If life is an addiction, then faith must be a cure. And what exactly does that mean? Can you imagine a moon made of honey? Well, if that is impossible, then you already know the nature of faith, because believing is an extraordinary concept.

In Waikiki at 3 a.m., finally, even the streetwalkers can sleep. The taxi drivers run silent and deep away from yesterday, cleaning out their cabs with masks and rubber gloves, and only God knows why.

Suddenly, a warm trade wind slips out of the blackness as easily as ha, the sweet, warm ancient breath of Hawaiians. It is a form of rapture. It is deliciously tropical, indescribably spiritual and as religious as harmony.

Let tell me you what I believe faith to be. Faith is going forward when you can't see what's ahead. It is being out of minutes on your cell when adversity is about to crush you like a giant wave. It's a local boy with no job, and no prospects, but rising each day to face his trial. It's pitched combat, life and death, and truth corrupted by the fight for your last dollar, your values, your mother's heart, your father's strength, and still you persist. Faith is forever onward and upward, despite the incline, and in spite of the severity — it is an allegiance to the music you cannot hear, that beats in your chest.

If religion is a path, then truth must be a freeway. However, there are no words in scripture condemning mixed marriages, but there is condemnation for mixing religions, i.e. "I am the light and the way." So what is religion? Is it the worship of God? Of this am not certain, because God(s) can not be defined in any real sense. It is mostly in a supernatural way that Gods are defined, i.e. in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

I was raised in the church. It was called the Church of God. Wow! Theoretically, who would need an education after being raised in the house of God? But instead I fidgeted, fell asleep when bored, perspired in summer, and smelled a mixture of perfume and Saturday night during the winter mornings.

I sat stone still on the hard planks of smooth oak and listened to sermons I didn't really understand. I sang in the choir, acted in the Easter and Christmas plays. I was made to attend Youth Fellowship, Sunday school and Bible School in summer. I recited the 23rd Psalm, and did my best to grasp that which is not reachable in terms of a discipline.

This is what I believe about faith and religion: God's will is always the last word. Religion is manmade, man driven and man absorbed.

On the other hand, faith is rooted in the law of believing in miracles and those things unseen that touch the human soul with momentum.

Faith is real, it is the ultimate loyalty and unshakeable.

It gives abundantly for those who keep the faith.