Albom learns to 'Have a Little Faith' in new book

• By MIKE HOUSEHOLDER
• Associated Press Writer
• Published: Oct 11, 2009

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DETROIT (AP) — Mitch Albom is many things.

He's an award-winning newspaper columnist, a popular radio show host, an author of best-selling novels and nonfiction books, a screenwriter, a frequent TV guest, and even an accomplished musician and songwriter who has played gigs across the United States and in Europe.

There's also a title on his lengthy resume that sometimes gets overlooked: humanitarian.

Albom's charitable side comes through in his latest book, "Have a Little Faith."

It marks his first foray into long-form nonfiction since the phenomenal success of "Tuesdays With Morrie" more than a decade ago. In the years since, Albom has had a pair of fiction hits — 2003's "The Five People You Meet in Heaven" and "For One More Day," released in 2006. All three were turned into television movies.

Those books focus on the weighty issue of mortality, and "Have a Little Faith" is no different.

"People say, 'How come you always write about life and death?' I say, 'Well, John Grisham always writes about lawyers. Stephen (King) always writes about monsters.' I don't know. It seems like I picked a subject that (will) never run out of importance," Albom says.

As with "Morrie," Albom inserts himself into "Have a Little Faith," but this time he shares the pages with two characters.

One is Albert Lewis, the longtime (since 1948) rabbi of Albom's childhood synagogue in Cherry Hill, N.J. The book opens with the Reb, as Lewis affectionately is known, asking Albom whether he'd be willing to deliver the eulogy when the rabbi dies. The other is the Rev. Henry Covington, who set aside years of drug abuse and lawbreaking to serve God and the homeless at a decaying church in Albom's adopted hometown of Detroit.

That's where Albom the Humanitarian comes into play.

Covington is doing good work through his I Am My Brother's Keeper ministry, using the church to provide food, clothing and shelter to the city's homeless — more than 100 on some nights. But at the same time, Covington isn't able to heat the expansive old building or repair the hole in the roof that allows wind, rain and snow to enter the 1,200-seat sanctuary.

Albom learns of Covington's plight and writes about it in his column in the Detroit Free Press. He donates time and money to get the heat turned back on in time for Christmas Eve services last year.

"That was just disgusting," Albom says one recent night while visiting the church. "It's unforgivable. I know this is a poor city, but nobody needs to be that poor if they're trying to be faithful."