Tattoos on the Heart Book Review Essays

Tattoos on the Heart Book Review Essays

Tattoos on the Heart Book Review
The book I read to better understand and gain sympathy for returning citizens is Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion (ISBN 978–1439153154) by Father Gregory Boyle, S.J. $14 can afford this 240–page autobiography about a Jesuit priest serving one of the most troubled neighborhoods in the most unique way.
Fr. Boyle, ordained as a priest in 1982, began his work in Los Angeles, California in 1988 after noticing how the rampant criminal activities were breaking apart the community and families. Through relentless effort, "boundless compassion," and the help of some key people, he was able to found Homeboy Industries. The youth program provides employment and support services to former ... Show more content on Helpwriting.net ...Although it is obvious from the title of the book that the chapter on compassion may be the core of this book, I found that the chapters Slow Work and Kinship were most meaningful.
The characteristic of slow work repeats in the two types of stories told by Fr. Boyle. The one that grabs the readers' attention more describes the lives of people in detail and with resolution. Whether the youth he met ends up going to a jail or finds a job and a home in Homeboy Industries, we know to an extent what their stories are. We can understand and imagine the lives of the youth from childhood, the problems they faced, the way they went about handling them, and what Fr. Boyle thought and did during those times. The other type consists of brief mentions of the people Fr. Boyle ran into. He can only tell us what happened and what he hoped at the time, but we are left without fuller stories of the people. These unsatisfying accounts, however, are proof of the author's intention for writing this book. We are not supposed to read about the lives and, really, the challenging situations of the youth and attempt to find solutions. Especially as a stereotypical student studying at Georgetown University, I tend to think I need to fix the problem and make the world a better place. But the purpose of the book is really to teach me to have compassion. So, the readers can notice from the two types of stories Fr. Boyle

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