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Excerpt: 'Tattoos On The Heart'

NPR | By Gregory Boyle

Published March 11, 2010 at 3:11 PM EST

Note: There is language in this excerpt that some readers may find offensive.

Rascal is not one to take advice. He can be recalcitrant, defensive, and primed for the fight. Well into his thirties, he's a survivor. His truck gets filled with scrap metal and with this, somehow, he feeds his kids and manages to stay on this side of eviction. To his credit, he bid prison time and gang-banging good-bye a long time ago. Rascal sometimes hits me up for funds, and I oblige if I have it and if his attitude doesn't foul my mood too much. But you can't tell him anything — except this one day, he actually listens. I am going on about something — can't remember what but I can see he's listening. When I'm done, he says simply, "You know, I'm gonna take that advice, and I'm gonna let it marinate," pointing at his heart, "right here."

Perhaps we should all marinate in the intimacy of God. Genesis, I suppose, got it right — "In the beginning, God." Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, also spoke about the task of marinating in the "God who is always greater."

He writes, "Take care always to keep before your eyes, first, God." The secret, of course, of the ministry of Jesus, was that God was at the center of it. Jesus chose to marinate in the God who is always greater than our tiny conception, the God who "loves without measure and without regret." To anchor yourself in this, to keep always before your eyes this God is to choose to be intoxicated, marinated in the fullness of God. An Algerian Trappist, before his martyrdom, spoke to this fullness: "When you fill my heart, my eyes overflow."

* * *

Willy crept up on me from the driver's side. I had just locked the office and was ready to head home at 8:00 p.m.

"Shit, Willy," I say, "Don't be doin' that."

" 'Spensa, G," he says, "My bad. It's just... well, my stomach's on echale. Kick me down with twenty bones, yeah?"

"Dog, my wallet's on echale," I tell him. A "dog" is the one upon whom you can rely — the role-dog, the person who has your back. "But get in. Let's see if I can trick any funds outta the ATM."

Willy hops on board. He is a life force of braggadocio and posturing — a thoroughly good soul — but his confidence is outsize, that of a lion wanting you to know he just swallowed a man whole. A gang member, but a peripheral one at best — he wants more to regale you with his exploits than to actually be in the midst of any. In his midtwenties, Willy is a charmer, a quintessential homie con man who's apt to coax money out of your ATM if you let him. This night, I'm tired and I want to go home.

It's easier not to resist. The Food 4 Less on Fourth and Soto has the closest ATM. I tell Willy to stay in the car, in case we run into one of Willy's rivals inside.

"Stay here, dog," I tell him, "I'll be right back."

I'm not ten feet away when I hear a muffled "Hey."

It's Willy, and he's miming, "the keys," from the passenger seat of my car. He's making over-the-top, key-in-the-ignition senales.

"The radio," he mouths, as he holds a hand, cupping his ear.

I wag a finger, "No, chale." Then it's my turn to mime. I hold both my hands together and enunciate exaggeratedly, "Pray."

Willy sighs and levitates his eyeballs. But he's putty. He assumes the praying hands pose and looks heavenward — cara santucha. I proceed on my quest to the ATM but feel the need to check in on Willy only ten yards later.

I turn and find him still in the prayer position, seeming to be only half-aware that I'm looking in on him.

I return to the car, twenty dollars in hand, and get in. Something has happened here. Willy is quiet, reflective, and there is a palpable sense of peace in the vehicle. I look at Willy and say, "You prayed, didn't you?"

He doesn't look at me. He's still and quiet. "Yeah, I did."

I start the car.

"Well, what did God say to you?" I ask him.

"Well, first He said, 'Shut up and listen.'"

"So what d'ya do?"

"Come on, G," he says, "What am I sposed ta do? I shut up and listened."

I begin to drive him home to the barrio. I've never seen Willy like this. He's quiet and humble — no need to convince me of anything or talk me out of something else.

"So, son, tell me something," I ask. "How do you see God?"

"God?" he says, "That's my dog right there."

"And God?" I ask, "How does God see you?"

Willy doesn't answer at first. So I turn and watch as he rests his head on the recliner, staring at the ceiling of my car. A tear falls down his cheek. Heart full, eyes overflowing. "God... thinks... I'm... firme."

To the homies, firme means, "could not be one bit better."

Not only does God think we're firme, it is God's joy to have us marinate in that.

Excerpted from Tattoos On The Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion by Gregory Boyle. Copyright © 2010 by Gregory Boyle. Excerpted with permission by Free Press, a Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.