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Tattoos on the Heart

The Power of Boundless Compassion

Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available
As a pastor working in a neighborhood with the highest concentration of murderous gang activity in Los Angeles, Gregory Boyle created an organization to provide jobs, job training, and encouragement so that young people could work together and learn the mutual respect that comes from collaboration. Tattoos on the Heart is a breathtaking series of parables distilled from his twenty years in the barrio. Arranged by theme and filled with sparkling humor and glowing generosity, these essays offer a stirring look at how full our lives could be if we practiced compassion.Erudite, down-to-earth, and utterly heartening, these essays about universal kinship and redemption are moving examples of the power of unconditional love in difficult times and the importance of fighting despair. With Gregory Boyle's guidance, we can recognize our own wounds in the broken lives and daunting struggles of the men and women in these parables and learn to find joy in all of the people around us. Tattoos on the Heart reminds us that no life is less valuable than another.
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    • AudioFile Magazine
      Twenty years working at the Dolores Mission in the ganglands of Los Angeles have made Jesuit priest Gregory Boyle a keen observer and philosopher. His collection of parables and observations of the members of the community he serves creates a memorable audiobook. Boyle is not a polished narrator, but his evident compassion and commitment will win over listeners. He becomes more comfortable with the audio medium as the program goes along, and a most relaxed storyteller's style evolves. Boyle's stories of the creation of Homeboy Bakery and Homeboy Industries are by turns heartrending and hopeful. The many triumphs small and large of the gang members and the community and, of course, the tragedies make you want to tattoo Boyle's message on your heart. R.F.W. (c) AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from February 8, 2010
      In this artful, disquieting, yet surprisingly jubilant memoir, Jesuit priest Boyle recounts his two decades of working with “homies” in Los Angeles County, which contains 1,100 gangs with nearly 86,000 members. Boyle’s Homeboy Industries is the largest gang intervention program in the country, offering job training, tattoo removal, and employment to members of enemy gangs. Effectively straddling the debate regarding where the responsibility for urban violence lies, Boyle both recounts the despair of watching “the kids you love cooperate in their own demise” and levels the challenge to readers to “stand in awe at what the poor have to carry rather than stand in judgment at how they carry it.” From moving vignettes about gangsters breaking into tears or finding themselves worthy of love and affirmation, to moments of spiritual reflection and sidesplittingly funny banter between him and the homies, Boyle creates a convincing and even joyful treatise on the sacredness of every life. Considering that he has buried more than 150 young people from gang-related violence, the joyful tenor of the book remains an astounding literary and spiritual feat.

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  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

Languages

  • English

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