Kinship

Spring break (or as my co-teacher likes to call it, SB13) ended last night. After my trip to Detroit, I didn't really think anything could top my list of awesome experiences, until Sunday night.

I went to Mass at 5:30pm at the more "well to do" church in DC. Only reason I was there was to witness an amazing man speak about his experiences with faith and service. Friends, I had the privilege of meeting and listening to, Fr. Greg Boyle.

If the name doesn't sound familiar that's fine, if it slightly rings a bell, even better. Let me help you. Fr. Greg Boyle founded Homeboy industries in a rough part of LA. 27 years ago he became distraught with the reality that he was burying man after man, homie after homie, because of gang violence and he decided to do something about it. With his calm poise, perfectly timed humor and immense love, he wrote the book, Tattoos on the Heart. I read it last year and fell in love. No other book will ever compare and I highly recommend anyone and everyone to read it.

Fr. G (as the homies call him) presided over Mass and then at 7:30pm hosted a talk about faith and service. The overarching theme being kinship. People kept asking for a formula or a secret answer to make their organization thrive more or their service more pungent and he continuously and patiently responded with: kinship. "When people join a gang, it's not because they have hope, it's not because they have things going for them; it's because they're running away from something, they're lacking hope, they're lacking kinship." -Fr. G

He told a beautiful story about how he had given a talk a few years ago in DC and brought two homies with him. He brought one that had been so badly beaten and mistreated by his mother that he thought he was worth nothing...so he fled to a gang. As this homie and Fr. G toured around DC in their free time, they visited the Holocaust Museum. When they reconvened in the lobby, the homie noticed a man sitting at a table, reading, with an empty chair next to him and a sign that read: "Holocaust Survivor". The homie looked at Fr. G and said, "hey, man, I'm going to go talk to him."

So they began talking and Fr. G stood in the background, a little embarrassed and they listened to this man talk about how he barely survived Auschwitz. He described seeing his sisters murdered and the homie said, "yeah man, I had to watch my best friend get shot." And then the Holocaust survivor described getting beaten for saying one little thing or for being out of line and the homie said, "yeah, my moms used to beat me until I couldn't see straight."

When they were done talking, Fr. G asked the homie, "let me get this straight, you were trying to compare your experiences growing up to this man surviving the Holocaust?"

The homie looked at him and said, "no, man, no. I wasn't trying to compete...I was trying to relate to him."

Kinship.

It's what we all search for. It's what we all long for. It's what the heart needs and desires. There is no secret formula or magic pill to solve the world's problems but their is a basic need a basic desire we each can strive to be for other people: kin. Instead of us vs. them; it's about brotherhood, sisterhood, finding the relation between us all and building kinship out of that.