another newspaper article

Whatever I was planning on writing earlier in the day has quite left my mind as I now find myself in the precious place between the beginning and the end of life. Tomorrow brings planning for the celebration of a blessed life now past followed by a visit to a glorious baby not yet a week old. All of this comes after a wonderful two-week visit by my parents as we celebrate our first Christmas together without my sister who unexpectedly died a year ago this Sunday. Life is so full.

Recently I was reminded of the story of Jacob wrestling in an even match with some divine being at the river’s edge one night. Just as dawn is approaching, the opponent sees he is not prevailing and strikes Jacob on his hip socket and puts it out of joint. Jacob says “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.” Jacob answers the stranger’s question for his name and, in return, “you shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.”

I doubt I will ever wrestle with God, but I do understand, at least in part, what it is to fight all night with everything I have yet still audaciously insist upon a blessing in the morning – whether I deserve or actually expect to get it or not. Life is full of both. And we know that afterwards we will always carry a poignant limp.