speaking life, speaking hope

Fabian Debora, an artist who was a former troubled youth who discovered hope and redemption at Homeboy Industries, joins Father Greg Boyle, the founder of this life-transforming gang intervention, rehabilitation and reentry program, in a conversation with Bishop LaTrelle Easterling about justice, restoration and the power of being seen. ​

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Guest Bios
Father Gregory Boyle, S.J., is a Catholic priest of the Jesuit order. He is the founder of Homeboy Industries, the largest gang intervention, rehabilitation, and re-entry program in the world, and the former pastor of Delores Mission in Los Angeles. He is the author of the 2010 New York Times bestseller Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion; Barking to the Choir: The Power of Radical Kinship, and his most recent publication, The Whole Language: The Power of Extravagant Tenderness.

Fabian Debora is the executive director of the Homeboy Art Academy in Los Angeles. He became acquainted with Homeboy Industries when he was 10 and now serves as one its leaders. He is a noted Latino artist whose work has been showcased in solo and group exhibitions in the United States and abroad. See some of his artwork and story.  

Questions for Reflection and Extending the Conversation

1. What surprised or encouraged you about the conversation with Fabian Debora and Father Gregory Boyle and the work they’re doing at Homeboy Industries?
2. In their conversation, Mr. Debora says that simply feeling seen may be “the closest feeling you can get to God.” Can you recall an incident in your life when you felt truly seen? In what ways do you intentionally seek to fully see others?
3. How do you think your church could work to create the possibility of having a world without prisons?
4. Mr. Debora describes art as a way of healing. How do you see yourself and others as works of art? How does that outlook shape what can be redesigned, recreated or reimagined? 
5. Father Boyle lives with the notion that everybody is unshakeably good and that we belong to each other. If this idea was broadly adopted, how would it change our world? How would it help create “communities of cherished belonging”? 
6. Where do you see God in the work of Homeboy Ministries? How might you or your church create radical places of hope, belonging and connectedness?

Transcript

Coming soon.