AUTHOR NARRATION
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Ode to Doubting ThomasEnglish narration
POEM + REVISION
Ode to Doubting Thomas
THE LAST SUPPER, REIMAGINED
“little lemming missionaries”
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DISCOVERED IN TRANSLATION
I Didn’t Know
This is a genuine mistake I made out of my own ignorance of language when the book was first published—one I discovered while preparing the French translation.
ORIGINAL TEXT
But, cowing, didn’t
CORRECTED TEXT
But being so cowed did not
WHAT I DIDN’T KNOW
I had reversed the roles built into the verb “to cow.” Part of the confusion came from an accidental blend in my mind: , “cowing,” and the sequence in yoga. Together, they made “cowing” feel as though it could describe the person bending or submitting. It cannot: the person doing the cowing intimidates; the person on the receiving end is cowed. That is why I revised the line to “being so cowed.”
EPISTEMOLOGY
In Praise of Doubt.
One of the ugliest traits I see in many belief systems is the villainization of doubt, or the elevation of blind faith into a virtue. Doubt is not a failure of conviction. It is permission to look again—to be skeptical, to test what we have been told, and to let what is true survive the test.
The closing lines of “Kurt, Isaac, Andrew” arrive at the same principle from another direction:
go ahead, check again:true miracles do not scatter with scrutiny,do not dissolve in doubt.
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