RedeemerWrites

RedeemerWrites seeks to illuminate our world and our faith through the written word. The contributors and editorial team are all members of the extended Redeemer community. Many are also part of our Writers Group.

RedeemerWrites is published approximately annually. We are not currently accepting submissions. Please check back for information on future submission cycles, or join the Arts eNewsletter to receive announcements about this and other Arts Ministry programs.

RedeemerWrites 02 is now available! Contact maria@redeemer.com to purchase.

Includes:
"Road to Damascus" by John Dreyer
"2067" by David Knowles
"Mary" by Christina Juan
"The Gospel According to National Geographic" by Emily Ruth Hazel
"Consecrated Pens: Jacob Riis, Christian Journalist" by Tony Carnes
"How to Speak to Children" by Rebecca Yook
"A Falling Story" by Brett Tyler Erickson
"Bronx-Bound D Train, 12:18 a.m." by Elizabeth R. Blaufox
"Swimming to Heaven" by Eric Metaxas
"Ski Selah" by Tom Russack
"Engaging" by Zara Park

Excerpt from "Bronx-Bound D Train, 12:18 a.m."
By Elizabeth R. Blaufox

Excuse me. The words came from so close by I thought they were directed at me. Looking up I saw a young girl, lost somewhere in the wilderness of her teens. She was standing in front of me, her thumbs self-consciously hooked into the belt loops of her jeans, but I saw now she was not speaking to me. The addressee was the young man seated to my left, possibly a year or two older than she, a blank expression dressing his dark face. He looked up and shifted in his seat; she sat down beside him.

The odd behavior I had noticed a few minutes earlier now made sense: I had looked up from the book I was reading and glanced accidentally down the subway car to see a young lady and another young man whispering excitedly to each other and staring in my direction – I assumed at me. She pulled a comb from her purse that she handed to her companion. He combed her thick black hair down over her forehead, while she watched in the reflection cast in the window. Finding herself without a mirror, she turned to the next best thing – a good friend and a dark glass. When he was satisfied with his work, he handed the comb back to her. Perplexed, but not wanting to appear nosy, I returned to my book.

Now she was seated beside me, between me and the young man for whom she had submitted to the public grooming. Her friend watched eagerly from his end of the train.

As she settled herself in the small space that had been made for her, I realized that my part in the story was incidental. The book in my lap was just as much a prop in this drama as the red scarf covering the young man’s scalp and the girl’s comb. In their version of the story, I probably wasn’t even an extra, but in my version – this version – I was the central character.

Life is the piecing together of the same story from many different perspectives. We can only understand the world from our own eyes. Even what we know of Jesus comes from the accounts of four very different men and is then mixed with our individual perceptions (or lack thereof) of His grace in our lives. It is the compiling of these view points, this collective rendering, that gives us a unified understanding of our vast and varied world. We are more than co-inhabitants; we are co-authors.