March sixth, 2021. I don’t always remember the exact dates that I get ideas for new stories or essays or books. But I remember the day I first thought of this one.
I don’t know how exactly it came to be. Can one ever truly trace the spark that brings some idea to life?
It had been a busy week … busier than normal. In my editing work, I freelance for a number of clients, several on an ongoing basis. The previous couple of weekends had involved a lot of catch-up work because I’d said yes to a few too many projects at one time.
Instead of sleeping in and relaxing, for a couple weekends in a row, I had been waking earlier than usual to utilize the relative quiet of Saturday and Sunday mornings to tackle my editing.
So, this Saturday was the first morning in a while that I wasn’t focused on work first thing.
Which means I got to read. Now, I’m the kind of girl who reads a book from beginning to end. It’s just what I do. A good friend of mine, also an avid reader, once divulged to me that she would read the last page of a book to see if it was any good before reading the book. The very thought horrified me.
So, it was strange that, instead of starting Malcolm Guite’s poetry collection, Parable and Paradox, on the first page, I opened to the middle of the book, to a sonnet about Jacob. Jacob wrestling the unknown angel, the angel that could very well be a Christophany – a pre-incarnate Christ. It was a terrific poem that ended with a line about Jacob getting his name.
I had read about Jacob and his night-long wrestling match before. Loved Buechner’s contemplation on it in The Magnificent Defeat. I’d even written about wrestling angels in a couple of creative essays.
But this time, for some reason, I thought of Rachel.
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