EHF recently provided financial support for the Rev. Matt Boulter, DG Montalvo and David Dickerson from Christ Episcopal Church, Tyler to attend the Global Homeboy Network Gathering event. The Global Homeboy Network’s goal is to assist other organizations as they provide marginalized men, women, and youth with tools they need to change their lives and become productive members of their communities.
The Tyler group attended the event to to learn more and gain insights on a new ministry the Christ Church team will be incubating in EHF’s second Holy Currencies cohort. At the Global Homeboy Network event, EHF’s Eric Moen co-led a workshop on churches and community partners/nonprofits collaborating for healthy communities and transformation.
In this guest blog, the Rev. Matt Boulter reflects on his time at the event and Homeboys founder Fr. Greg Boyle’s poetic approach to fostering a healthy community.
Heals over Head
by the Rev. Matt Boutler
“We are all part of a movement to put first things recognizably first. This movement is about heals over head. It is far easier for [an organization] to compile of menu of services … than it is to create a community of tenderness, a community so loving and so welcoming that everyone feels like they are wearing a parachute. A place, a geography, where we all decide to make a decision to live in each others’ hearts.”
–Father Greg Boyle, Founder & Director, Homeboy Industries
I’ve heard plenty of speeches in my day, but the words above constitute what is for me perhaps the most moving “oratory experience” I’ve ever had. This speech was the culmination, or the final plenary event, of a two-day conference at Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles which I had the honor and joy of attending this past week, together with two dear friends, D.G. Montalvo and David Dickerson. We were attending this event at the invitation of the Episcopal Health Foundation, in hopes that it would benefit us here at Christ Church as we partner with EHF in hopes of increasing the holistic peace and justice of our community.
Allow me to unpack the most salient phrases in the snippet above. First, “recognizably first.” When Fr. Greg uttered these words, it “cut me to the quick.” In other words, I became deeply convicted of the need, not just to state that justice is a priority for us at Christ Church (including Christ Church South), but to make that priority recognizable, visible, clear. It must be obvious to anyone who visits us on Sunday morning that we are a community where Christ binds us together: not class, not race, not affinity.
Second, “heals over head.” I could talk about this one for hours. A huge part of my spiritual / intellectual biography is the issue of reason vs. desire. Which is privileged? For Aristotle, it is reason’s job to discipline the human being’s passions and desires. And yet, Christian Neoplatonism responds (I’m painting with insanely broad brush strokes here) by pointing to a “higher” kind of desire which, in turn, woos, summons, and directs reason itself. Father Greg is clearly one who affirms the priority of desire / feeling / passion over reason. Hence, “heals over head.” In the same vein he stresses that “a community tenderness is harder [and more important] than a menu of services.” In other words, for Fr. Greg, nothing can be more important than love (which, after all, is a kind of desire). Nothing can be more important than relationship, intimacy, “living in each others’ hearts.” This is the foundation of Homeboy. Good thing, too, since this is also the foundation of the Kingdom of God.
Last phrase to unpack: “parachutes [instead of backpacks].” Father Greg’s goal is to make the “homies” among whom he lives and works feel like they are wearing parachutes, and not backpacks. At first I was not sure what he meant by this. It was either David or DG who helped me “get it.” A parachute softens one’s landing; a burdensome backpack, in contrast, only weighs one down all the more. The goal here is to facilitate a soft landing, for any homie who is falling to the ground. Soft landings, instead of crashing & burning.
How is this facility accomplished? Only by a community which put first things recognizably first. Only by a community in which the members truly live in each others’ hearts. Only by a community of tenderness which privileges healing over headiness, and gives people parachutes and not heavy burdens of condemnation.
