The Ways We Wrestle

on breaking and naming

I.

Jacob’s story of wrestling an angel leaves so many questions. He struggles all night with an unnamed being of magnificent strength, seeking a blessing. He receives, at the end, a name and a lifelong limp. Which one is the blessing? The breaking or the naming?

II.

The act of naming can hold such power.

III.

Jacob receives a new name for himself but the angel refuses to reveal his own name. Perhaps, if Jacob-who-was-now-Israel had kept his own identity and instead heard the title of the one who deigned to wrestle with him all night, the story would have unfolded differently.

IV.

Even in earliest times, names held meanings. Adam, from the biblical creation narrative, means “of the earth.” I picture the Creator flinging galaxies and stars in constellations so vast, then kneeling like a child with his hands in the dirt, forming and molding and breathing life. Then offering a name. Of the earth. The place from which he came. That place to which he would, one day, return.

V.

I want to pull back the lens to see the other stories unfolding that night. Rachel, sent over the river ford with her young son, waiting for the sun to rise. The morning was uncertain with danger drawing nearer. Did Rachel wrestle with an angel that night? Did she ask for his name?

VI.

If I knew the full story, I think, my own stories might be easier to write, to tell, to live. I do not want to behold only these few trees, so close I can trace my finger on complex patterns of bark. I want to zoom out and see the forest stretching, see how far it goes, count the trees like counting stars.