Book Review: Tattoos on the Heart Greg Boyle

I thought I'd add a book a review I recently posted on some other sites, the book is called Tattoos on the Heart by Fr. Greg Boyle.  I loved it so much I just had to share it, I read it on Kindle so if you have one I can really share it with you. ;-) 


Fr. Greg Boyle tells us in the preface that this is not a memoir and there is no narrative chronology, and it is not a “how to deal with gangs” book. Then what we are left with are relationships that matter to him with the people he has walked side by side with at the Delores Mission in Boyle Heights, the gang capital of Los Angeles. This book profoundly touches me, it makes me want to do better, to give everyone the benefit of doubt, to forgive my perceived enemies; to love more and complain less. His stories of ministering to gang members shift my perception of those around me. While reading it I find myself laughing out loud, and in the next moment crying because I care deeply about the Homies and realizing that losing someone with so much potential hurts us all. Between the lines I hear God speak, “Remember who you are, an ambassador for Christ, My hands on earth, and a light in the darkness. Don’t give up when it hurts to love, risk it….”




There is one recollection of Fr. Boyle’s that brings tears to my eyes; he is just starting out as a young priest on a trip to Bolivia. He is asked to bring Mass to the village of Tirani, where the Indians only speak Quechua and he doesn’t even speak Spanish. He knows he is inadequate to the task even with a translator, but in the depths of his hopelessness God meets him there. In this book God meets us and we are loved and changed.



I know when I’ve read something great, it’s when I start worrying about how many quotes I’ve underlined, but I’m not alone, on Kindle I can see that others have underlined excessively too. I’ll leave you with one warning, there is, ahem, a certain amount of “coarse language” and Fr. Boyle’s colorful banter with the homeboys might offend some. Don’t let the language stop you, this is a must read and I’ll be reading this book again.

Here is one of my favorite quotes " Suddenly, her shame meets mine. For when Carmen walked through that door, I had mistaken her for an interruption."

Silly Greetings from Sister Gilby

Hope Rocks: A Lesson in Letting Go

htthttpFor the last year I’ve been upset because my notebook computer has been glitching, and freezing, and taking forever to start up. I mainly use it to stay in touch with my family and friends on facebook—checking out what interests them, and sharing what interesting things I’ve found. I also play games and write my first drafts on it. That frees up our PC for my business and John’s art business stuff. It also limits us from getting a computer virus on the PC.


Fed up, last week I took the notebook into have diagnostic run on it and the news was bad—bad sectors, I would need a new hard-drive and then have to reprogram it. When we counted up the cost to do this, it made more sense to buy a new one. So I found one for a great price and bought it through E-bates, a program my sister told me about that gives you cash back if you use their website. Then John mentioned a friend of ours might want the other computer, because he likes to fix them and he doesn’t have a notebook. We picked up the old one, and I started removing personal stuff and non-essential programs to get it ready to send to our friend. Wouldn’t you know it, after removing everything and restarting the computer, it worked just fine! At first I wanted to kick myself for wasting money on a new one, but today I had an Ah Ha moment—if I hadn’t been willing to give it away I never would have deleted all the programs that were causing the conflict! Isn’t that like our life, we hold on to our problems, fret about them, complain about them, not willing to let go and give them to God who can clean us up, fix us and make us like new….


Here’s a little bit of hope for you: Next time your “heart-drive” is glitching, freezing up and not wanting to work right; give it away to God and other people and enjoy the blessing of a new one.

Hope rocks :-)

To learn more about Hope Rocks go to  http://www.woodstocklily.com/

Pretzel's Christmas Gift

Wow! What's this?

It smells good!!

Grab it.....

Mmmmmm, sniff, sniff, mmmmm....

Yea! Pig ear...yummy, the perfect Christmas gift ;-)

Merry Christmas

“God’s gifts put man’s best dreams to shame.” Elizabeth Barrett Browning


I love gifts, giving them and receiving them, finding the perfect thing to say in a card and sending them to loved ones. Then there are the gifts that God sends in unexpected ways, a clear day in the middle of rain storms arriving just in time so that you can visit with your family. Hearing from someone you haven’t seen for awhile. All those little places where God meets you and you know you are loved. This is a picture of one gift I received from God earlier this month, not packaged in red and green, but beautiful none the less.

I call this one an Angel Hawk, because the wind was blowing the feathers up like angel wings ;-)

Tonight we remember the best gift of all, that God became man and lived among us because He loved us. Merry Christmas and love to you.....

Never Enough

There is something that those of us who have used drugs understand and it is this: the first time you get really high you will do whatever it takes to experience that one perfect high again. You will use more and larger doses chasing the elusive high, but it is never enough. The same thing pertains to drug money, people have this idea that all drug dealers get rich, what they don’t know is that drug money is an illusion just as much as the high the drug creates. Sure there are some dealers and smugglers that become wealthy and hang on to their money through violence and corruption, but on the whole most people in the drug world use their money to buy more drugs.


In California we are voting on legalizing marijuana and taxing it as a way to balance our budget. Proponents claim that there is so much money to be made off of marijuana that it will solve our statewide deficit. They also seem to think that it will stop the criminal activity that comes with illegal marijuana sales and distribution. Sounds like an easy answer, but if you look behind the smoke and mirrors you’ll see major flaws in this idea. Legalization would have to be world wide for it to stop criminals from robbing, maiming and killing people to sell it. As long as there is one country that wants it and can’t get it, there will be someone willing to break the law to acquire it. Also people who are loaded make poor decisions, such as driving under the influence, and stealing to get money to buy more drugs. Just look at Mendocino County, whose economy is dependant on marijuana, they allow growing pot for “personal use” and they have had an upsurge in criminal activity. Families are leaving, and users are pushing the boundaries when it comes to how much is enough: one plant, a yard full, or a warehouse is never enough.

As Californians we have tried to balance our budget in other easy ways. The lottery was supposed to help our schools and yet we are in worse shape now, shutting schools, teachers being laid off, and classrooms without basic necessities. I asked one teacher how the money is used, and she told me that she hasn’t seen the money recently; it was only during the first few years that they received small checks to help the classrooms. A few years ago we passed additional Indian gaming to bring in more cash. Where did that money go? Are we better off now?

To look deeper into the problem of legalizing marijuana, we only have to look at how the State implemented the use of medical marijuana. What sounded like a compassionate implementation of a law to give some long suffering cancer patient’s access was turned into a glorified candy store for drug addicts where anyone with an ache, pain or bout of sadness can get Dr. Feelgood to write them a prescription. The last time you had surgery did your doctor give you a handful of poppy seeds and tell you to grow your own morphine for pain management? And yet that is how medical marijuana is being handled. One reason is that some people think that marijuana is a benign drug, and yet when it is smoked or ingested it alters reality, perception, judgment and reaction times, and in some people causes paranoia. Why isn’t it being treated like any other prescription drug--picked up at a pharmacy with a legitimate prescription? And just as important, why do we pass laws in our States that go against our Federal laws? Think of our law’s as stop signs; some people are going to run them, but most will obey the law keeping themselves and others safe.

We need to stop before we make another poor choice. Let’s do the right thing this time. It isn’t that we lack money: we have some of the wealthiest people in the world living here, and we are talented and resourceful. Wouldn’t it make more sense to get rid of government waste; make better decisions on how to use what we have, and create jobs? Take it from someone who has battled addiction: the easy way always seems like the right way but in the end it is never enough.

Message from Heaven

Mom was gone. My husband John and I sat by her bedside in the hospital as she took her last breath. Gone in an instant was my prayer partner, my friend and the one person who shared my sense of humor. Prayed out, cried out, numb, the following weeks I just put one foot in front of the other and went about, with check list in hand, doing what needed to be done. Memorial-check, Rosary-check, funeral-check, burial-check and then onto pack up her house; to do this item on my list I needed to find some tiny zip-lock bags to store individual pieces of her jewelry. At home I looked through our office, tearing it apart, and finally searching through a plastic cart stashed in the corner filled with miscellaneous junk. Reaching inside one of the shelves I pulled out a small flat green box and a padded envelope. My breath caught as I recognized the envelope, inside was a photo album with snapshots from my childhood—an album that my step-mother had sent the year before, one that I thought John had accidentally thrown out. Unfortunately, the garbage truck had already left by the time we realized what had happened. John had been as devastated as I was, imagining my childhood memories buried under piles of trash at the dump. No amount of apologies could take away the sting I felt each time I thought about the lost photos. Now, holding the missing photo album I remembered crying to mom about the pictures, and how she had searched through her own albums to find out if she had any copies. When she found similar pictures she sent them right away with a funny note cautioning me not to throw them out.

That was my mom going the extra mile and always making me laugh. Smiling, I looked down at the other item in my hand, the small green box, trying to remember where I had seen it before. Opening the top flap I realized it was a card, one of those recordable cards, I pushed the button and heard my mom’s voice singing “Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday dear Pammmm, Happy Birthday to you!”  I could just see mom laughing, as I sheepishly apologized to John for accusing him of throwing the album away. Somehow even from heaven she found a way to make me laugh.

This is a follow up to what I wrote in an ealier blog called loss, click on the link to read it....

mom ;-)