You're in the Right Place

Excerpt from "Father Greg Boyle on the Calling of Delight," On Being, Feb. 28, 2013:

by Rui Molar

I read once that, you know, the Beatitudes, the original language, was not "Blessed are" or "Happy are" the single-hearted or those who work for peace or struggle for justice. The more precise translation is "You're in the right place if …" And I like that better, you know, because it turns out the Beatitudes is not a spirituality. It's a geography. You know, it tells you where to stand. You're in the right place if you're over here.

So, you know, I come from Hollywood where we say, "location, location, location," and it's about location. You really have to go out. But knowing that service is the hallway that leads to the ballroom, you know, you don't want to have service be the end. It's the beginning. It's getting you to the ballroom, which is the place of kinship, the place of mutuality, that place that everybody knows here.

When you go there, you go who is receiving from whom? Who's the service provider? Who's the service recipient? You know, you hear yourself say that. I know I'm here at the soup kitchen, but, my God, I'm getting more from this. You know, everybody knows this. But it doesn't happen unless you break out, you know, and fear is just fueled by ignorance. So you have to break out of our ignorance. We have to go to the place that frightens us, you know?