An Aroma of Belonging
A Review of
Cherished Belonging: The Healing Power of Love in Divided Times
Gregory Boyle
Hardcover: Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster, 2024
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Reviewed by Jeff Kennon
“We are a divided nation!” I’ve heard this phrase way too often in the past several years. I’ve told churches seeking to build unity that “Wherever two or three are gathered, there are 20 opinions.” It usually draws a laugh. I think it does so because they feel it’s truth. But perhaps the problem today isn’t the amount of opinions (folks have always had opinions) but that so many treat their opinions as facts with no thought to hearing out the other. Now, we all agree that something has to change (maybe this is what we should rally around), yet very rarely does change seem to happen. So here we are, apparently stuck in a world where we are more prone to demonize than sympathize. Is there hope?
Gregory Boyle in his book Cherished Belonging: The Healing Power of Love in Divided Times, emphatically believes that we can learn to embrace rather than fight. Why? Because he experiences such coming together every day. Boyle, a Jesuit priest, is the founder of Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles, the largest gang intervention, rehabilitation, and reentry program in the world. Since its formation in 1988, Boyle has witnessed rivals become family. But it hasn’t been easy. To enter the mess of the lives of hurting people whose first response is violence is not for the faint of heart. Yet Boyle presses on to love those in whom I am prone to cross the street to avoid.
“We live in a wounded and wounding world,” writes Boyle. “And loving the wounded is never a wasted effort. Only love makes progress. But fear and negativity keep us stuck. Demonizing and dehumanizing end all conversations and shut down our hope for progress” (53-54). Boyle listens however. And he welcomes. Thus, Homeboy Industries has become a place where healing can begin as marginalized gangsters are noticed as being human. From the words of one homie (as those who are part of Homeboy Industries are called), “We are used to being watched, but aren’t used to being seen” (140).
Reading Cherished Belonging is in many ways like reading some of Boyle’s other works. As you read, you encounter the stories of so many troubled men and women and boys and girls who encounter a God—and a community—who loves them as they are. One such story is of a homie named Gera. He had struggled with addiction and though had been away from its grip for a couple of years, he had a relapse. He had been working in the bakery of Homeboy and though absent for several days, his coworkers urged him to come back. Bathed in shame, he returned and sought a blessing from Boyle. After Boyle’s prayer, Gera looked up with tears in his eyes and said, “When I came back to the bakery, they didn’t say ‘Where WERE you at?’ They all said…all of them…’We’re glad you’re back’” (93).
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Peppered throughout these stories Boyle interacts with saints both past and present (most from Catholic writers). He dialogues with fellow Jesuit priests. And naturally, he wrestles with scripture. All this to come to the conclusion—and to convince his readers—that love is what changes the world. “Love IS, as they say, the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world,” writes Boyle (157). That sounds so simple, yet I feel we have to pay attention to what Boyle is writing here because his ministry context is not exactly one the majority of us encounter on a day to day basis. But then again, loving others—welcoming, including, forgiving, embracing and cherishing—regardless of where we live, is yes, simple in concept, but quite difficult when it comes to concrete actions.
Now if you’re looking for a step by step guide as to how to transformationally love others, I’m not sure this book will do it for you (as though loving others is about checking some boxes). Boyle’s heart in writing is to “lure us to embracing God’s heart and punto de vista (point of view). He “proposes a mystical view that perhaps can lift us above those things that keep us apart” (12). While reading Boyle, I was constantly reminded of the quote by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, “If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.” I feel Boyle, through his stories of homies and his resonance with church fathers and fellow Jesuits, desires to give us a vision and longing to love all—regardless of how we might prematurely view them.
I would be remiss not to mention that I struggled some with his take on a few passages of scripture. And some of his theological discourse I’m having to think through just a bit more. When he writes that everyone is “unmistakably good,” this no doubt flies in the face of my upbringing that was bathed in the concept of “original sin.” Yet the creation account does explicitly state our goodness as we are made in the image of God. Perhaps Boyle is getting those who see others only through the lens of human depravity to don a new set of glasses, if only for a moment. Again, depending on your faith tradition and your theological slant, there are going to be some lines in Boyle’s writing that might cause a double take.
Yet within my disagreements with some of Boyle’s exegesis of scripture, Augustine comes to mind. He writes in On Christian Doctrine some words that to be honest, always cause a bit of trepidation for me as I do seek to be as true as possible to the text of scripture. Yet Augustine writes, “Whoever, then, thinks that he understands the Holy Scriptures, or any part of them, but puts such an interpretation upon them as does not tend to build up this twofold love of God and our neighbor, does not yet understand them as he ought.” So yes, I disagree some, and you might as well, but I wonder if after reading Cherished Belonging you might walk away loving your neighbor just a bit more. If so, then I think Boyle would be happy.
One story that Boyle tells that I think wraps up quite nicely what he is aspiring us to become as churches and believers involves a homie named George. He was giving a tour of Homeboy Institute to a couple who happened to drop by, wanting to know more about the place. George was having a hard time trying to put into words what Homeboy meant to him. “’I don’t know how to put it’ he began, ‘but this place…has an aroma.’ An aroma? Yes! It’s an aroma of belonging. It’s the aroma of heaven. And it tastes like it too!” (195)
Jeff Kennon
Jeff Kennon lives in Lubbock, Texas where is the director of the Baptist Student Ministries at Texas Tech University. He is also the author of The Cross-Shaped Life: Taking On Christ’s Humanity, published by Leafwood Press. You can find him online at www.jkennon.com.
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