After the Rose Petals Ceremony

I invited my MSW students over for Finals Week Brunch.  We ate and laughed and talked and appreciated each other.

As a termination ritual, I read a passage from Father Greg Boyle's book - Tattoos on the Heart:

...With my backpack snug on my shoulder and spirit deflated, I began to make the long walk down the mountain and back to town.  But before I leave the makeshift soccer field that had been our cathedral, an old Quechua campesino, seemingly out of nowhere, makes his way to me.  He appears ancient, but I suspect his body has been weathered by work and the burden of an Indian's life.  As he nears me, I see he is wearing tethered wool pants, with a white buttoned shirt, greatly frayed at the collar.  He has a rope for a belt.  His suit coat is coarse and worn.  He has a fedora, toughened by the years.  He is wearing huaraches, and his feet are caked with Bolivian mud.  Any place that a human face can have wrinkles and creases, he has them.  He is at least a foot shorter than I am, and he stands right in front of me and says, "Tatai."

This is Quechua for Padrecito, a word packed with cariño, affection, and a charming intimacy.  He looks up at me, with penetrating, weary eyes and says, "Tatai, gracias por haber venido" (Thanks for coming).

I think of something to say, but nothing comes to me.  Which is just as well, because before I can speak, the old campesino reaches into the pockets of his suit coat and retrieves two fistfuls of multicolored rose petals.  He's on the tips of his toes and gestures that I might assist with the inclination of my head.  And he drops petals over my head, and I'm without words.  He digs into his pockets again and manages two more fistfuls of petals.  He does this again and again, and the store of red, pink, and yellow rose petals seems infinite.  I just stand there and let him do this, staring at my own huaraches, now moistened with my tears, covered with rose petals.  Finally, he takes his leave and I'm there, alone, with only the bright aroma of roses.

For all the many times I would return to Tirani and see the same villagers, over and over, I never saw this old campesino again.

God, I guess, is more expansive than every image we think rhymes with God.  How much greater is the God we have than the one we think we have.  More than anything else, the truth of God seems to be about a joy that is a foreigner to disappointment and disapproval.  This joy just doesn't know what we're talking about when we focus on the restriction of not measuring up.  This joy, God's joy, is like a bunch of women lined up in the parish hall on your birthday, wanting only to dance with you - cheek to cheek.  "First things, recognizably first," Daniel Berrigan says.  The God, who is greater than God, has only one thing on Her mind, and that is to drop, endlessly, rose petals on our head.  Behold the One who can't take His eyes off of you.

Marinate in the vastness of that. 

We stood in a circle around my backyard tree, each person with a fistful of multicolored rose petals.  Then we took turns pouring rose petals on the head of the person standing next to us - out of love and respect.  That is how we said thank you for showing up - as your true self.

When you do something kind for someone else, "the fragrance remains with the hand that gives the rose."  The bright aroma of rose petals lingered on our heads, hearts and hands.

Nury & Me (AKA Las Chingonas)

We also had a guest speaker, Nury Martinez, LAUSD School Board Member representing the Valley, former San Fernando Mayor and Councilwoman, and Executive Director of Pacoima Beautiful - an environmental justice non-profit organization.  I met Nury over 20 years ago when I hired her to be a Peer Educator.  She was in high school.  She says I made her teach peers to put condoms on wooden penises with their mouth.  Yikes.  I sent her to juvenile halls and probation camps to spread the word about HIV prevention among vulnerable populations.  She credits this experience as giving her confidence to overcome her shyness and fear in order to organize communities, campaign and challenge injustice in schools.  She inspired us all with her passion, chutzpah and voice.

Wendy & me

This is my career, this is my life, these are my relationships.  Thank you, Yesus.

Book Review: Tattoos on the Heart

"...our common call to delight in one another."

I just finished reading Father Greg Boyle's recent book, Tattoos on the Heart, in three summer evenings. Some of my colleagues read it too and we've all had similar reactions to it - we love it and it makes us cry.

It is nothing short of a love letter to humanity. It's about...
...the power of unconditional love (the "no-matter-whatness" of love) and self-worth
...compassion instead of judgment
...the truth that we belong to each other and
...how our loving relationships bring us back to ourselves and the truth of ourselves - we all matter, just as we are.

Reading it is like going to church - or at least, what going to church could be - inspiring, connecting, validating, loving, motivating, accepting, inclusive, living grace.

Boy, have I got a long way to go - and yet - I am exactly where I am supposed to be. It reminds me of a sermon I heard a long time ago that freed me - I can't do anything to make God love me any less (or more).

The parts that made me cry were not what you might expect. The parts that made me cry were when homies finally experienced feeling felt - when they saw themselves with the proud love and attentive gaze of a parent looking at their newborn for the first time - noticing a perfect and wonderful and fragile human being.

It is about homies coming home. It is also about us - homie, ex-homie or not - coming home to ourselves. In the end, we are all on the same journey to love, to belonging, to God.

In the last 20 years, G-Dog has come a long way, baby, and shares some lessons learned about working with gangs. He is honest and reflective about this, which his critics may appreciate (or not).

Father Greg Boyle is one of my heroes, but I disagree with him on one point - that is the role of evidence-based outcomes. He talks about this toward the end of the book. He represents it as almost a sin-like endeavor - he calls us to be faithful to the process and not fret over outcomes. I imagine that he feels the pressure of funders breathing down his back and demanding accountability. It's easy to conclude something is impossible or horrible if we can't imagine how to do it. Unfortunately, Father Greg hasn't met the right evidence-based practice consultant or evaluation researcher (allow me to introduce myself, Father Greg...). There is no this or that, process or outcome, either-or dilemma here. Both science and faith can live side by side - informing each other - bringing out the best in each other - integrated even.

So much to love here, but I will leave you with this...

"But in this place of which you say it is a waste, there will be heard again the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness...the voices of those who sing."
"And so the voices at the margins get heard and the circle of compassion widens. Souls feeling their worth, refusing to forget that we belong to each other. No bullet can pierce this. The vision still has its time, and, yes, it presses on to fulfillment. It will not disappoint. And yet, if it delays, we can surely wait for it."

Amen. Thank You, Yesus.

Essential Questions

Who are you and what do you want?

These are the questions that ground me in the face of all external pressures - status, conformity, gender-role stereotypes, etc. The voice inside drowns out the external voices and is trustworthy.

We all mattered the day we were born, regardless. We don't need to strive to matter. Father Greg Boyle says that our world operates under the false assumption that some of us matter less than others. Social caste systems imply that some of us matter more than others. This is a socially-constructed delusion with very real effects and consequences. If it is socially-constructed, then new ways of thinking, mutual and widespread agreement can usher in the revolution.

My clinical supervisor, Reevah Simon, explained to me that 90% of who we are is the baby. The baby part is one of an inner triumvirate - the parent, the adult and the baby - and drives our behavior. The baby feels the pain of separation, envy and jealousy acutely. The distinction between envy and jealousy is that envy is admiration and longing for the personal qualities or material possessions of another. While jealousy refers specifically to wanting to posses the love, time and attention of a person in particular.

The pain is strong and intolerable leading to infantile rage if the need goes unmet or is frustrated. We have choices for coping with this intolerable pain. The adult in us can work to attain the quality or material object in question. This is the harder and more mature path.

Take the Taj Mahal, for example. Imagine standing before it and marveling at its beauty - design, materials, workmanship. Now you can build one of your own or with a few well-placed bombs, tear it down. Either appeases the baby and ameliorates the pain of envy. Buying stuff and talking badly about others might serve to soothe in the short term, but in the long run, it doesn't get you closer to your own version of the Taj Mahal, which will eat at you until you get around to building it. Focus on what you want, not on what you don't want. Do the work.

In your own life, what is your version of the Taj Mahal? Feel free to imagine it, build it. Why allow marketed distractions and flawed social constructions to divert you from your original masterpiece?

I like knowing who I am and what I want. I like being around people who know who they are and what they want. Acceptance is both freedom and liberating. Feeling secure in the knowledge that we matter and have nothing to prove. When you know who you are and what you truly want - you feel full. The baby stops wailing when it is full.