So he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.”
– Genesis 32:27
* * *
If you’re lucky, there comes a moment, a moment of clarity.
At this moment, “the hopes and fears of all the years” find some resolution.
It involves an unveiling. Heavy drapes of self-denial are rent in twain from top to bottom.
A sudden burst of light, and you can see.
The game is over.
The mask is lifted.
Your hiding place discovered, there you are, naked as the day you were born.
And all it may take is a question you’ve been answering all your life. Except nobody will ever have asked it like that. Nobody will have ever looked so deep in your eyes while the pain from your wounded hip throbs and scenes from your life race through your mind.
You are Jacob. There, you said it.
And you’ve been limping ever since.
Never has your path been so straight.
Does this mean you wrote the essay for ordination in the ELCA?
Sometimes it just feels like painful limping without a burst of light and clarity. I don’t seem to receive a whole lot of personal revelation of this kind. Perhaps it’s because I’m not praying hard enough, but I kind of doubt it.
Miguel this is a meditation growing out of my pastor’s sermon from yesterday.
I see. But I am wondering about your dilemma with the ordination thing. Did you decide to go through with it?
I, too, wondered if CM’s short post was associated with that!
Yes. I’ll write more soon, but all my paperwork is in now and my Approval Interview is Nov. 16. Thanks for asking.
Chaplain Mike, a great post! If you haven’t done so before, you need to read Parker’s Back by Flannery O’Connor.
As I read this, these lyrics from U2’s “Moment of Surrender” came to mind:
“…It’s not if I believe in love
But if love believes in me
Oh, believe in me
At the moment of surrender
I folded to my knees
I did not notice the passers-by
And they did not notice me
I’ve been in every black hole
At the altar of the dark star
My body’s now a begging bowl
That’s begging to get back, begging to get back
To my heart
To the rhythm of my soul
To the rhythm of my unconsciousness
To the rhythm that yearns
To be released from control
I was punching in the numbers at the ATM machine
I could see in the reflection
A face staring back at me
At the moment of surrender
Of vision over visibility
I did not notice the passers-by
And they did not notice me
Great song, by the way. One of their best.