For last year and the next

When the day breaks over the river ford where Jacob has been wrestling through the night, his adversary dislocates Jacob’s leg with a strange touch in the hollow of his thigh, leaving him clinging to the other man in sudden weakness. The long tussle in the dark ends not with Jacob in a position of rivalrous dominance, but in the pose of reliance and supplication. It is not an unfamiliar situation for Jacob, who was born clutching at Esau’s ankle as they emerged from their mother’s womb as if in an effort to be first-born, who found deceit to be the only method to gain his father’s blessing, and who was consequently hounded to desperation by a powerful brother who swore to kill him. The story of Jacob is the tale of a man grappling interminably with the ineffectual strength of his mortal arms against the implacable fate of second-place.

The struggle of Jacob with the unidentifiable man in the dark is a mutual exertion; the man struggles also with Jacob in the intimacy of wrestlers, two bodies in the image of each other clashing indistinguishably by night. Implicit in the conflict was the closeness of the two combatants; the sole means of victory was not to let go of the other. When the day broke and the wrestle came to an end, the man conceded victory to Jacob, not for the strength of Jacob’s arms, but for the vigour of his will and his fervent resolve not to let go of his foe until he had blessed him. In the pose of supplication, Jacob became victor in the pronouncement of God: “Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed.” Israel, or “the one who strives with God”, refers to a struggle where victory lies not in glorious conquest but in persistence itself, and where triumph is received not in a stance of dominance but in the posture of a prayer.

In 2008, a year of few alternatives, I’ve nonetheless had many experiences, not all of them positive or meaningful, but some of them truly revelational. Thanks of course to my family, which has so often been the quintessence of persistence. I’m also profoundly grateful to the people who haven’t changed in the ways that matter most to me, despite the time passed and the distance gathered, who nonetheless know in silence the words I leave unshared.