Perhaps it is never disbelief, which at least is active and conscious, that destroys a man but unacknowledged belief, or a need for belief so strong that it is continually and silently crucified on the crosses of science, humanism, art, or (to name the thing that poisons all these gifts of God) the overweening self.
I never lost my faith, but I didn't practice it for years because I was too busy sinning. Sinning, however, can wear you out and leave you feeling a deep need for cleansing, which is called penance. I would disagree slightly with one passing phrase in this piece. I do not think that Wallace Stevens was "the great modern poet of unbelief." Repeated readings of his Collected Poems has led me to think of him as the great modern poet of coming to belief.
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