-I think it's important to always imagine a God that's spacious and expansive.

And -- And that's important 'cause I think there's nothing more consequential than your notion of God.

If -- If your God is puny, then you have to be.

If your God is spacious, then you'll be intimately welcoming and generous.

And so you discover the generosity of God, and then you choose to be that generosity in the world.

That's how it works.

You know, you receive the tender glance, and then you become the tender glance.

♪♪ ♪♪ -Father Greg -- as I know a lot of people call you -- or Father G. You grew up in Los Angeles.

Talk about growing up.

You were one of eight kids?

-Yeah, I -- I was born in Los Angeles, and, uh, I have five sisters and two brothers.

And in effect, I was born and lived in the gang capital of the world.

But there was no chance that I would ever join a gang.

I mean, I won all the lotteries -- parents and zip code and education -- which has nothing to do with morality, more with location and being privileged.

-As you're growing up, there comes a time in life where you sort of see a path for yourself.

You chose to pursue it.

How did that happen?

How were you drawn to it?

How was it your calling?

-Well, I was educated by the Jesuits, so -- and I found that they had this, uh, combo burger of joy and fearlessness.

So they were hilariously funny and they were prophetic.

Especially in those days, it was, you know, the Vietnam War, and so to watch them be so out there in terms of their, uh, protest.

And I was drawn.

I entered the Jesuits.

So I was ordained in '84, and then I was assigned to Dolores Mission.

-Dolores Mission was a location in Los Angeles that determined a lot of the work that you were doing based on where it was -- next to the two largest housing projects.

Is that right?

-Yeah.

Well, you know, we had two parishes in Los Angeles that were administered by the Jesuits, so we'd been asked many years before if the Jesuits could come in here and do that.

So it was the poorest parish in the city, nestled in the middle of two public housing projects -- Pico Gardens, Aliso Village -- and it -- and what later evolved, it became the place of the highest concentration of gang activity in all of Los Angeles.

So we had eight gangs in my parish.

Initially, the first two years, that was not so much an evident thing.

But then by '88, uh, it just heated up, and I was burying kids.

-I-I saw at one point that -- and this is some time ago -- I think, uh, close to 200.

And I'm sure that number -- this, I think, was from a speech you gave a decade ago.

-Yeah, no, I'm, uh -- I think I, uh... 265 is where I am now.

-I'm struck, Greg, by the fact that, unlike so many people who deliberately send young men and women off to war and never keep count, never keep track, have no idea, these are people that you didn't send into this life, but you're very aware, and you've kept each one very real to you.

I'm just struck by that, that you do know the count.

-Yeah, well, part -- part of the reason I counted was because they didn't count.

And so, you know, in the early days it would be, uh, you know, eight lives in -- in the housing projects were not worth one life in Westwood Village.

And so that was becoming, you know, ever present and clear to me.

So -- So then that started this thing where I-I kept track, and I have a book, and I write the name and -- and the number.

-As you saw this happening, you did something about it.

You created Homeboy.

What brought you to creating this entity that has grown so much?

-Yeah, well, the first thing we did was we started a school because there were so many junior-high, middle-school-aged gang members who had gotten the boot from their home school.

Nobody wanted them.

So in the middle of the day, they were wreaking havoc and selling drugs and writing on the walls and were violent.

So that was the first thing we did.

That was kind of the pressing thing.

So then I walked out to them and I would say, "If I found a school that would take you, would you go?"

And every single one said, "Yeah, I would."

And then I couldn't find one.

So we started one.

And so that's kind of how it evolved.

It was a kind of an outreach to this population.

And then they said, you know, "If only we had jobs."

And so we marched around the factories that surrounded the projects, trying to find felony-friendly employers.

And that wasn't so forthcoming, so we just started things -- you know, a maintenance crew, a landscaping crew, a crew, uh, to build our child-care center -- all made up of rivals, members of these eight different enemy gangs.

We had a slogan in those days, that "Nothing stops a bullet like a job."

Trying to get employers.

And the need was so huge.

Every gang member wanted a job.

Nobody said, "That's okay.

I'm okay doing this," you know?

And even, you know, gang members who sold drugs, you know, you think, how are you gonna keep them down on the farm after they've made money hand over fist?

And yet every human being wants their mom to be proud and their kids not to be ashamed.

So it was not a tough sell.

-It seems to me that the essence of that is in believing that there is no such thing as a bad person.

It's someone who hasn't yet seen their own goodness.

Do you believe that all people have a spark of the divine, of goodness in them?

-Yeah, I'll answer that by telling a brief little story.

I was at the LA Times Festival of Books.

I was on a panel with a rabbi and a columnist.

And I was saying that the two principles that are kind of foundational that we hold here at Homeboy is, everyone is unshakably good, there are no exceptions; and we belong to each other, and there are no exceptions.

And then I asked the crowd, I said, "Do I think that all our vexing, complex social dilemma that need our addressing would simply go away if we embraced those two foundational notions?"

And I paused, and then I said, "Yeah, I do."

And the entire audience burst into laughter, which kind of startled me, and when the laughter subsided, I-I said quietly, "Yes, I do."

And I do.

And I think gang members have taught me that for 40 years, that, uh -- that everybody's unshakably good.

Now, there's some things that block the view -- you know, a despair that's dark or trauma that's enormous or real mental illness.

But none of it touches their goodness.

Their goodness is intact.

So the idea is, how do you -- how do you find it?

-And it seems like a lot of these kids have grown up not seeing and not having any way of seeing their own worth.

That's the first challenge, right, is getting them to see themselves the way -- perhaps the way that God sees them, or the way that exists that they just cannot possibly see it given their circumstance?

Is that how you see it?

-Yeah.

I mean, I had a conversation not long ago with a homie named Joseph, and I've known him since he was 10 years old, and he's now 45 or something.

And, uh, you know, his father was a gang member.

His father died of a heroin overdose.

Joseph has overdosed many times and has never died from it, but, um... So we were finishing the conversation, and he says, um, "You know, I think life is just, uh, removing the blindfold," he said, "I think it's just removing the blindfold."

And I said, "Well, what do you see, you know, when the blindfold falls?"

And he thought for a second, he put his hand on his chest, and he said, "Goodness."

And that's the whole idea.

You know, we're allergic around here to holding the bar up and asking folks to measure up, you know?

We want to show up to them with a mirror and say, "You're exactly what God had in mind when God made you.

There's nothing missing here."

And once they know that truth, they become that truth.

They inhabit that truth.

And indeed, no bullet can pierce it.

-I'm struck by how you have said that, over and over again, that you don't rescue people, you don't fix people, you don't pull people out of gangs.

You stand with them, and by being with them in some way, you are more whole.

-You talk about the margins, the poor, the powerless, the demonized, the voiceless, the easily despised, the readily left out -- all those people who are at the margins.

And you go to the margins not to make a difference, which is in every commencement address that I've ever heard.

You go to the margins so that the folks at the margins make you different.

If you go to the margins to make a difference, then it's about you, and it just can't be about you.

So but then you go there to be made different, and then it becomes about us.

There's something that happens in it.

This is how people don't burn out, you know, because they go to the margins and they delight in the people they find.

So you go where love has not yet arrived and you love what you find there.

-You know, you talked about someone who lived at the margins -- Mother Teresa, who you've quoted -- famously put herself among the most despised people -- lepers.

This was where she was most present, at the margins, among the least among us and among her people.

And the quote that you used of hers is, "The problem in the world is that we've forgotten we belong to each other."

-Yeah, it, uh -- this Mother Teresa quote.

Uh, it turns out -- I was in Philadelphia.

I was on a panel, and I quoted, as I always do, I said, "The problem in the world, Mother Teresa tells us, is that we've forgotten that we belong to each other."

Well, The Philadelphia Inquirer kind of went back and checked it.

And -- And the actual quote is something like, uh, you know, "If we continue to be at war, you know, it's because we've forgotten that we belong to each other."

So then I liked it even more because you could fill in the blank which I had neglected to fill.

And, you know, if you have 75,000 homeless people living in tents in downtown LA, it's because we've forgotten that we belong to each other.

And, you know, if you have people dying of gang violence, it's because we've forgotten that we belong to each other.

It just doesn't matter.

You can fill in that blank with any complex social vexing dilemma.

If that persists, it's because we've forgotten that we belong to each other.

So I think it's kind of a helpful guide, you know?

And if we remembered it, um, you know, would we have 75,000 homeless sleeping on the street?

No.

I mean, 'cause it's kind of how -- that's how powerful a notion it is.

-You've written a book, "Barking to the Choir: The Power of Radical Kinship."

And one of the notions -- the idea of "otherizing" people.

You don't believe that there is the "other."

-Yeah, no, it's funny.

Recently, I was on a -- on a plane, and I was in my aisle seat in the exit row with two homies, and I see this guy boarding, and he's wearing a T-shirt.

He's very tall.

And I'm trying to figure out, what's the T-shirt say?

And I can read it and it says -- and we were in Philadelphia.

It says "Philly is everybody."

And I remember thinking, "Wow, how great."

Kinship connection, uh, community of cherished belonging, mutuality.

And as the T-shirt got closer, it said "Philly vs everybody."

And I went, "Oh, shoot.

We were so close there."

You know, and that's -- that's kind of the notion, you know?

How do we arrive at nobody versus anybody?

And -- but it's a good gauge.

It's how you catch yourself.

If you're demonizing anybody, if you're otherizing anybody, if you're kind of relegating somebody to be outside the circle of compassion, all these things are the opposite of how God sees.

And so, you know, how do you maintain the integrity of that, you know, where there is no us and them, there's just us?

And so, you know, I would maintain that God's dream come true is not that people worship God, but that we'd be one.

That's the whole ball game.

And so everything is -- is inching its way to that.

Even here at Homeboy, you know, um, healing is kind of the primary thing.

Everything is secondary.

But what's the point of healing?

The point of healing is then to create and nurture into being a community of cherished belonging.

So -- So that's the -- the fruit of -- of your own personal healing and coming to terms with whatever was done to you or whatever you did and then moving on to what?

To creating a culture and a -- and a community where no one is left out.

-How do you measure healing?

Is there a metric for it?

-Healing is never about so much a, um, you know, moral judgment.

It's about a health assessment.

And so you're always -- everybody is on a continuum of two steps forward, eight steps backwards.

You know, we're all crazy here at Homeboy Industries.

Thank God we're not all crazy on the same day.

So -- So everybody is -- nobody's well until everybody's well.

And, uh... And so you're trying to walk each other home to wholeness.

And -- And we all have an experience that's human of being fractured and broken and wounded and traumatized.

And -- And so we're moving towards, uh -- not holiness.

I mean, holiness is being whole.

Somebody told me the other day, which I'd never heard before.

In the Scripture, Jesus says, "Be perfect as your father in heaven is perfect."

But the Aramaic is not "perfect."

It's "whole."

Be whole.

Then when you think about that, then you go, "Yeah, I-I like that," you know?

It's all interchangeable.

Holy, healthy, whole.

It's all the same thing.

And if you -- if you measure it against your own experience, nobody has ever met a holy person who wasn't healthy and whole, and nobody's met a whole person who wasn't holy.

And I think it's how it works.

And -- And, you know, unfortunately, there's been this moral overlay that's never helped us.

And it's never kept us moral.

It's just kept us from each other.

So where we say, "These are good people and these are bad people," and, uh, it's just not how God sees.

God sees God's people, period.

-So much is done in the name of Scripture or the Quran or any holy book.

It is used often to create otherness, to create war.

That's been as long as any recorded history shows us.

How do you reconcile that?

And what does one do about that with people of deep faith who do things that certainly don't reflect a God of love?

-Yeah.

A homie who writes me every morning -- e-mail.

We e-mail each other.

We look at the readings of the day from Scripture, and then we just each -- whoever gets up first writes a little thing.

And -- And he wrote and said, uh, "You know, we need a mystical lens, you know, a filter where you can read the Scripture in such a way and say, you know, 'Yes, yes.

No, I don't believe that.

Yes, yes.

No, that's completely off.'"

You know, so you encounter in Scripture a wrathful God and you go, "No.

The day will never come when God is wrathful."

Or they'll try to temper it.

They'll say, "God, who is slow to anger."

I say, well, no, God is "no" to anger.

So it's, you know, it's all human projection and, uh... and natural.

But it requires a filter now.

You know, a mystical filter.

Once you know the God of love, you -- you sift out these things that aren't aligned with the God we actually have.

So it comes to a place, once you know, you know, who that God is, then -- then you can't otherize, you can't demonize.

You're human, so you have to catch yourself.

But we're all walking each other home, uh, to health because -- and wholeness because none of us are well till all of us are well.

-Can you be whole -- can you be holy, in your view -- and not believe in God?

-Oh, yeah.

I mean, 'cause again, I think being holy is about being healthy.

And healthy people are loving people, and -- and God is love.

So -- So for me, there's no contradiction in that at all.

You know, people are, uh -- that's the measure.

The measure is, you know, are you loving?

And the only people who can pull off being loving and cherishing are healthy people.

So -- So, you know, you want to remove the obstacles and you want the blindfold to fall and you want people to -- you can't really love goodness, as the Prophet Micah says, unless you love -- you know, love goodness in here, you can't love goodness out there.

And it's kind of a prerequisite.

And so it, uh... The Dalai Lama, who I was privileged to meet, somebody asked him on BBC, you know, "What's the mark of authentic religion?"

And he said, "The mark and measure is" -- he put both hands over his chest and he said, "Warmheartedness."

And I thought, well, that's it.

You know, it's not about adherence to anything.

Gandhi said, you know, "I have chosen to be a disciple of Jesus."

And -- And he not once stopped being a Hindu.

And so that was kind of the idea.

You know, it's about warmheartedness.

It's about love.

It's not about adherence to a belief system.

And so can you, uh -- can you pull this off?

Can you pull off holiness without believing in God?

We have so many examples.

-What you just said is -- is enormously helpful because we know that there are a lot of people who have an obstacle.

They either believe in a different God, and there's enmity that comes from a disagreement over which God, or they believe in no God, and they're told that they are evil and bad for not believing in the God of their family or the God of their community.

-Yeah.

You know, I just don't buy it.

You know, I mean, because I think that, uh, you know, the God we actually have is spacious and wild, as Meister Eckhart used to say, who was, you know, a mystic and a theologian.

And he said, "It's a lie, any talk of God that doesn't comfort you."

So, you know, it just -- it's so expansive, but it's not difficult, because you get to a place -- you know, by definition, heaven is the place that you want to spend eternity in.

And if it's, you know, a God who's judgmental and, uh, you know, kind of a jerk, then -- then nobody wants to spend eternity there.

And that's how you know that, uh, chances are God is not a jerk.

[ Chuckles ] I've never uttered that sentence before, but -- but that's what I mean, you know?

In this very office, there was a young woman named Nellie who has -- has had all the worst things befall her, her kids taken away, abuse of every imaginable kind, prison, gang member, sold drugs, used drugs.

And just I stand in awe at what she's had to carry in her lifetime, rather than in judgment at how she's carried it.

And so she's sitting in front of my desk back there, and I don't know, she has a light bill she has to pay or something, so I'm writing a check to help her out.

And -- And she leans, you know, with her chin resting on her fists in front of my desk and she says, "Gee, I wish you were -- I wish you were God."

And I laughed.

I said, "Why?"

And she goes -- and her eyes well up with tears, and she says, "I think you'd let me into heaven."

And that just broke my heart in two.

And -- And I stopped writing the check, and I leaned, and I grabbed her hands, and I pulled her in and I looked her in the eye, and I said, "If I get to heaven and you're not there, I'm not staying."

And I believe that, you know?

So do I think anybody's in hell?

No.

I don't think it exists.

Or as the mystics say, maybe it exists, but it's empty.

-You talked about a man named Louie who had a dream with you in it, and he was in darkness.

Can you tell that story?

-Yeah, so there's a homie I know named Lulu, and, uh, he was a gang member and he was selling crack cocaine, as they did in those days.

And then he became his own best customer.

Finally, I convinced him to go to rehab.

He reluctantly agreed, and so he went to this place.

I drove him to this place in the hills above Los Angeles.

And, uh, 30 days in, his younger brother did something that gang members never do.

He put a gun to his head and took his own life.

So I called Lulu and I told him, and of course he was devastated.

And I said, "Look, I'm gonna to pick you up for the funeral, but I'm gonna drive you right back to the rehab."

So I go pick him up.

He gives me a big abrazo, and he gets in the car and he says, "I had a dream last night, and you were in it."

And he said, "We were in, like, a classroom-sized room, but there were no windows, no lights, no illuminated exit signs, no light creeping under the door.

It was just pitch black.

And I know you're there," he tells me, "but you're silent, and so am I. And so he says that, in the silence, I reach into my pocket and I have a flashlight, and I -- and I pull it out, and I aim it steadily on the light switch on the wall.

And as he tells me the dream, he says, "I know I'm the only one who can turn that light switch on.

I'm really glad that you happened to have a flashlight."

And so he follows the beam of light steadily until he, with great trepidation, stands in front of the light switch and he takes a deep breath.

And he flips the light on, and the room is flooded with light.

And now he's sobbing in the telling of the story, and he says, "The light is better than the darkness," like he didn't know that to be the case.

And then he said, "I guess my brother just never found the light switch."

Well, I've never had an experience like that in my 69 years of living, that, in an instant, my whole life changed.

I changed everything, how I was doing things.

And I was probably 10 years into this work.

And I just stopped.

I -- I realized that I had been trying to turn the light switch on for people, and you can't do it.

And I -- and I probably was always perilously close to burnout, and I've never been since because of that dream that he told me.

And then I just stopped.

And it wasn't about me.

And it wasn't about fixing or saving or rescuing or saving anybody.

It was -- It was just being content with the fact that everybody owns a flashlight and everybody knows where to aim it.

And none of us are well until all of us are well.

So help people aim the flashlight in the general direction of the light switch, and watch people who are -- who will respond to that invitation, you know, step towards the light switch, and then they'll find their agency to be able to do that.

-Homeboy, which started first the schooling, then jobs.

You tried a lot of different things.

Can you explain some of -- -What Homeboy -- yeah, sure.

So Homeboy Industries, we've now evolved from that time when we were -- started a school and a jobs program.

We've now evolved -- nobody kind of thought this up, much less me, but we've backed our way into now becoming the largest gang intervention, rehab/reentry program on the planet.

So 10,000 folks a year walk through our doors here wanting to reimagine their lives, you know?

You know, and all of them come barricaded behind a wall of shame and disgrace.

And the only thing that can scale that wall is tenderness.

But healing is kind of the centerpiece.

So it's 18-month "training program," but it's mainly time to kind of dedicate yourself to your own work, you know?

And so we have therapy and free tattoo removal and 13 social enterprises -- justice enterprises, if you will -- bakery, restaurants, Homeboy Electronics Recycling, But more than anything is -- is the culture, you know?

Homies and homegirls walk through the doors, and they come with what a psychologist would call a disorganized attachment.

You know, mom was frightening or frightened, and you can't really calm yourself down if you've never been soothed.

So the place is a safe place where folks feel seen and then they can feel cherished.

We have so many who have done 20, 30... We have somebody who -- 47 years in prison.

And, you know, they will say "We're used to being watched, but we're not used to being seen."

And so that's kind of the liberating thing is to be seen.

And then they -- you know, something of a sanctuary, and then they become the sanctuary that they sought here.

And then they go home and they present that sanctuary to their kids, and suddenly you've broken a cycle.

And so that's kind of how it works, you know?

-You mentioned the tattoo removal, and there's a wonderful story about, uh, someone that -- -How that started?

-How that started.

Can you tell the story of how the tattoo-removal process began?

-Many years ago, uh, I was sitting at my desk at another office, previous headquarters, and a guy comes in named Frank, who I'd never met before, and he was just two days out of Corcoran State Prison.

And he was sitting in front of my desk and, uh, among his many tattoos on his face was, uh, bold black Old English letters on his forehead that said "The world."

And, uh, he looked at me and he said, "You know, I am having a hard time finding a job."

I said, "Well, Frank, maybe we could put our heads together on this one."

And then at White Memorial Hospital, I found a doctor named Dr.

Jack Vanore who had a laser machine, and I coaxed him into giving me an hour a month to chip away at Frank's forehead and a few others.

And then in no time I had a waiting list of 3,000 gang members who wanted the same treatment, so we couldn't stay with that arrangement.

But I always add that, uh, currently he's a security guard at a movie studio, and there is no trace left of the angriest, dumbest thing he'd ever done, proving, as they say, that all of us are a whole lot more than the worst things we've ever done.

-There is no end point to this.

This is a conversation I hope to be having for a long time.

But I'm going to ask you something that may seem like it's out of left field.

Uh, music.

What music gives you joy?

How does music touch you, and can you speak to that?

-Yeah, you know, it's funny.

I'm kind of stuck, uh, in our generation, you know, a little bit, you know?

But I'm kind of -- I'm such a news junkie that that's kind of what I listen to all the time, you know, and a political junkie.

So that kind of takes precedence over actually listening to music.

But I'll retrieve, you know, um, from -- from the '70s, you know, Joni Mitchell and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and, uh -- and the Stones and, you know, the Beatles.

So I can retrieve those things.

-When you listen to Joni Mitchell, when you listen to the Stones, the Beatles, Crosby, Stills & Nash, it touches something in you?

-Yeah, I mean, 'cause I can, uh -- you know, I can just -- now you can just go to YouTube and have something playing, you know, like Woodstock -- Woodstock or -- or the White Album or all these things, you know, from my youth, you know, that, uh, you know, kind of brings you back.

But, you know, like, concerts or -- or who -- who does music now, yeah, boy, yeah, not so much.

So I don't know anything.

-I'm gonna out you.

You're -- You're a hippie.

You're an old hippie.

-I'm an old hippie.

I -- you know, guilty as charged.

But I'm also a geezer, and so I don't really know how all these things work, you know?

Homies have to -- so they were, um, changing my Siri voice to, uh, this Irish woman.

They say, "What voice?"

"Well, what are my options?"

"Well, Irish."

I go, "Yeah, do it."

But she, you know -- she gives me directions, you know, and I'm so glad that they did that 'cause, you know, she'll say, "Turn into the car park," and all these things that are -- remind me of my relatives from Ireland.

And -- And my favorite thing -- in fact, I'm hoping to title my next book about it -- is, um, when she'll say, "Accident ahead."

And then there's this pause and you wait, and she says, "You're still on the fastest route."

And I love it.

I'm consoled by it.

I think, "Oh, how great.

I'm still on the fastest route."

I don't even think it means you're on the quickest route, but it's the surest route.

You know you're going to get there.

And -- And so that's kind of -- you know, I think love, it's still the fastest route.

It's still gonna get you to exactly where you want to get, especially at this time where we're -- there's such tribalism and polarizing and huge gulfs and divisions that, you know, love, it's still the fastest route.

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