On Kinship

“Peace and justice are byproducts of kinship.”

This past Tuesday, the Notre Dame campus was blessed with the opportunity to hear Father Greg Boyle, S.J. give a talk on Joy & Hope in the Hood. He spoke about his work with current and former gang members as founder and executive director of Homeboy Industries. Father Greg stressed “exquisite mutuality,” or kinship, as the purest and most necessary element of relationships.

In his ministry, Father Greg confronts the task of obliterating the illusory notion of “us” and “them,” and he challenges us to do the same. How do we overcome these constructions of our imagination? Through kinship.

The summer before my junior year of high school, I went on a service trip to El Salvador, where my group worked on building a school in a remote, impoverished community. During our time there, my friend Katherine embraced Father Greg’s exquisite mutuality in a beautifully organic moment.

After a long day of working on the school structure side by side with the children who would soon be learning there, Katherine noticed that the bare feet of one of the girls were completely caked with dirt. Without hesitation, Katherine grabbed a bucket, sat the girl down on a brick, and proceeded to wash her feet.

There was no “us” and “them” when Katherine stooped to rinse those little feet clean. There was no ulterior motive; desire for praise or a “photo op” were the furthest things from her mind. She wasn’t even aware that this picture was taken until much later. The adult chaperone who captured this moment described this small moment as one of the most beautiful things she has ever witnessed. When asked about it, Katherine humbly shrugged and explained that she acted upon a need that she saw she could meet.

Kinship is not a one-time action, but a continuous way of life. Father Greg urges us to be “absolutely confident in the slow work of God that begins with relationship.” We are all in need of healing, he says. The ways we try to separate ourselves from one another are just excuses we use to insist that we don’t belong to each other.

We are our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers. This may come in the form of both literally and metaphorically getting on our hands and knees and washing away layers of dirt from one another’s feet. It may be something as radical as laying one’s life down for the sake of another, like the man in the red bandana in the South Tower thirteen years ago. It may be as simple as providing a friend with the chance to be vulnerable. The opportunities to create Christ-like moments of grace are as numerous as the moments in a day.

Father Greg suggests that peace and justice stem from kinship. How will you embrace exquisite mutuality?