I attended a lecture of a guest speaker at Marquette's Law School this evening as an extra credit opportunity for my Ethics class. A friend and I got there about 5 minutes before it started and walked into a very full appellate court room that served as the lecture hall. I had attended a similar lecture my freshmen year for Theology extra credit and found it incredibly boring. So to be quite honest, I didn't have high hopes for this one.
Well my night started off with a bang as we found two seats, in the second to last row of the court. (There were auditorium like seats in this section behind rows of tables) And the two seats we found were smack dab in the middle of a row of about 20 seats. So we kindly begin to make our way there. "Hi, sorry, excuse me." Well while were waiting for one individual to make room, the lady I'm standing next to says, "Why don't you take off your backpack?" Keep in mind that my backpack had 1 spiral in it. That's it! So I take my backpack off and then she says "And try not to hit me in the process." Knowing that we're forcibly standing close to one another, I took her remark as a joke, and my friend and I proceeded to laugh. She wasn't joking.
But we moved on, got our seats and commented to one another about her snootiness. The lecture begins, and like I said, I didn't expect much from this. I was wrong. Fr. Boyle started this non for profit organization in southern California called Homeboy Industries. In a nut shell, it is a gang reformation center in Los Angeles's most populated gang area. This center gets these gangsters off the streets and into schools, churches and jobs. The starter jobs for these young boys and girls include Homeboy Bakery, Homeboy Cafe and other various jobs run by this organization.
This most outstanding thing to hear from this organization was that rival gang members were working together and getting along. Gang members were getting away from the drugs, prison and violence and moving towards holding steady jobs, getting married and raising families. One gang member in particular told Fr. Boyle that his daughter was going to college. She would end up being a first generation college student. Fr. Boyle documents many of these stories in his book Tattoos on the Heart. His lecture was basically select stories from the book, and they were awesome! I'll probably end up buying it.
Fr. Boyle's lecture was absolutely inspiring. I volunteer every summer doing a week-long mission trip with my church. The work we do at these trips mainly include home renovations for elderly people or for people who are unable to fund the work themselves. And at the end of the week of these mission trips, the joy seen in the eyes of the residents is an unforgettable sight. They are overwhelmed with happiness, and you get a sense of satisfaction unlike any other. Not only did you accomplish a goal you worked hard at, but you did it for the best of causes. I can only imagine the satisfaction and happiness Fr. Boyle feels after hearing that one of his reformed gangsters are managers or successful family men. It has to be an incredible feeling.
"The thing always happens that you really believe in; and the belief in a thing makes it happen." - Frank Lloyd Wright
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