Assistant Editor Lily Davenport: In “how to recognize god’s chosen,” parts xxvi and xxxix, Jeremy Paden strikes a difficult balance between the mythic and the conversational. These pieces invoke Julian of Norwich and wind-tossed plastic bags in almost the same breath, and present basic human frailties (looking for authority in the wrong places, loving too much or not enough) as both sadly enduring and deserving of compassion.
Listen to Jeremy Paden read “how to recognize god’s chosen, xxvi.” and “how to recognize god’s chosen, xxxix.”:
how to recognize god’s chosen, xxvi.
a teaching
—after Julian of Norwich’s Revelations of Divine Love
give us a teaching on love, the gathered once asked, is it true that lovers will never fall or falter, that the beloved will always keep them bound & protected, that they will always know they are loved & never wander?
& zhe responded, this was never shown me, instead it was shown that love will hold them, hold them as they leave & they return, as they fall & get up, even as they fall & keep falling, even as they believe they are not loved
how to recognize god’s chosen, xxxix.
the faithful came to zhe & said, we have heard some teach that doubt should be doubted, that to ask & seek & not to be certain is to be a plastic bag in the bed of a pickup truck, lifted out & tossed about by the contradicting winds cast off by eighteen-wheelers racing to deliver their goods
& zhe answered, yes, the certain are so very much like tractor trailers barreling down a mountain speedway
unhappy, the faithful responded, tell us about doubt & what we should do with those among us who doubt, for doubt is an acid that eats metal, a virus that can be caught unawares
& zhe answered, I give unto you that which was given to me, mercy, mercy is greater than doubt
Jeremy Paden is a poet, translator, and professor of Spanish at Transylvania University. He writes in English and Spanish. Among his recent books are World As sacred Burning Heart (3: A Taos Press, 2021), the bilingual Self-Portrait as an Iguana (Valparaíso USA, 2021).
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