Barking to the Choir

Boyle tells us that Gato, a large and muscular gang member, always says “And holy befold” during his storytelling, instead of “Lo and behold” (35). Boyle never corrects Gato, because Boyle prefers the misnomer. He writes, “[Gato’s] version is better than the original—indeed it is the sacred, the holy, unfolding right before our eyes” (35). Boyle feels too many people think the sacred must look like a pristine image of the church—instead of what unfolds in their lives in the everyday. He uses a quotation from Psalms to assert, “what God considers sacred won’t be pigeonholed,” despite the human tendency to “confine the divine” (36). 

Boyle says Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuit order to which he belongs, “invites us to find God in all things” (36). Ignatius instructed his order to meditate on the world and its occurrences rather than on theoretical dictums. Boyle’s story about a homie named Nestor proves the beauty of this approach. Once, when Boyle asked a large group of homies if they had ever had a religious experience, Nestor volunteered an answer. Nestor once saw the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. She was sitting in a church pew with her young son in her lap. Nestor said the following: 

All of a sudden, she whipped out her tittie and started to breastfeed her kid. I mean, daaamn it was amazing. And I knew, from that moment on, I would always love women for the rest of my life (36).

While Boyle originally wanted a picture-perfect image of faith from Nestor’s story, he instead allowed the tale to teach him “not to discount the power of a single thing to carry within it supreme holiness” (37). 

Boyle opens up about his childhood. Although his father was taciturn, Boyle knew it was a loving relationship. He remembers silently sitting with his father on Saturday mornings, with the newspaper spread out in front of them. His father would always pause and give Boyle a wordless neck massage when he was getting up from the table. 30 years later, and 10 years after his father’s passing, Boyle just finished with a prayer among the Redwoods when he felt his father’s neck massage and smelled his signature Aqua Velva and Fitch shampoo scent. This moment of holiness brought him to tears. 

Boyle shares he once met the Dalai Lama during a decorous ceremony filled with pomp and circumstance. But Boyle was not very impressed or moved by that ceremony’s formality: He much prefers the footage of an interview in which a giggling Dalai Lama expounded on the “joys and sanctity of passing gas” when his interlocutors asked him “about the holy and the sacred” (40). This preference exemplifies Boyle’s aim to “discover the holy in all things” (40). A homie named Isma’s delight in being Boyle’s visitor escort also exemplifies Boyle’s aim—as does another homie named Lencho’s joy at finally securing his family a place to live of their own. 

Boyle tells us about a shorthand he developed with his friend Mark, a Jesuit who works at Homeboy Industries. Once, when Boyle and Mark were on a train together, a drunk passenger stopped right in front of them in the aisle to let out a loud belch drawing reactions of distaste and disgust from the other passengers. Mark turned to Boyle and said, “Life’s great” (46). The two men now use the expression to delineate the times they unexpectedly find God’s grace in life’s little hiccups. 

Boyle recounts a time at the turn of the century, when he was diagnosed with leukemia and had to immediately begin chemotherapy. A homie named Bird, who was previously an incorrigible gang member, was also in the hospital. By that time, Bird chose to reform his ways and to care for his young family. But he was hospitalized with serious injuries leaving him hooked up to machines, unable to speak, and almost immobile. Despite all of this, all of Boyle’s attempts to minister to him were met with questions about Boyle’s own health and wellness. This, to Boyle, serves as evidence that “the divine always wants to be liberated” (50).