Twice in One Day . . . Must Be a Sign

The Sunday paper included a review of Mary Gordon's Pearl and in the review came a quote from the book -- which explores family and faith issues:

"Can you lose your faith and hold onto what that faith insists on? Isn't that, in fact, the purest faith, faith without faith? . . . Faith without the possibility of faith's consolation?"

Later, as I was listening to NPR, I caught the last of an interview with Gordon. (I'm always amazed when something like that happens . . . I mean, yeah, the book is new and there's probably a press junket attached to it, but in the same day? in the same morning? the same author out of all the authors I could have heard? the last bit of an interview?) She was asked if, given her distress over the church (she's Catholic) did she still attend. She responded with a laundry list of what disturbed her about the established church and then confessed that yes, she did still attend. Then she quoted someone else (whose name I didn't catch and whose quote I'm only going to paraphrase because I can't remember it word for word), "I keep doing the things I've always done in the church even though I don't believe the way I once did. I can't help thinking that doing them without faith is an act of faith."