arts & entertainment
Books
A journey
into belief hope
&Faith
By Mitch Albom
CHRIS A RUSNAK/GE T TY
Mitch Albom is the author of Tuesdays with Morrie and The Five People You Meet in Heaven. Having just ;nished
a new book, he recently took the time to pen something for our
readers. In this Costco Connection exclusive, Albom
writes about the inspiration for his new book, Have
a Little Faith, and what he learned along his journey
from the book’s inception to its ;nish.
40 ;e Costco Connection NOVEMBER 2009
DO YOU BELIEVE in anything?
I had to ask myself this question.
;e reason was rather unusual. A eulogy.
I was asked to give one. By a man who hadn’t
died yet. And not just any man. A clergyman.
My clergyman. ;e only one I’d ever known.
“Will you do my eulogy?” he’d asked.
“What?” I’d responded, dumbfounded.
“My eulogy.”
“Are you dying?”
“Not yet,” he said, grinning.
“;en why—?”
“Because I think you would be a good
choice. And I think, when the time comes, you
will know what to say.”
Picture the most pious man you know:
your priest, your rabbi, your pastor, your
imam. Now picture him asking you, upon his
death, to say goodbye to the world for him.
Picture the man who sends people o; to
heaven asking you for his send-o; to heaven.
;ere he was, asking me—me, a fallen, barely
participating member, a guy who attended
services once a year. And now I should stand in
front of the congregation and sum up
our spiritual leader?
Why me?
I never felt less
worthy. And I had to ask myself, “Do you believe in anything? Do you believe in God,
heaven, a life beyond this one? If so—or if
not—how do you stand there and convince
grieving friends and family that their man of
God is in a better place?”
o
Mitch Albom
his workplace, observing how he leads a simple,
contented life and never loses his wit or wisdom, even as he slowly succumbs to old age.
poorest citizens in Detroit, feeding and shel-
he
sa e
When I ;rst met Henry Covington, he
,
And there is a second world, the world of
a broken-down church in the heart of inner-city Detroit, where the paint peels and the
;oorboards are rotted and a large hole in the
roof allows rain and snow to pour through
during services.
city Detroit, where the paint peels and the
Clearly, there was much to learn from
this man.
aa
o
m Hm
during services.
;at church is led by a pastor named
Henry Covington, who, as a younger man, was
a thief, an addict, a drug dealer and a convict.
He turned his life over to Jesus on a night he
thought he would be murdered. When he survived to the next morning, he began walking
in a new direction.
wu
e
in a new direction.
Today, as a penance for his former life, he
works for almost no money tending to the
poorest citizens in Detroit, feeding and sheltering the homeless, teaching that there is
hope, even in the most hardscrabble of cities.
s,
t
When I ;rst met Henry Covington, he
was wearing a white T-shirt and perspiring
from his forehead. He weighed more than 400
pounds, and when he shook my hand I said to
myself, “If this is a man of God, I’m the man in
the moon.”
GLEN TRIES T
But that only proved how much I had
to learn. Over time, I came to see how
people of faith come in all types of packages. Pastor Covington had taken over
the church when it was all but abandoned, and at one point cleaned the toilets and bathrooms, mopped the ;oors,
locked the doors. He still sits until nearly
midnight as a lonely sentinel above a
;oor full of homeless men who sleep in
the church on cold winter nights.
Once, Henry Covington made hun-
dreds of thousands of dollars in the drug
trade. He had any material possession he
wanted. Today, he lives in a ramshackle home
nearly as decayed as his church.
“I am where I’m supposed to be,” he says,
contentedly.
;at request began a journey into belief,
hope and religion that ultimately became my
new book, Have a Little Faith, the ;rst non;c-tion work I’ve done since Tuesdays with Morrie. In some ways, it’s a lot like Tuesdays, full of
wisdom from a dying old man. But in other
ways, it is as di;erent as can be.
Have a Little Faith follows an eight-year
journey between two worlds. ;ere is the world
that began with the eulogy request, the world of
visits to my ailing clergyman, in his home, at
What I learned from my time with Pastor
Covington, what I learned from all those visits with my beloved clergyman, Rabbi Albert
Lewis, is the backbone of Have a Little Faith.
;e story deals with their views on many issues that confront us in our daily lives: money,
love, marriage, happiness, forgiveness, ritual,
heaven, God. It follows the tribulations that
Covington endures as the gas company shuts
o; his heat and he is forced to build a plastic
