My church is in the detention facilities where I preside and celebrate the Eucharist. To me that's the church. That's the people of God.
Me wanting a gang member to have a different life would never be the same as that gang member wanting to have one.
The powers, conditions, and desires that propel Mexicans and Central Americans into this country are so fundamental, so vast, that no action, legislative or other-wise, can discourage this flight.
Homeboy Industries has chosen to stand with the 'demonized' so that the demonizing will stop; it stands with the 'disposable' so that the day will come when we stop throwing people away.
Most employers just aren't willing to look beyond the dumbest or worst thing someone has done.
The task of dealing comprehensively with gangs belongs to the city, not to law enforcement.
The margins don't get erased by simply insisting that the powers-that-be erase them.
We are less than honest and commit a grave error if we insist that what happened to Rodney G. King was isolated and an exceptional case. The poor know better.
When the vastness of God meets the restriction of our own humanity, words can't hold it. The best we can do is find the moments that rhyme with this expansive heart of God.
We need a pope to usher in a new era of inclusion, the end of a sinful clericalism, and a strong sense of duty to those on society's margins. The 1 billion faithful long for a leader who is fearless and driven - not by terror but by love.
The arms of God reach to embrace, and somehow you feel yourself just outside God's fingertips.
I have never seen a hopeful person join a gang.
Businesses have come and gone at Homeboy Industries. We have had starts and stops, but anything worth doing is worth failing at. We started Homeboy Plumbing. That didn't go so well. Who knew? People didn't want gang members in their homes. I just didn't see that coming.
I know two L.A.s. Half my life was around the house my folks had for 46 years at 3rd and Norton. The other half was in Boyle Heights on the Eastside, working with gang members.
Even gang members imagine a future that doesn't include gangs.
I know now that gang warfare is not the Middle East or Northern Ireland. There is violence in gang violence, but there is no conflict. It is not 'about something.' It is the language of the despondent and traumatized.
Anyone who knows gangs knows that lawmakers cannot conceive of a law that would lead a hard-core gang member to 'think twice.'
What do we know to be true about gang violence? We know we will fail if we fixate on the symptoms and not address what undergirds it.
You can't reason with gang violence: you can't talk to it, sit it at the table, and negotiate with it.
Gangs are born of a lethal absence of hope, and hope has an address: 130 W. Bruno St. in Los Angeles, CA 90012.