Barking to the Choir

This chapter opens with a quotation from Whoopi Goldberg. When the famous entertainer was asked who the living person she most admired was, she answered Pope Francis. “He’s goin’ with the original program,” she said (153). Boyle asserts everyone knows what Goldberg meant when she said this: “It’s not about taking the right stand on issues but about standing in the right place with the excluded and the demonized,” (153). He cosigns Goldberg’s belief that Pope Francis is getting it right—especially in his dedication to ministering to the poor. “If we can find ourselves in this salvific relationship to those on the margins, we see as never before and it becomes our passageway,” he writes (155). 

The chapter moves to address the topic of fear. Boyle shares about a homie who once told him the phrase “Do not be afraid” occurs 365 times in the Bible—once for every day of the year (155). Boyle expands on this idea, declaring when people choose to be fearless for each other, they stir their own hearts to courage and cultivate a true selflessness that, in turn, produces true joy. 

Boyle shares a story about a man named Bear—a revered person within Homeboy Industries, lauded and worshipped for being a former gang member who changed his ways and grew into a solid, loving, family man devoted to his wife and children.