REVIEW:

While I’ve read and reviewed Gregory Boyle’s books before, this is the first time I’ve ever had any sort of platform to shine a light on his words. I really hope I don’t screw this up.

This review of The Whole Language is my 200th of 2021, and it’s the one I most want you to read all the way to the end. Please bear with me as I turn my heart inside out to reveal the tender part lurking below the layers of sarcasm and snark.

If you’re unfamiliar with him, Gregory Boyle is a Jesuit priest and founder of Homeboy Industries. Homeboy is the largest gang rehabilitation and re-entry program in the world. It stands as a beacon of hope in Los Angeles to provide training and support to former gang members and previously-incarcerated people, allowing them to redirect their lives and become contributing members of our community.

Pessimism? No, you won’t find that here.

I am not a religious person, but I am a spiritual, hopeful one. Boyle’s glass-is-half-full approach to a loving higher power lifts me up when I’m most in need of a boost. It helps me to better understand humanity, find empathy and embody grace. His stories of sworn enemies achieving commonality and friendship make me laugh and bring me to tears.

The Whole Language is the third book written by G Dog (as the homies call him), following Tattoos on the Heart (2010) and Barking to the Choir (2017). He narrates the audiobooks himself, and listening to his fatherly voice is an opportunity I will never pass up. It should go without saying that as a Jesuit priest he is a follower of Jesus, though he offers his messages in ways that should not alienate those of other faiths. Potential readers should also be aware that he is a priest that doesn’t shy away from colorful language. He’s lived and worked with homies for 30 years, and their vernacular has become his own.

A few years ago a Goalcast video of one of his speeches went viral, and you can see that glimpse into his optimistic storytelling here.

You can learn more about Homebody Industries, buy the books, and support their mission of boundless compassion, radical kinship, and extravagant tenderness here and here.

If you’ve made it this far and are still with me, I truly thank you. I know the fact that this book is rooted in religion-based lessons will make it not everyone’s cup of tea. But it sure is mine. When I read this man’s words, my cup runneth over.

PUBLISHER SYNOPSIS:

Gregory Boyle, the beloved Jesuit priest and author of the inspirational bestsellers Tattoos on the Heart and Barking to the Choir, returns with a call to witness the transformative power of tenderness, rooted in his lifetime of experience counseling gang members in Los Angeles.

Over the past thirty years, Gregory Boyle has transformed thousands of lives through his work as the founder of Homeboy Industries, the largest and most successful gang-intervention program in the world. Boyle’s new book, The Whole Language, follows the acclaimed bestsellers Tattoos on the Heart, hailed as an “astounding literary and spiritual feat” (Publishers Weekly) that is “destined to become a classic of both urban reportage and contemporary spirituality” (Los Angeles Times), and Barking to the Choir, deemed “a beautiful and important and soul-transporting book” by Elizabeth Gilbert and declared by Ann Patchett to be “a book that shows what the platitudes of faith look like when they’re put into action.”

In a community struggling to overcome systemic poverty and violence, The Whole Language shows how those at Homeboy Industries fight despair and remain generous, hopeful, and tender. When Saul was thirteen years old, he killed his abusive stepfather in self-defense; after spending twenty-three years in juvenile and adult jail, he enters the Homeboy Industries training and healing programs and embraces their mission. Declaring, “I’ve decided to grow up to be somebody I always needed as a child,” Saul shows tenderness toward the young men in his former shoes, treating them all like his sons and helping them to find their way. Before coming to Homeboy Industries, a young man named Abel was shot thirty-three times, landing him in a coma for six months followed by a year and a half recuperating in the hospital. He now travels on speaking tours with Boyle and gives guided tours around the Homeboy offices. One day a new trainee joins Abel as a shadow, and Abel recognizes him as the young man who had put him in a coma. “You give good tours,” the trainee tells Abel. They both have embarked on a path to wholeness.

Boyle’s moving stories challenge our ideas about God and about people, providing a window into a world filled with fellowship, compassion, and fewer barriers. Bursting with encouragement, humor, and hope, The Whole Language invites us to treat others—and ourselves—with acceptance and tenderness.