HAVE A LITTLE FAITH: A True Story. By Mitch Albom. Hyperion. 254 pages. $23.99.
"In the beginning, there was a question," begins this little book of faith. The question comes from Rabbi Albert Lewis, and he is asking author and long-time parishioner Mitch Albom to deliver his eulogy upon his death.
After growing up under the Jewish tutelage of Rabbi Lewis, Mitch promptly walked away from organized religion as soon as he was an adult. Because of his recent religious apathy, his first inclination is to run from this man of God. After all, he tells himself, running from God is a tradition. Adam hid in the garden, and Jonah tried to sail away from God before being swallowed by the whale.
Mitch does agree to deliver the eulogy, but requests a series of visits before the 82-year-old rabbi's death, so that he can get to know the man, not just the rabbi. Little does either man suspect that they will still be meeting together eight years later. This string of visits unfolds into Albom's first nonfiction book since his 1997 best seller, Tuesdays With Morrie.
On one of their visits, they are discussing war. Albert Lewis, a young student during World War II, has seen many wars. Once, on a trip to Israel in the 1960s, he toured some enemy ruins and discovered an Arabic schoolbook. He keeps the book and some family photographs contained therein for years to remind him of the costs of war. When Mitch points out that these particular people were in fact the enemy, Lewis responds, "Enemy schmenemy. This was a family."
This response forces Mitch to re-evaluate his own more subtle prejudices, such as the cultural invisible line drawn between the haves and the have-nots. He is moved to spend the night in a homeless shelter, and that experience further motivates him to create a charity for the homeless in which he raises money and distributes it to area shelters. The distribution of these funds leads Mitch to the doors of a small shelter run by Pastor Henry Covington.
Henry Covington is not at all your typical pastor. He is a former drug dealer and convict who has been saved from a violent death more than once, he believes, by the grace of Jesus Christ. Albom is intrigued, albeit also a little suspicious, with Henry and the I Am My Brother's Keeper Ministry that Henry runs. He begins to visit the church regularly. Gradually, he comes to understand that people, like other things in life, can be good or evil depending on what they choose to do with their God-given free will. The story of Henry's recent life and the grace he offers to those in need proclaim rather loudly that this is indeed a changed man.
Have A Little Faith moves among Albom's childhood remembrances of and sermon fragments of Rabbi Lewis, conversations between Albom and Lewis, and Pastor Henry Covington's life story. Albom ties together these two very different men, one from an affluent Jewish suburb and one from a run-down inner-city area, and shows us there is more than one way to live out a life of faith.
Cindy Bunker is a free-lance writer who lives in Lexington.
Email
Facebook
Google
Twitter
Favorites
More
Advertisement