Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Have A Little Faith


I loved this book. Period. That should be the end of my review. Eh, I will go on.

Mitch Albom finished this in 2009. It is 249 small pages. He also wrote For One More Day, The Five People You Meet In Heaven, Tuesdays With Morrie, Fab Five and Bo.

He also covers sports in Detroit. If you turn on ESPN on Sunday mornings, he is a regular on a show called The Sports Reporters. He is a legit dude.

This is a wonderful book on faith. Those who were born into faith or have lost faith, or are still searching for faith, will all be occupied and confronted by this powerful and inspirational story of "finding faith" in relationships with others and with something superior than ourselves. The author discovers some of life's greatest ambiguity and unsolved problems with great sincerity, deepness and self expression.

Mitch Albom presents a wonderfully written story in this book, about a remarkable eight-year journey between two worlds that include two men, two faiths, two communities that will inspire readers the world over.

Have a Little Faith begins with an unusual request from an eighty-two-year-old rabbi from Albom's old hometown as he asks him to deliver his eulogy.

But Albom, feeling undeserving, insists on understanding the man better. This throws Albom back into a world of faith that he'd left years ago. In the meantime, Albom becomes involved with a Detroit pastor, who was a reformed drug dealer and convict in the past, but now preaches to the poor and homeless in a decaying church with a hole in its roof.

Albom observes how different men utilize faith likewise in fighting for survival. The older, suburban rabbi embraces faith as death approaches. The younger, inner-city pastor relies on faith to keep himself and his church afloat.

Albom and the two men of God discover issues such as how to continue when difficult things happen, what heaven is, intermarriage, forgiveness, doubting God and the importance of faith in trying times.

Later on, in the end, as the rabbi nears his death and a very vindictive winter threatens the pastor's unsteady church, Albom sadly accomplishes the rabbi's last request and writes the eulogy. He finally understands that both men had been teaching the profound comfort of believing in something bigger than yourself.

This is a book about a life's purpose. It is about losing belief and finding it again. It is about the divine spark inside us all. It is one man's journey, but it is similar to everyone's story.

Phenomenal.

Your life will be better for reading this work.

Just sayin'.

No comments: