⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ BOOK REVIEW: Cherished Belonging
The Healing Power of Love by Gregory Boyle
📚 Cherished Belonging by Gregory Boyle
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️: A Review by Paul Dazet
Some books don’t just inform—they transform. Cherished Belonging is one of those rare gems. With his trademark blend of compassion, wit, and unflinching truth, Gregory Boyle offers us more than a collection of reflections; he offers a way of being—a path marked by kinship, mercy, and radical love.
At the heart of the book is this simple, gospel-soaked truth:
We belong to each other.
And when we forget that, suffering multiplies—whether in homelessness, addiction, violence, shame, or polarization.
Boyle writes from the margins, among those our world too often discards. But instead of trying to fix people, he accompanies them—bearing witness to the sacred spark within every human soul. “Everyone is unshakably good,” he says. “No exceptions.”
He tells stories of gang members and former inmates who, when finally seen with tenderness, begin to see themselves that way too. One young man describes his day this way:
“Today… I let God hold me by the hand.”
That line undid me. Because isn’t that what we’re all longing for? To know we’re held—not because we’ve earned it, but because we belong.
This is not sentimentality. Boyle is clear-eyed about suffering and trauma. But he insists that judgment is not the way forward—healing is. As he puts it:
“The homies don’t need saving. They need healing.”
Reading this book felt like coming home to the kind of faith I still believe in:
A faith that stands with the demonized, not the powerful.
A faith that trades fear for love.
A faith that creates communities of belonging—no exceptions.
One quote that has stayed with me:
“Sometimes the most difficult stranger to welcome is the one inside of us.” (p. 42)
That line is a mirror and an invitation.
Boyle doesn’t offer easy answers. But he offers a better question:
Are we willing to let love do the healing?
For me, Cherished Belonging was the most meaningful book I read in 2024. It broke my heart in the best way—and then helped piece it back together with hope.
“A community of cherished belonging is God’s dream come true.”
Yes. Yes it is.