CHERISHED BELONGING

At a time when society is more fractured than ever before, beloved Jesuit priest Gregory Boyle invites us to see the world through a new lens of connection and build the loving community that we long to live ina perfect message for readers of Anne Lamott, Mary Oliver, and Richard Rohr.

Over the past thirty years, Gregory Boyle has transformed tens of thousands of lives through his work as the founder of Homeboy Industries, the largest gang-intervention program in the world. The program runs on two unwavering principles: 1) We are all unshakably good (no exceptions), and 2) we belong to each other (no exceptions). Boyle believes that these two ideas allow all of us to cultivate a new way of seeing. Rather than the tribalism that excludes and punishes, this new narrative proposes a village that cherishes. Pooka, a former gang member who now oversees the program's housing division, puts it plainly: "Here, love is our lens. It is how we see things." In Cherished Belonging, Boyle calls back to Christianity's origins as a subversive spiritual movement of equality, emancipation, and peace. Early Christianity was a way of lifenot a set of beliefs. Boyle's vision of community is a space for people to join together and heal one another in a new collective living, a world dedicated to kindness as a constant and radical act of defiance. As one homie, Marcus, told a classroom filled with inner-city teenagers, "If love was a place, it would be Homeboy." Cherished Belonging invites us to nurture the connections that are all around us and live with radical kindness. Boyle believes that "the answer to every question is, indeed, compassion." Through colorful and profound stories brimming with wisdom, humor, and inspiration, we understand that love is the light inside everything. Gregory Boyle is an American Jesuit priest and the founder of Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles, the largest gang-intervention, rehabilitation, and reentry program in the world. In 2024, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States' highest civilian honor. He has received the California Peace Prize and been inducted into the California Hall of Fame. He received the University of Notre Dame's 2017 Laetare Medal, the oldest honor given to American Catholics. He is the acclaimed author of Tattoos on the Heart, Barking to the Choir, and The Whole Language. Cherished Belonging is his fourth book, and he will be donating all net proceeds to Homeboy Industries. Visit the author at HomeboyIndustries.org.