How do you fight despair and learn to meet the
world with a loving heart? How do you overcome shame? Stay faithful in
spite of failure? No matter where people live or what their
circumstances may be, everyone needs boundless, restorative love.
Gorgeous and uplifting, Tattoos on the Heart amply demonstrates the impact unconditional love can have on your life.

As
a pastor working in a neighborhood with the highest concentration of
murderous gang activity in Los Angeles, Gregory Boyle created an
organization to provide jobs, job training, and encouragement so that
young people could work together and learn the mutual respect that comes
from collaboration. Tattoos on the Heart is a breathtaking
series of parables distilled from his twenty years in the barrio.
Arranged by theme and filled with sparkling humor and glowing
generosity, these essays offer a stirring look at how full our lives
could be if we could find the joy in loving others and in being loved
unconditionally. From giant, tattooed Cesar, shopping at JCPenney fresh
out of prison, we learn how to feel worthy of God's love. From
ten-year-old Lula we learn the importance of being known and
acknowledged. From Pedro we understand the kind of patience necessary to
rescue someone from the darkness. In each chapter we benefit from
Boyle's wonderful, hard-earned wisdom. Inspired by faith but applicable
to anyone trying to be good, these personal, unflinching stories are
full of surprising revelations and observations of the community in
which Boyle works and of the many lives he has helped save.

Erudite,
down-to-earth, and utterly heartening, these essays about universal
kinship and redemption are moving examples of the power of unconditional
love in difficult times and the importance of fighting despair. With
Gregory Boyle's guidance, we can recognize our own wounds in the broken
lives and daunting struggles of the men and women in these parables and
learn to find joy in all of the people around us. Tattoos on the Heart reminds us that no life is less valuable than another.