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Sunday
Today’s Old Testament reading is the wonderfully mysterious account of Jacob wrestling with…well, we never know for sure? An angel? His brother Esau? Someone else? In Michael Dickel’s “Jacob Wrestling,” his adversary is “myself, this messenger, this something of nothingness.” Here’s the Genesis story (32:22-31):
The same night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he had. Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket; and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, “Let me go, for the day is breaking.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.” So he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” Then the man said, “You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.” Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him. So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.” The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip.
In Dickel’s poem, sending his loved ones ahead as he backtracks, suggests that he must deal with unfinished business or unresolved doubts before he moves on. In the hero’s quest narrative, crossing a river is often the first step in the journey to selfhood.
The step is often taken reluctantly, however. Even though one’s life is tangled in “deception and counter-deception,” in losses, deaths, and uncertainty, it is still familiar, whereas stepping into an existence where “nothing will be the same” requires real courage.
That’s what happens when one grapples with life’s deepest questions. Or putting it another way, when one wrestles with God.
Jacob Wrestling
By Michael Dickel
They’ve all gone ahead, those I loved,
those I cared for but did not love—
arrayed and ranked, walking toward doom
or reunion. This bank, this river I have crossed before—
this creek, this life, this wreck on this shore—
all too familiar, all too fresh, all too unknown, all too new.
Now a shadow over the moon, or
perhaps my own doubt
forms as I ford the stream.
Now I wrestle with myself,
with this messenger,
this something of nothingness.
Now the moon fades—
darkness less dark—
what is my name?
Now I limp away
from this tangled life
of deception and counter-deception—
to losses, deaths, uncertainty,
a favorite son sold to the gypsies—
Who will redeem us?
Soon my brother and I will embrace
but keep our defended distance.
Soon nothing will be the same.
Now, I wrestle with God.
