Have More Faith

One of the reasons I do what I do is that I find people's stories fascinating. In even the smallest gathering, thousands of stories lie below the surface, waiting to be unearthed: stories of trial, success, hardship, redemption, darkness and joy.

In his 2009 book have a little faith, Mitch Albom has captured like jewels, with the eye of a gem-cutter, two stories of human life.

Albom narrates the stories of two "men of God," one a rabbi and the other a pastor. What begins as a story about death—the composition of a eulogy—becomes two braided cords of life. Albom, present in the book as a ghostly first person narrator, unfolds the beatific texture of humanity and divinity expressed. By the middle of the book, I was turning pages not so much to learn what would happen next as to know more about these two wonderful characters.

Albom's style, both straightforward and depth-plumbing, makes for easy reading that conceals the beautiful poignant barbs which will hook the reader. He is sufficiently self-revelatory that we could imagine ourselves in Albom's shoes, walking through this same life, meeting these same wondrous personalities.

Which, I think, is a chief aim of the book: to remind us that individuals like Lewis Albert and Henry Covington are in fact all around us, if we will only listen to their stories. If only each of us could be asked sometime in our lives, "Would you write my eulogy?" then we would gain so much greater understanding of ourselves, of humanity, and of God.

This last part, the understanding of God, is the only place in which I felt Albom's work falter.  In spite of his task, to narrate the lives of two "men of God," Albom concludes that the real object of faith is "the human spirit." The great song of the world is "one same, wonderful, human song." Albom may have been caught in the bind of having to affirm both Jewish rabbi and a Christian pastor in one line—and could not reconcile their differing conceptions of God. But I think it is unfair to both of his subjects to reduce their inspiration to the human level.

The book implies that we should "have a little faith" in the human spirit. From Lewis' and Covington's stories, however, I think it's fair to say we should have more than a little faith in God.

~ emrys