When Muhammad Ali died, a reporter asked his daughter,  Laila, about him.  She said that he was far from a perfect man, but was always the first to acknowledge his shortcomings and that was the reason she respected him.

I had an enlarged photo of Ali in my office next to my baby bamboo plant, the one where as an underdog, he has just knocked Sonny Liston out and yells at him to get up.  I never really bought into his cockiness or bravado, but instead I remember him saying as an older man, “Only God is great.”  From the man considered the greatest.

I taught my daughter that statement and she replied “Dad, you don’t even believe that.”  I said “Not all the time.  But I do implicitly.”  And that faith leaves room for doubt, quite a bit of it.  I told her that anyone who says they believe in God completely and all the time is lying.