Have a Little Faith: A True Story

And then the real trouble started.

The Reb said that a good marriage should endure tribulations, and Henry and Annette’s had done that. But early on, those “tribulations” were drug abuse, crime, and avoiding the police. Not exactly Fiddler on the Roof. Both Henry and Annette had been addicts, who cleaned up once Henry came home from prison. But after their baby died and the boiler burst and Annette lost her job-and a broke Henry saw his drug- dealing brother with a fat bankroll of hundred-dollar bills-they fell back into that life, and they fell all the way. Henry sold drugs at parties. He sold them from his house. Soon the customers were so frequent, he made them wait on the corner and come up one at a time. He and Annette became heavy users and drinkers, and they lived in fear of both the police and rival drug lords. One night, Henry was taken for a ride with some Manhattan dealers, a ride he thought might end in his death; Annette was waiting with gun in hand if he didn’t come back.

But when Henry finally hit bottom-that night behind those trash cans-Annette did, too.

“What’s keeping you from going to God?” Henry asked her that Easter morning.

“You are,” she admitted.

The next week, he and Annette got rid of the drugs and the guns. They threw away the paraphernalia. They went back to church and read the Bible nightly. They fought back periodic weaknesses and helped one another get through.

One morning, a few months into this rehabilitation, there was a knock at their door. It was very early. A man’s voice said he wanted to buy some product.

Henry, in bed, shouted for him to go away, he didn’t do that anymore. The man persisted. Henry yelled, “There ain’t nothing in here!” The man kept knocking. Henry got out of bed, pulled a sheet around himself, and went to the door.

“I told you-”

“Don’t move!” a voice barked.

Henry was staring at five police officers, their guns drawn.

“Step away,” one said.

They pushed through his door. They told Annette to freeze. They searched the entire place, top to bottom, warning the couple that if they had anything incriminating, they had better tell them now. Henry knew everything was gone, but his heart was racing. Did I miss anything? He glanced around. Nothing there. Nothing there-

Oh, no.

Suddenly, he couldn’t swallow. It felt like a baseball was in his throat. Sitting on an end table, one atop the other, were two red notebooks. One, Henry knew, contained Bible verses from Proverbs, which he had been writing down every night. The other was older. It contained names, transactions, and dollar amounts of hundreds of drug deals.

He had taken out the old notebook to destroy it. Now it could destroy him. An officer wandered over. He lifted one of the notebooks and opened it. Henry’s knees went weak. His lungs pounded. The man’s eyes moved up and down the page. Then he threw it down and moved on.

Proverbs, apparently, didn’t interest him.

An hour later, when the police left, Henry and Annette grabbed the old notebook, burned it immediately, and spent the rest of the day thanking God.

What would you do if your clergyman told you stories like that? There was part of me that admired Henry’s honesty, and part that felt his laundry list of bad behavior should somehow disqualify him from the pulpit. Still, I had heard him preach several times now, citing the Book of Acts, the Beatitudes, Solomon, Queen Esther, and Jesus telling his disciples that “anyone who loses his life for me shall find it again.” Henry’s gospel singing was inspired and engaged. And he always seemed to be around the church, either up in his second-floor office-a long, narrow room with a conference table left over from the previous tenants-or in the small, dimly lit gymnasium. One afternoon I walked into the sanctuary, unannounced, and he was sitting there, hands crossed, his eyes closed in prayer.

Before the weather turned cold, Henry occasionally cooked on a grill by the side of the church; chicken, shrimp, whatever he could get donated. He gave it out to whoever was hungry. He even preached sometimes on a low crumbling concrete wall across the street.

“I’ve spread as much of God’s word on that wall,” Henry said one day, “as I have inside.”

How is that?

“Because some people aren’t ready to come in. Maybe they feel guilty, on accounta what they’re up to. So I go out there, bring them a sandwich.”

Kind of like a house call?

“Yeah. Except most of ’em don’t have houses.”

Are some of them on drugs?

“Oh, yeah. But so are some folks coming in on Sundays.”

You’re kidding. During your service?

“Whoo, yeah. I’m looking right at them. You see that head whoppin’ and boppin’ and you say, ‘Umm-hmm, they had something powerful.’”

That doesn’t bother you?

“Not at all. You know what I tell them? I don’t care if you’re drunk, or you just left the drug house, I don’t care. When I’m sick, I go to the emergency room. And if the problem continues, I go again. So whatever’s ailing you, let this church be your emergency room. Until you get the healing, don’t stop coming.”

I studied Henry’s wide, soft face.

Can I ask you something? I said.

“Okay.”

What did you rob from that synagogue?

He exhaled and laughed. “Believe it or not-envelopes.”

Envelopes?

“That’s it. I was just a teenager. Some older guys had broken in before me and stolen anything valuable. All I found was a box of envelopes. I took ’em and ran out.”

Do you even remember what you did with them?

“No,” he answered. “I sure don’t.”

I looked at him, looked at his church, and wondered if one man’s life ever truly makes sense to another.

I take home a box of the Reb’s old sermons. I leaf through them. There is one from the 1950s on “The Purpose of a Synagogue” and one from the 1960s called “The Generation Gap.”

I see one entitled “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head.” It is from the late 1970s. I read it. I do a double take.

It is an appeal to fix the collapsing roof.

“Our roof sheds copious tears after each rain,” the Reb wrote. He mentioned sitting in the sanctuary when a “sodden wet ceiling tile” fell and just missed him, and a wedding celebration in which two days of rain “created unwanted gravy on the chicken.” During a morning service, he had to grab a broom and puncture a buckling tile to allow the rainwater to gush through.

In the sermon, he beseeches members to give more to keep their house of worship from literally caving in.

I think about Pastor Henry and his roof hole. It is the first time I see a connection. An inner-city church. A suburban synagogue.

Then again, our congregation ultimately came up with the money. And Henry couldn’t even ask his.

NOVEMBER