A living faith …

… Czesław Miłosz's Theological Two-Step.

Poets are full of contradictions. It is one of the tools of the trade. Here’s one of Miłosz’s contradictions, but only an apparent one: while entertaining these thoughts, these heresies, he faithfully attended the stucco, Spanish revival-style Church of Mary Magdalen in Berkeley every Sunday. He sat towards the back of the church, and some remember him serving as an usher. Another colleague remembers a time when the pews were being replaced, and all had a dispensation to sit, rather than kneel, after communion. Milosz kneeled on the floor nevertheless. And he was on his knees praying for a long time.