GENESIS 32: 24-31

[24] So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. [25] When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob's hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. [26] Then the man said, "Let me go, for it is daybreak." But Jacob replied, "I will not let you go unless you bless me. [27] The man asked him, "What is your name" "Jacob," he answered. [28] Then the man said, "Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome." [29] Jacob said, "Please tell me your name." But he replied, "Why do you ask my name?" Then he blessed him there. [30] So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, "It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared." [31] The sun rose above him as he passed Peniel, and he was limping because of his hip....

And I suppose this is just another of those ironic, serendipitous coincidences that have poured down upon me in recent days, but this particular passage of Scripture (or pericope as we were taught to call them then) was actually the topic of the very first term paper I ever wrote at the Harvard Divinity School. Can't for the life of me recall what I had to say, but I do recall thinking to myself at the time that now that I had FINALLY written the definitive interpretation...and what a rude awakening it was to receive a "B...."

As it's turned out over the years, the real discovery was Paul Gauguin. But the imagery has stayed with me, along with the lesson: that the best we can hope for is to wrestle God to a stalemate, to see God face to face and live. Still we extort our blessing, by refusing to let go. Yet the struggle leaves us crippled, and limping into the sunrise. Undefeated, but hardly victorious. And of course it has to be the hip. Sciatica. How could I have possibly known at the time just how painful Sciatica can be?