In Tattoos on the Heart, Greg Boyle weaves both tough and tender anecdotes with timeless truths about God. In fact, Boyle admits in the introduction, this whole book is about God. Thank God for Gregory Boyle, better known among the gangs of Los Angeles as Father G! A Jesuit priest, G has dedicated his life to treasuring folks whom society has discarded as useless and troublesome. He treats them as Jesus would. When people fear God must look at them and think “disappointment,” Father G shows that God is actually thinking “delight.” Left-out, self-destructive gang members renew hope at Homeboy Industries, where many excel at gainful employment.
Homeboy Industries hires many gang members for neighborhood cleanup, graffiti removal, landscaping, construction of a child-care center, running a bakery, to name a few of their projects. When a gang member gains enough confidence to seek employment, as a symbol of his heart change, he often wants some of his bitter-outburst tattoos removed, so Homeboy includes a tattoo-removal service. The Tattoos on the Heart title of this book is based on a homie Sharkey’s response to G’s complimenting his courage. G tells him he is a giant among men. Sharkey responds, “Damn, G, I’m gonna tattoo that on my heart.”
Reading this book both warms and breaks my heart. In anecdote upon anecdote, I meet Luis, Lencho, Rigo, Lula, Elias, Jason, Lorenzo, Moreno, Freddy … and I feel their shame, joy, despair, and hope. They walk in the ways of their violent neighborhoods until they see they can walk toward a productive life. Often G’s showing them God’s unconditional, nonjudgmental love is their pivotal point. Sometimes they don’t make it out alive. Sometimes they do. Some stories are tragic. Others are funny. So often though, G’s anecdotes expand my horizons along with those of his homies.
Greg Boyle’s stories in Tattoos on the Heart illustrate the power of Jesus Christ’s love to change lives. I was changed to hear about a father who just can’t take his eyes off his kid, who in his eyes could not be one bit better. Boyle quotes Anthony De Mello: “Behold the One beholding you, and smiling.” God does not love us with a disapproving love. That’s a huge truth to grasp. As homie Scrappy enters through the narrow gate, he finds expansiveness on the other side. Boyle writes: “No part of our hardwiring or our messy selves is to be disparaged. Where we stand, in all our mistakes and imperfection, is holy ground. It is where God has chosen to be intimate with us and not in any way but this. Scrappy’s moment of truth was not in recognizing what a disappointment he’s been all these years. It came in realizing that God had been beholding him and smiling for all this time, unable to look anywhere else.” [page 35]
Carmen wanders in to G’s office and tells him, “I … am … a … disgrace.” Boyle admits, “Suddenly her shame meets mine, for when Carmen walked through that door, I had mistaken her for an interruption.” [page 42] Boyle then reflects on shame and its central role in life-destroying addictions. He notes, “There is a palpable sense of disgrace strapped like an oxygen tank onto the back of every homie I know.” What a perfect metaphor; I can relate to breathing in shame as the only thing I knew to breathe. Boyle includes here a beautiful quote from Beldon Lane, a theologian: “Divine love is incessantly restless until it turns all woundedness into health, all deformity into beauty and all embarrassment into laughter.” That gives me hope.
Father G’s incomprehensibly large compassion for other humans inspires me. Boyle’s teaching style in Tattoos on the Heart combines personal stories with his own observations with insightful quotations of others. I find this style both effective and entertaining. I had many Hmmm and Wow moments while reading this book. I will finish here with just one more quote. On the subject of fearing your kindness will be perceived as weakness, Boyle writes, “Sooner or later, we all discover that kindness is the only strength there is.” [page 124]
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