Redemption
Like there's no baby in the king cake; like there's no figure on the cross
A massive snowstorm hit New York today. I sloshed through the ankle-deep drifts over to Fort Greene, where Brooklynites sledded and skied and snowboarded lines down the memorial stairs. My friends and I used a Zara-box-cum-sled to surprising effect; we saw folks use everything from mixing bowls to baking sheets to cardboard cutouts of faces clearly left over from the New York City Marathon. Urban resourcefulness at its finest.
I was standing at the top of the stairs when a man quietly rolled up on a gravel bike. His was the first - and only - bike I saw all day, and as he tip-toed to the edge and peered over, the people around me quieted down. I started filming; he and I chatted about the best line down the hill — stay in the snow or opt for bared stair? - and down he went to all of our fanfare.
When he came back up, he asked for my video, which I airdropped to him. “Redemption,” he said. “Four years ago I broke my wrist skiing down these stairs. I’m a little better on the bike.” And with that, off he rode into the afternoon.
Last night, I struggled to sleep. Images of Alex Pretti’s execution, seen from multiple angles like clips from Dealey Plaza, played through my head. Like millions, I find it deeply disturbing that this happened, that an agent clapped after the shots rang out, that Bovino and company double down in their character assassination after Alex’s heart’s stopped beating but before his parents have had time to make preparations for his funeral. What darkness.
I used to believe in the Christian image of redemption. I used to believe that we’re indeed already redeemed by the blood of Christ, and that the only barrier remaining to a righteous life was to accept that fact in full faith.
But now I think it’s best to be skeptical of such an easy pass. Redemption is something earned, not given. When our biker friend - Adam, that’s his name, and as I write this I realize there could not have been a better name - sent it down Fort Greene’s stairs today, he redeemed himself from four years’ worth of light humiliation. There was no other way to do it but to do the work.
He understood, in far lighter terms and at far lower stakes, what Lincoln meant when he said in 1865, looking back on his own four years and the days to come:
Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword as was said three thousand years ago so still it must be said 'the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.’
I don’t know what redemption looks like for a man who pushes down a woman or pepper sprays the man protecting her or who empties a handgun into his body. I don’t know what redemption looks like for the ones who will these things to power or those who quietly support it. I hope for their redemption, but I hope it isn’t a simple, Protestant one. Their work is cut out for them.