Faith: Kahlil Gibran said that 'Faith is a knowledge within the heart, beyond the reach of

proof'. Mark Twain said that it's 'Believing something that you know ain't so'. And

popular singer George Michael said that it's something that "You've gotta have," but I've

read the rest of the lyrics to that song, and I'm reasonably sure that he was talking about

something else....

So…faith. The first time that I ever walked into a Unitarian Universalist church, I was

twelve years old. My mother and my future stepfather were shopping for a minister for

their upcoming wedding. I was dragged out of bed at what I considered to be a most

unreasonable hour for a Sunday morning and dragged off to church, where I was packed

off with the rest of the kids to something that they called “Religious Education”. Right.

I could smell Sunday School from a mile away. So, with my head bowed and feet

dragging on the ground, I made my way along with some other kids to a small cabin on

the church grounds. It was confusing. No pictures of a lily-white Jesus smiling kindly at

lambs, no intimidating pictures of graven Ten Commandments, none of the trappings that

I associated with Sunday School. Instead, a rather nice woman led us in a discussion

about a young girl named Anne Frank, and gave each of us copies of her published diary.

Over the next day or two, I devoured the entire work.

For those of you not familiar with the story of Anne Frank, I’ll give you a brief overview:

Anne Frank was born in Frankfurt, Germany in 1929, the daughter of a successful

merchant, and member of the local Jewish community.

In 1934, Anne Frank’s family moved to The Netherlands to escape persecution at the

hands of the Nazi regime. Tragically, they were trapped in Amsterdam when German

forces invaded the country in 1940, and were forced to go into hiding after Anne’s mother

received a notice to report for transportation to a concentration camp. With the help of

four employees of her father’s who ran the risk of being put to death for their actions,

Anne and her family hid in an annex behind and above one of her father’s businesses.

The year was 1942.

For the next two years, until August of 1944, Anne Frank, her family, and several other

Jews of the family’s acquaintance lived in the annex in nearly unbearable conditions.

Thrown together by the barbaric policies of the occupational government, Anne’s family

and the others lived, slept, and ate in close quarters. They sat in unbearable silence

during the day, when workers were downstairs, then went about their business at night

while trying to draw as little attention as possible. And all the while, every person in that

annex (including Anne) was fully aware that their friends, families, their entire

community was being rounded up in the streets below and sent off to the slaughter.

These refugees within their own country were grating on each other, despising their

conditions, and yet they knew full well that the only alternative was a death by torture.

Each one was aware that at any given moment, the door to their hiding place could come

crashing in, and that they would all be forced into trains that would take them off to

almost certain death. In her formative and most vulnerable years, Anne Frank found

herself in circumstances that would test any of us, young or old, beyond all reason.
And, see, that’s where faith comes in. Because with full respect to Mark Twain, I do not

see faith as belief in something that is abhorrent to my reason. Instead, I see faith as a

choice in which reason plays a part. Faith requires the ability to see the negatives in

one’s life with sobriety and seriousness of purpose. It requires you to be perfectly honest

with yourself about every fear you have, every pressure you find yourself under,

everything that you see as wrong in yourself, or your life, or the world in general.

Some of you know that I’ve been homeless at various points in my life. The last time that

I ended up on the streets was only a couple of years back. Various emotional and

financial circumstances led to a collapse of my life. I soon found myself at a shelter in

North Hollywood. After a short stay there, my girlfriend Chana and I escaped from the

bedbugs and poor nutrition, and took off to take our chances on the streets of Venice

Beach…or, as we put it, we ran away to join the circus.

It was in this darkest time, in the midst of the clowns, hustlers, acrobats, musicians,

merchants and hustlers of Venice that I found my faith. I found it in the people who

would watch my vendor space without thought of compensation. I found it in Buddy, a

man who resembled Moses in both appearance and temperament, as he saw his own

homelessness as an opportunity to assist others in the same circumstances, and felt called

by God to tote a cart of donated food behind his bicycle as he went up and down the

Boardwalk handing out food. I saw it in the alcoholics and drug addicts who, when

Chana’s car was towed, insisted that we stay at their campsite, where we would find

safety in numbers.
Now, don’t get me wrong: These people were not angels, and I’m not going to

romanticize them. The people who watched my stand one day would try to steal it out

from under me the next if I didn’t show up early enough. Buddy would corner you to

speak darkly of his religious insights for up to an hour, and become so obscure and

convoluted that your polite grin would freeze, and it would be all that you could do to

bob your head in agreement at what sounded like the right places. The drunks and

addicts who offered us a place to sleep would also keep us up all night with arguments,

fistfights, and whatever other ruckus they felt driven to by whatever chemicals they’d

medicated themselves with on that day. However, while I was well aware of these

issues, I couldn’t concentrate on them. Instead, I focused every day on how grateful I

was to have met these people, folks in circumstances arguably worse than my own who

had reached out their hands in love and assistance, not judging, but instead acting with

compassion in our time of need. They made it easier for me to have faith in humanity.

They made it easier for me to remember a single line said by Oscar Wilde after he had

stumbled drunkenly out of a tavern in the depths of night, and fell off of the curb into the

street. When one of his friends looked at him scornfully and pointed out that he was

lying in the gutter, Wilde smiled wistfully and said “All of us are in the gutter…but some

of us are looking at the stars.”

Faith is the ability to see the stars when you find yourself in the gutter. Faith is the

conscious and reasonable choice that we make to understand that there is beauty and

compassion and love in life, and to choose to see it in others. To believe that love is
stronger than hate, that compassion trumps indifference, and that the only original sin is

to think that we’re worthy of damnation in the first place

In August of 1944, Anne Frank, her family, and those who hid with them were betrayed

to the Gestapo, found, and shipped to Auschwitz, where she was shaved, tattooed with a

number, and sent to hard labor with the female members of her family. All of them but

her father died in the Shoah. Anne herself passed away from typhus in March of 1945,

mere weeks before her camp was liberated by Allied forces.

Knowing the possibility, even the probability of this happening, having some idea of the

horrific fate in store for herself and her loved ones if they were to be discovered, Anne

Frank still found it somewhere within her to write the following while hiding in the

annes:

“In spite of everything, I still believe that people are truly good at heart.”

Anne had seen many of the horrors that human beings were capable of inflicting on each

other. She knew that she ran the risk of being subjected to many more. And yet due to

the kindness of friends who ran the risk of death at the hands of the Nazis in order to help

her and her family, due to her faith in her religious beliefs, and due to her refusal to see

the world as an inherently evil place, she wrote those words that shame all of us who

would think otherwise.

That, my friends is faith.

That’s the faith that sees the stars from the gutter. That’s the faith that can move a

mountain, even if it’s one handful of dirt at a time. That’s the faith that knows one

important truth in life: That when you stand on the side of love, love also stands with

you. And while love may be battered and bruised, even slain throughout the centuries, no

power on Earth can defeat it for good. That’s what King understood. That’s what Gandhi

knew. That’s the story of Jesus abridged for your convenience. That’s the faith, and the

line, that have driven generations to seek justice for survivors of the Shoah, to stand up

against the genocides performed by madmen and say “Never again!”

As I wrap up, I’ll leave you with one more quote from Anne Frank, one displayed

prominently on the website of our own denomination:

“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve

the world.”

That is her faith in humanity. That is my faith in all of you, and in myself. Let’s do our

best to justify it.