Mother Teresa said, “If we have no peace, it is because we’ve forgotten we belong to each other.”
And so, how do we stand against forgetting we belong to each other?
I am longing, thirsting for righteousness, for a right world; a world where there is wholeness, where the margins no longer exist and systems have been dismantled; where children can and want to live. I long for this. Do you not?
So I am here in the longing, and thinking about what Father Gregory Boyle, possibly one of my favorite living humans, says of “kinship.”
I had the honor of hearing him speak at a training hosted by SanMar, an organization in Hagerstown, Maryland, that offers services to children and youth. *This title doesn’t do it justice so if you want to know more, click on the name of SanMar above.* The day of the training, five speakers, Philonise Floyd, Josh Shipp, Kevin John Fong, Corey Best, and Father Gregory Boyle, came together to offer a packed theater their inspiration and guidance toward a community that might stand against forgetting, that might stand against oppression, that might show children, all children, their worth, their value, a world that they can and want to live in.
Sometimes I forget that people are good, and want good for more than themselves. This day I remembered. And, as Father Boyle says, when we remember, we can stand in awe of one another, hold up a mirror of our true nature to one another, and then the soul feels it's worth. As the Buddhist teacher Jack Kornfield declares, “Oh nobly born, remember your worth.”
Kinship, Father Boyle writes, “inching [us] closer to creating a comunity such that God might recognize it. Soon we imagine, with God, this circle of compassion. Then we imagine no one standing outside that circle, moving ourselves closer to the margins so that the margins themselves will be erased…We stand with the demonized so the demonizing will stop. We situate oursevles right next to the disposable so that the day will come when we stop throwing people away.”
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.”
So, what do we do? How do we begin to move toward kindship within so much divide? How do we wait for this vision that is so clearly delayed? First, Father Boyle reminds, “the only sane response to everything is kindness.” Oh, that’s hard.
How do we bridge these divides and move toward kindness?
Today, my answer is laughter. Father Boyle founded the largest gang rehabilitation and reentry program in the world, called Homeboy Industries. Boyle goes to youth dention facilitiesin Los Angeles and tells these young people to come see him when they get out—he’ll help them remove their tattoos, line them up with counseling, job training. He tells them not to “slow drag”—get to him quickly, before the streets pull them right back and they’re back inside a detention center, or worse.
One “homie” name Louie who is seventeen years old and has heard Boyle’s appeal, arrives one day, happy and bright, his entire neck spotted with hickeys—more hickeys than Father Boyle’s ever seen on a human body. Louie proclaims, with arms outstretched, “Here I am…I just got out yesterday…and YOU…are the VERY FIRST person I came to see.”
Father Boyle looks at Louie, gestures to his neck and cheeks, and says, simply, “Louie…I have a feeling I was your second stop.”
The two men collapse in laughter then, suddenly only kinship, nothing separating one from the other.
What if it could be true, this vision? Could every soul feel its worth? What might the world be?
I’m making dates with the people I love and promising to hold my judgement and irritation for another time (maybe a never time…), and just allowing what is to be. These dates are for laughter, though they aren’t perfect, and they’re for seeing the worth of one another, though we’re also not perfect. And somehow, I’m discovering that, although we often push against one another, in these moments we stand as one, no daylight to separate one from the other.
Not perfect, but we can stand in awe. We can stand against forgetting. And then, we can stand in kinship.
May it be so.
This week, a song, friends, that feels very much like an anthem against forgetting, a stand toward remembering. Your Peace Will Make Us One, by Audrey Assad
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I look forward to talking more about this too. The books you saw me with are "Forgive Everyone Everything" by Gregory Boyle, and Josh Shipp's book (though I don't think that one would be of interest to you really as it's for folks who are working with teens in some capacity). :)
Thank you, Christa. I’ve started reading and watching the videos on the San Mar Web site. You were so blessed to attend their teaching sessions last week and came home so excited about what you learned there. I’m sorry we did not delve more deeply into what you wanted to share with us then. Now that I know a little bit more about them, I’m looking forward to listening to you share your experiences in more depth. Also, please send me the details on the two books you were sharing with us. Thanks!