Cherished Belonging
The Healing Power of Love in Divided Times
-
- $24.99
Publisher Description
At a time when society is more fractured than ever before, beloved Jesuit priest Gregory Boyle invites us to see the world through a new lens of connection and build the loving community that we long to live in—a perfect message for readers of Anne Lamott, Mary Oliver, and Richard Rohr.
Over the past thirty years, Gregory Boyle has transformed tens of thousands of lives through his work as the founder of Homeboy Industries, the largest gang-intervention program in the world. The program runs on two unwavering principles: 1) We are all unshakably good (no exceptions), and 2) we belong to each other (no exceptions).
Boyle believes that these two ideas allow all of us to cultivate a new way of seeing. Rather than the tribalism that excludes and punishes, this new narrative proposes a village that cherishes. Pooka, a former gang member who now oversees the program’s housing division, puts it plainly: “Here, love is our lens. It is how we see things.”
In Cherished Belonging, Boyle calls back to Christianity’s origins as a subversive spiritual movement of equality, emancipation, and peace. Early Christianity was a way of life—not a set of beliefs. Boyle’s vision of community is a space for people to join together and heal one another in a new collective living, a world dedicated to kindness as a constant and radical act of defiance. As one homie, Marcus, told a classroom filled with inner-city teenagers, “If love was a place, it would be Homeboy.”
Cherished Belonging invites us to nurture the connections that are all around us and live with radical kindness. Boyle believes that “the answer to every question is, indeed, compassion.” Through colorful and profound stories brimming with wisdom, humor, and inspiration, we understand that love is the light inside everything.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Only a society that centers belonging can mend social division and tackle such problems as crime, homelessness, and mental illness, according to this compassionate if meandering account. Jesuit priest Boyle (Tattoos on the Heart) draws on his experience helming Homeboy Industries, a gang rehabilitation program, to argue that the idea of "good people and bad people" is useless and divisive. Instead, he suggests that "broken people" driven by despair and loneliness cause harm, and can be rehabilitated through "a culture... of cherished belonging" rooted in God's love. Mostly calling for individual shifts in perspective, he discusses what it means to see God "everywhere and anywhere," the centrality of love to faith, and how a culture of belonging empowers people to find purpose. Boyle's efforts to fight mass incarceration are impressive (Homeboy Industries, which he founded 36 years ago, offers an employment and re-entry program for gang members, among other services) and his principles are sensitively illustrated through moving anecdotes. Unfortunately, those anecdotes sometimes get lost in the disorganized stream of musings, memories, and loose biblical analysis, and the lack of clear, actionable steps for reform may leave readers frustrated. Still, Boyle's vision of a brighter, more empathetic world inspires.
