Redemption

by THE EDITORS
in Spring 2021

Tafari Melisizwe, The Water, 2020

Redemption, and its verb form “redeem,” come from Latin roots meaning essentially “to buy back,” but in common usage, it means “to atone for” or “to release.” Common meanings vary even more, but we can summarize the meaning of the noun form as fulfillment or freedom received in exchange for a payment.

So what is the cost of freedom, and who should be making a payment? Who should pay when freedom is ripped from a people without their permission? And who should pay when the people exchange their personal power for the trappings of safety and comfort?

The stories, poems, and essays included in our Spring 2021 issue raise these questions, attempt to answer them, and imagine ways we might free ourselves via meditation, creativity, and returns home.

Calls for redemption indicate a debt must be paid. Some of the ways we call for it inherently mean that the people in need of redeeming are broken, lacking, or otherwise incomplete. However, the images from our featured artist, Tafari Melisizwe, illustrate what some of our authors allude to and to what we already know deep down: when we bore down to our most essential core, we are already free, we are already home, we are already complete.

How do our collective call and personal journeys to redemption change in light of this truth?

What are we remembering? What are we going home to? When we lose everything, what do we stand to gain?

There may be no payment that can cover or be held in exchange for the larger debt we owe to ourselves and our ancestors. Our ancestors, those past-life versions of ourselves, ask us not only to remember but also to re-member—as in, put back the pieces-- of our actualized freedomways.

Redemption is a call for return, but only the journeyers can set the course for the destination. Perhaps we, the journeyers, are the destination and must find ways back to ourselves.