House Calls Podcast

Finding Strength Through Kindness

With guest Father Greg Boyle,

Jesuit Priest & Founder of Homeboy Industries

Hello and welcome to House Calls. I'm Vivek Murthy, and I have the honor of serving as U.S. Surgeon General. I'd like to introduce you to Father Greg Boyle, a Jesuit priest and founder of Homeboy Industries, the largest gang rehabilitation and reentry program in the country. We believe conversations can be healing. And today, we'll be talking about living with compassion for ourselves and one another, because we're all going through invisible struggles. This episode will soften your heart. Hi everyone. Thanks for tuning in to House Calls. My guest today is a man whose life is a testament to service, compassion and bringing people together. Father Greg Boyle is a native of Los Angeles and a Jesuit priest. Forty years ago, he served a parish with the highest concentration of gangs in the city, and this led him to founding Homeboy Industries. Over three decades, Homeboy Industries has provided jobs and critical services to thousands of men and women who have reimagined their lives with a focus on healing from trauma. Father Greg is also the author of three books and the recipient of numerous awards for his work. Having heard Father Greg speak before, I've been awed at the narrative of hope, faith and redemption his work provides. I can also see how hard it is. He has helped thousands, but he has also buried more than 250 individuals who did not make it. Yet he never gives up, which I find deeply inspiring. I wanted to talk with Father Greg about how he takes people from being deeply divided to working together, how he builds both trust and shared purpose, and how he creates resilience in the wake of trauma. Father Greg told me his approach includes assuming the good in people and cherishing them so they feel connected. It sounds so simple, but the real art is in putting this philosophy into practice. And Father Greg is a master in the art of creating a world in which people feel they belong. In this conversation, I hope you'll find ways we can help each other, feel a sense of belonging, even when the world feels divided. Father Greg, it is such an honor to have this conversation with you today. Thank you for making time to chat.

It's an honor to be with you.

And I have got to tell you and you know, I know we we talked and we decided we'd call each other by our first names, which which to me, I love because I'm informal. But also I, I feel like we're friends already, even though this is the first time we're meeting. Because I've been following your work for a long time and having a chance to talk to you today for me is like meeting a hero, somebody I've admired for a very long time. And there are speeches of yours and that I've heard that have like literally moved me to tears. And I told myself I will try to keep it together during this conversation. But I just want to start by thanking you for being such an inspiration to me and to millions of people out there who often ask the question "Is it possible to make the world a better place?" And you clearly tell us the answer is yes.

Well, thank you, Vivek. I really appreciate that. And the feeling is so mutual. And I want to thank you for your amazing service to our country. So I'm a big follower and fan.

Part of what has been so inspiring about your story has been, of course, the work that you've done with Homeboy Industries, which, in my own, you know, interpretation of the work, having just read about it and admired it from a distance. Homeboy Industries feels like such a story of hope and redemption and faith in many ways. And I was curious if you could share a little bit with me about how you got started on this path. What led you here? Father Greg Boyle] Well, I was. So Homeboy Industries is 34 years old, and and I've been working with gang members for almost 40 years. And so so I was pastor of a parish that had the highest concentration of gang activity in all of Los Angeles. So we had eight gangs at war with each other. I buried my first young person killed because of this sadness in 1988. I buried my 254th two weeks ago, a young man, 14 years old, named Jeremy and not all from that community, but I know a lot of gang members, so I'm always getting asked to do this. And so so we did things, you know, we started a school and started a jobs program. And now we have ten social enterprises and and we're the largest gang intervention rehab and reentry program on the planet. So about 15,000 folks a year walk through our doors wanting to reimagine their lives. Our shift was probably mid by year 15 or so. We shifted from being job centric, though we still do that, of course, to kind of more healing and acknowledging that, you know, traumatized folks may well be inclined to cause trauma. But it's equally true that cherished people will be able to find their way to the joy there is in cherishing themselves and others. So we kind of shifted to a healing-centric operation. And so therapy and groups and but it's really the culture of the place, of the culture of beloved belonging that really holds people, provides a safe place that can infuse hope for folks for whom hope is foreign. They can everybody here is sort of an anthem of resilience and and learns the truth of who they are, you know, that they're exactly right and exactly what God had in mind when God made them. So, so it's really about everybody comes with what, through the doors here, with what psychologists would call a disorganized attachment. You know, mom was frightening or frightened, and you really can't calm yourself down if you've never been soothed. So trying to address the trauma and the damage, delivering mental health services and then addressing above all the lethal absence of hope, you know. Create a place of of tenderness where people really feel valued and seen and people feel a little less invisible at the end of the experience. Hmm.

That is beautiful. And I know that you've been working on this for years and have built up an extraordinary community of young people who have found healing and community through the family, really, that you you have created. I'm curious also, how does somebody come to discover Homeboy Industries? If I'm in L.A. and I'm in a gang? What path leads me to you? Father Greg Boyle] Well, there are 120,000 gang members in Los Angeles County, and my guess is there isn't a single one at this point who doesn't know who we are and what we do. And so we don't exist for those who need help. We exist for those who want it. So you have to walk through the door. It's a little bit like any other, a drug rehab or alcohol rehab center. You really have to want it. Now, people want it on certain levels of longing, you know, so, so like an AA, any AA meeting anywhere, you know, you have somebody who's 20 years sober, somebody who's 20 minutes sober and somebody who's drunk, but they're there, you know. So that's kind of the feel of this place. So people are at varying stages on a continuum of willingness, but they're here, you know, so, you know, and for 40 years I've been in every detention facility, so I hand out my card. So everybody knows this place. And when they're ready, they they walk in the door. With gang recovery, it takes what it takes. You know, it can be the birth of a son, the death of a friend, a long stretch in prison, people being tired of being tired, whatever. It leads them to walk through the door. But once they walk through the door, it's really red carpet and ticker tape parade, you know, where we we quite welcome them..

One of the things that I find really striking about the work you're doing, Greg, is that there are these deep divides that you have been working to bridge for decades now in L.A. County between gangs and as is tangible is that is I sometimes think about the broader divides we're dealing with as a country and about how sometimes they can feel like we're warring factions pitted against each other in a way that makes our lives more stressful, but also makes it harder to come together during difficult times. And I'm curious, as you reflect on your experience of bringing people together across very deep divides, how do we begin that process of coming together? How do we start that process of healing and quiet the noise so that we can finally start to see each other for who we really are?

You know, Homeboy is a model of something, and and we do what we do and we help as we help. But we're kind of the front porch of the house everybody wants to live in, you know. So a place of kinship and connection where separation is really an illusion, you know, and and so oftentimes, you know. But I think that's equally true in the whole life of the country. You have to be proximate. You have to put yourself in the vicinity of other people. So, I mean, systems change when people change and people change when they feel cherished. And and I think it's the only answer in the end, you know, that, that with every breath we take, it's the thing that that brings us close together. So the model here is enemies work side by side with each other, you know, from folks from rival gangs, guys who used to shoot at each other, but then you put them in the proximity of each other and you foster and create a community that's tender where people, you know, see each other. And then there's something that happens. People aren't working things out and nobody's trying to win the argument. And you can't demonize people, you know, so and you can't know them unless you're proximate. So it's a way of how do we inch our selves closer to each other? And once you see people, you know, like the Buddhists say, oh, nobly born, remember who you really are. So you start to remind each other of our our true selves in loving and and a love that never stops loving. So on the one hand, it sounds kind of simplistic. On the other hand, I don't know any other answer that kind of draws people closer to each other. I mean, we have strategies for that, you know, about listening and about respect and but in the end, you know, there aren't good people or bad people. I mean, everybody's unspeakably good and we belong to each other. That's where I start. Now, once having said that, then how do we walk each other home? How do we love each other into wholeness? And and our divisions just mean that we're we're, you know, that there's that we're broken. And how do we make friends with our own wound so that we will never be tempted to despise the wounded? So we're trying to have some kind of affectionate awe for the other and and kind of reverence for how complex people are. And and we're in camps. But I don't think these camps are are all that different than than the warring gangs that I encountered, you know, in the mid-eighties when I showed up in Boyle Heights. So they're you know, they don't have it's not about conflict. It's just about it's about something else, you know, and So I think everything is about something else and gang members have taught me that. So, you know, if you want to address gang violence, address the lethal absence of hope that undergirds it, and then watch what happens to the violence. The homies always talk about finding the thorn underneath. Hmm. So you wouldn't want to just calm the cough of a lung cancer patient. You would want to address the lung cancer because the cough is the indicator, you know, but the lung cancer is the thing that needs addressing. Something like that.

I couldn't agree with you more. I mean, you're pointing to, I think, a just a profound challenge. We have an approach in our country, which is that we so often alleviate symptoms and ignore root causes. Hence what you're talking about with an absence of hope, I think is so powerful, because it has seemed to me in my in my own limited life experience, that the absence of hope, of relationship and of love, these give rise to all manner of illness and not just physical illness, but they lead to violence. They lead to, you know, other forms of manifestations of despair. They can contribute to addiction. And the but sometimes it's easier to talk about how to fund a treatment center than it is to say, "We have to do that, but we also have to look at these deeper root causes." So I couldn't agree more with what you're saying. I do want to pick up the one on one thing you mentioned, which is that and this is what I think is so striking about your work. You've taken a population of individuals who have experienced deep trauma and who many you would think have all the world, all the reason, I should say to not trust that, you know, a new way of going about doing things or a new community could truly make things different. When I think about the world we're living in right now, I worry that people look at hope and relationship and love and they think of these as soft and think about them as not serious solutions or not the things that are really going to make a big difference. But what do you say to people who are skeptical that a relationship, hope, connection, that these things can actually help us heal?

Well, you know, there's a homie here who works here who always says it's the relationship that heals in. And I think that is that's the essence. And I think that's also our experience. We need look no further than, you know, how what softens people from their hard embrace stances is, is relationship, you know, and once you know people that the homies here will say because they've all been in prison for great lengths of time, they'll say, "We're used to being watched, but we're not used to being seen." And then one said to me, the other day, "If you see me, I'll never forget what I look like." And it and it's a kind of a beautiful sense of how we are reflective to each other and how we at Homeboy we're allergic to holding the bar up and asking folks to measure up. We we just want to show up and hold the mirror up. And the great thing of that, of course, is that it's there's no need to disqualify ourselves. I mean, if if one is the proud owner of a pulse, then you can be in relationship, you can connect, you can receive people, you can allow your heart to be altered. You can let yourself be reached by another. And so it doesn't require that only gang members can, you know, be in relationship with other gang members to help them. No, it's a human thing. And otherwise we it becomes a highly, you know, specialized, narrow thing. And it isn't. It's a human thing. And so everybody can receive and everybody can allow themselves to be reached by somebody else. But the truth is, that's our own deepest longing as human beings. So, so when people might scoff at that as as soft, you know, they just need to take just one more breath and they'll know that that's that's their hope. That's their hope. That's that's the human longing is is to be in relationship and in community. And and that's how we heal each other. And none of us are well until all of us are well. Hmm. And and that's how we kind of walk each other to a greater relational wholeness, I guess.

I couldn't agree more. There's nothing more powerful I've found than authentic relationships in our life. And there's really nothing weak about that. You know, I was thinking, Greg, about a quote that you that you shared actually during a commencement address. It's words that continue to inspire me today. You said, "Only the soul that ventilates the world with kindness has any chance of changing the world. And I have thought about that line so many times about the power of kindness, the need to create a culture of kindness. When I talk to people around the country, one of the things that they say most often is that the world somehow seems meaner, like we seem to treat each other less well, whether it's on social media or in person that we're less concerned about our neighbor. Sometimes we don't even know our neighbors. But I'm curious, though, if you think about kindness as a source of power, if you will, how do we make the world more kind?

You know in a previous life, I was a chaplain at Folsom Prison, and I remember the prisoners always when they would speak of the guards and the guards, when they spoke of the prisoners, they would say, I don't want them to mistake my kindness for weakness. Well, when we move beyond the mind we have, we discover that kindness is the only strength there is. And in fact, kindness is the only non-delusional response to everything, which is to say every other response is delusional. So, you know, you want to get to a place where you go, where you're really anchored in that truth, that kindness is the only strength there is. And then once you do it once, that's your practice and once that's the thing you work at and if that's part of your intentionality, you will discover, one discovers that that's, you know, that is in fact true that that there's strength there's strength in that kindness and and then then you explore how everything is and, you know, is delusional. Every other response is delusional. Our rage, our anger, our a annoyance, our impatience and it and then you catch yourself and you say, that's right. Kindness is the only thing that isn't delusional. And then all of a sudden you are really inhabiting your own nobility and dignity and the strength that comes from inhabiting that. So it's experiential, I think. I don't think anybody who's ever tried it on for size doesn't find it to be the source of strength. And so ventilating the world with kindness and tenderness and tenderness is like here we say that love is if love is the answer, well, community is the context, but tenderness is the methodology. It's it's the only way that your love can no longer stay in your heart or your head or the ether. It becomes connective tissue. And becoming connective tissue is the thing that that joins us as earlier you were addressing the the great disparity and division, what joins us, in fact, may well be the thing that people are suspicious of as being soft, or, and and quite the opposite is true. And I think and I would my challenge would be anybody who suspects that it's soft, try it. And then you'll discover that it's not about how things turn out. It's about how you do, how you meet these things and lean into these things. And then suddenly that's a strong person who's not crippled by fear or or is not tentative in the face of adversity.

Can you give me some advice on on how I get to that mindset like and I'll give you a practical situation, like, I want to respond with kindness to every situation because I believe what you believe that not only is kindness a source of strength and power, but the opposite actually erodes us from the inside. But I look at situations like what is happening today in Ukraine. I look at the the terrible loss of life there. I look at the atrocities being perpetrated on innocent people. And there's a part of me which feels angry and frustrated. It doesn't leave me feeling good to feel angry and frustrated. So can you help me figure out how how do we grapple with these scenarios that may legitimately cause us anger while recognizing that that anger can also be corrosive and harmful to us?

Well, you know, it. Nobody's ever met a healthy treatment plan that was born of a bad diagnosis. And so so part of the issue in all of this, I think, is to be anchored in a correct diagnosis. Hmm. None of us are well, until all of us are well and nobody well or whole or healthy invades Ukraine. I mean, so you can, and personally demonizing is the opposite of truth. So you can get to a place where you say, nobody healthy does this. And, and, and I, I find that helpful because it keeps you from demonizing anybody. So here again, gang members have helped me with that. There's a clarity here, you know, about behavior. And so we don't have to demonize anybody. Nobody here is tripped up by behavior. We know that violence is a is a language. And so you ask yourself, what language is that violence speaking? Nobody is is demonized, but that doesn't mean they're not stopped. People need to be stopped. And there's a clarity of love that stops people. And so, you know, here we do see a great deal of people using meth and and not who work here, but who come here or they've unraveled a little bit and they're not well and and they haven't chosen this mental illness; it's chosen them. So at no point do we fixate on the behavior and say this is horrendous behavior or denounce the behavior. You know, we know that the behavior is the language is pointing beyond itself. So what's it pointing to? What's what's our diagnosis? And I think that's important because there's a difference between moral outrage and moral compass. And we ought not to settle for moral outrage, because that just shakes my fist at racism or at homophobia or white supremacy or or Vladimir Putin. But moral compass gets underneath. That that begins at a place that I think is essential, which is everybody's unshakably, good, and we all belong to each other. And now we begin, we can say, well, what what language is that behavior speaking and and if I denounce something and and and settle only for moral outrage, then it's about me. But if I hold out for moral compass, then it's about us. And then I find the thorn underneath. And then I can make a better diagnosis. And I'm not tripped up by the cough. I want to get to the lung cancer. So it's, you know, it's it's more it feels more, you know, for lack of a better word, more sophisticated. It feels more reverent for complexity. And if I just if I just get stuck in the anger of it, then I'm only pointing out that this is egregious behavior rather than pointing the way to real solutions and clarity. You know, I'm I'm proud of our country because I feel like we don't have to demonize anybody. We just say we won't pay for this invasion. It feels clear, adult, you know, and and I think that's the way to approach things is to be lovingly clear. And it doesn't mean you allow like here it happens, you know, you don't allow somebody to come in and and act violently. You know, you lovingly walk them out and we say, "We love you and you can't come in here, you know, until you go to rehab or you return to taking your meds" or whatever the the clarity is. But clarity is is no less loving than the kind of, you know, affirming language. You know, it's it's equally loving as as you know, you are with your kids. And it's we understand that, you know, at no point do you cut yourself off from your children. You you you lovingly say, "Well, let me be clear here about this behavior." At no point does it touch their goodness or upset the bond. It's just clear.

That part you said about demonizing, being destructive and not being the cure, I think, gosh, that is so important and has so many implications. I think for us domestically as a country, as we think about how we've become so polarized and often compelled or prompted to demonize one another if we have different views or if we're different political parties or different faiths. And what you're saying, I think, is so clear and, compelling, that there is no circumstance where demonizing helps us heal. You know, Greg, I want to change gears for a moment to talk about Mario. Mario's story is such an inspiring one to me. And I raise him because you mentioned that you've lost 250, more than 250 young men and women over the years. But I think you also, based on the wonderful remarks you've made and books you've written, found so many inspiring stories as well that I think have inspired many of us. Could you tell us a little bit about Mario and why he has inspired you so much over the years?

Well, I think, you know, his is a long story, but it's, you know, he's heavily tattooed, so he's the most tattooed individuals ever worked here, you know, and I can remember once being at an airport with him and people were kind of recoiling as the two of us were walking in the airport and mothers were clutching their kids a little more closely. And and I was startled by it because he is the example for me of, you know, the soul that ventilates the world with tenderness. It is is the kind of the noble presence in the world. And he embodies that. And, you know, if you know his story, his story if his story had been a flame, you'd have to keep your distance. Otherwise you'd get scorched. And I know that I would not have survived a single day of his childhood. So then then you look at him and you go, Wow, he's he manages to be this kind of presence in the world. And and there's some I mean, so many folks who who fall into that kind of category of of people who have altered my heart and have shown me the way. And that's not to romanticize things. That's to be with to be clear eyed and to see people who who are no longer strangers to themselves and who chose to transform their pain so they didn't have to transmit it.

You have done such a remarkable job, I think, in in a sense, giving people their childhoods back. And what I mean by that is you've helped give people the the upbringing, the support and love that I know many of them didn't have in as much quantity as they deserved when they were children. And I would love to ask you some parental advice. You know, my kids are small, they're four and five, but I know they'll grow up quickly. And one of the things that worries me the most, Greg, is that my kids will not know how deeply and intrinsically valuable they are. I worry that they may at some point think that their worth, as human beings, is dependent on other people's approval, on how much money or power they have, on how good their grades are, on what kind of possessions they have, and that they may forget that they have intrinsic worth that their capacity to love is their source of worth. And I just wonder as as somebody who has in a sense, been a father figure to hundreds, if not thousands of people, what advice would you give to me and other parents out there about how to raise children who know how to give and receive love, who know their worth?

How how do kids know that they're valuable? Not by proving that they're valuable, but by being valued. And and so the you know, we value people. We treasure people. We cherish people loving, caring adults who who pay attention. You know, that that's kind of the the antidote to just about everything. So people you know, people always ask me about preventing kids from joining gangs, for example. And that's a complicated thing. But what's the main kind of antidote to that? Well, loving, caring adult who pays attention. And and that feels kind of, again, returning to an earlier refrain. It feels soft. And yet it's it's there's there isn't anything more powerful And yet there's there isn't anything more powerful in the world than people being valued and cherished. And and then it won't matter if later on down the line, somebody says, no, you need to prove your value. Well, they already know they're valuable because they've been valued and and loved and cherished and and people and you delighted in them and and then they will discover that they are a delight. And that comes from not telling them how delightful they are, but that really does come from delighting in them. And that's a powerful thing that has a lot of kind of biblical notions, too. You know, where where in the Old Testament has a name for God's people, which is "my delight," you know, we don't believe that in our core, but it's it's so what could be more radically true than than the fact that we are a delight and, but it's a practice. I find here it's hard to do, you know, and it's not a once and for all decision you make it really, you choose it with every breath you take to delight in the person who's sitting right in front of you. Otherwise, you've moved on to the next thing. You're wondering about your 2:00 appointment. instead of delighting in the person who's in front of you. And delighting really means to pay attention, to bring yes. Some kind of attention to what's right in front of you.

And that is so important, I think, especially as I've struggled with this myself, just in terms of being fully present in the moment, paying attention to my, you know, kids, my family to my friends, etc. Sometimes my mind floats somewhere else, work this, that, the other, my devices. But you couldn't be more right that sometimes there's so much richness, sometimes in front of us that we miss out on because we are not fully present. You know, I know that our time is coming to a close, but I was hoping I could ask you a few, maybe fun quick questions. One is, and I've heard so much over the years about the amazing products and pastries and other food items that you have at the bakery and at Homeboy Bakery and Homegirl Cafe. And I was curious, do you have a favorite sweet item that you like from the cafe, something you might recommend to others?

Well, our coffee cake is kind of famous, but I've been doing I've lost 30 pounds so I've been doing kind of a keto thing. Sort of semi-modified, you know, and intermittent fasting. So not doing a lot of coffee cake at the moment, but I highly recommend it. So yeah, I mean and then we have a division called Homeboy Grocery where, you know, chips and salsa and guacamole and and so and you know, the chilaquiles that we have in the Homegirl Cafe are exceptional. And so there's a lot of things you know, that I nowadays wave at with great admiration but I've been trying to stay away from that kind of stuff.

Well, I've been trying to, you know, stay off sweets. I have many sweet teeth, as I often tell my friends that have been trying to stay away. But next time I'm in L.A., I am going to use your advice as my excuse to get some coffee cake.

They give great tours here. So please, if you're ever in L.A., you will not regret getting a tour because they walk around in the hairnet in the bakery and you kind of you just you there's as a Homie says there's a an aroma not just in the bakery, but the whole place. There's a kind of a sense of people are connected and and in love with each other. And it's really a palpable affection that is quite contagious. So I'd love for you to come here, Vivek, and and and catch it.

Oh, I would love that. And I just would love if there was some way we could create that, that culture you have in Homeboy Industries, in our country and around the world. I mean, that just is so healing. And speaking of advice, you know, you've given advice that has been so helpful to so many. Is there a piece of advice you've received from one of the people who, you know is served by Homeboy who serves the community? It's something that has stuck with you over the years.

And so there there was a homie here named Robert who he has a saying and he always says, you know, if in fact I'm staring at, I have a picture of him right over here just by chance. And he said, "If you're humble, you'll never stumble." And I remember he had told me he went to go see his parole officer and he said, Wish me luck. I'm meeting with my parole officer. Well, he came back. He was just kind of crestfallen and and he told me this whole story and he was just humiliated in front of all these other parole officers by his parole officer. And and I and I thought, wow, you know, did you say anything? Did you respond? Did you get defensive? And he said, Nah. He said, if you're humble, you'll never stumble. And he didn't say anything in the face of it. And I found it so extraordinary in terms of its wisdom and it's being anchored in in the truth. He knew he knew who he was, and nobody could nobody could touch how valuable he was, no matter how humiliated he felt. And he even had this experience of leaning into the sting of it and into the humiliation of it and and even got to a place where he could savor and even relish it. And if you're humble, you'll never stumble. And I've never forgotten that because I thought that's how you you come out the other side where you're really humbly loving and and it's not about you. You just kind of you have a light grasp on life and and you're free. He was a free man.

You deal with so many serious issues and so much trauma that you're helping people heal from. Yet it feels like you find joy, you know, in your work and in your days. And I'm curious, when was the last time that you laughed so hard you cried?

Well, it happens a lot, you know, And the other day I had a Homie here named Trayvon who was just got out of prison, 23 years in prison. So I write on a piece of paper, you know, he qualifies to be in our program I said “Hey, how'd you hear about Homeboy?" And he said, "Oh, some female told me." And then he said, "Yeah, You fathered all her children." And I stopped writing. I said, “Say what now? He he stopped and he caught himself. He goes, "Wait a minute. That's not right. Oh no, you baptized all her children.” Oh my God and the two of us, we just fell out of chairs. I ripped up the piece of paper. I said, "You start tomorrow. You don't even have to drug test, you know." So the moral of that story is, if you make me laugh from the stomach, you're hired.

Oh, my God. What a funny story.

Every day there's a million of those, you know, which kind of tempers all the hard stuff, you know, as long as you can laugh. Our life is meant to be joyful. So we need to walk each other towards the joy.

Hmmm. Yes. And I think that's, I think, you know, for so many people, myself included, at times, that's one of the challenges in today, which is how to find hope in a world that sometimes can feel dark and despondent. And it sounds like you have found that hope and that the people that you serve and that you work with.

I wouldn't trade my life for anybody's.

Mm hmm. Oh, my gosh. Well, I know that the people who you have served over the years are so grateful because they say so. I know that people like me who you've inspired over the years, are also so grateful. And I just want to thank you again for that. Just this conversation, but for being who you are, you know, a bright light during sometimes dark times. And you've given me so much wisdom to think about and to hold on to today. And I just so appreciate you, Greg.

Thank you, Vivek. I feel the same.

Thanks for joining this conversation with Father Greg Boyle. Join me for the next episode of House Calls with Dr. Vivek Murthy. Wishing you all health and happiness.