, in some ways the manifestation of the problem I was reacting to--the increasing number of funerals--is also the solution. Seeing that number of Rev. Gregory Boyle's funerals swell up and up was a witness to the fact that someone is counting. There is no death that is insignificant, no one who is beyond remembrance. This is the witness of all the contemporary saints-Paul Farmer working in Haiti and Rwanda, Mother Theresa of Calcutta, India. People like them remind us to see people not as "the poor" or "the homeless" but as individual children beloved by their Creator. It is tragic when someone is murdered, robbed of their potential-the world is robbed as surely as they themselves are. Gregory Boyle writes,

The first kid I buried was an eighteen-year-old identical twin. Even the family had a hard time distinguishing these two brothers from each other. At the funeral, Vicente peered into the casket of his brother, Danny. They were both wearing identical clothes. It was as if someone had slapped a mirror down and Vicente was staring at his own reflection. Because this was my first funeral of this kind, the snapshot of a young man peering at his own mirror image has stayed with me all these years, as a metaphor for gang violence in all its self-destruction.

The challenge for us as people of faith is to see ourselves in Danny. To see our children lying on the street. To witness and pray at all the deaths, and to work constructively for all the lives. Maybe I will send that $50 to Gregory Boyle after all. It's true that it's not enough-but it is something.

Blessings,
Sara+