 Sherry's Strength©2002 Ginger Henry Geyer glazed porcelain each glove app. 4" x 7 ½" x 12" Adaptation of Paul Gauguin's Vision After the Sermon: Jacob Wrestling with the Angel Wrestling and boxing are not the same sport. But in times of personal trauma both tell us about relationships. Wrestling connotes an intimate struggle with a strong outside force, an entanglement. Boxing holds the two forces apart, with surprise delivery of raw anger, creating a cunning sort of dance. Both depend on one force wearing out. So perhaps the question in relationships is, "where does the sustenance come from?" When Jacob wrestled a blessing out of an angel (or a man?), he persisted. But he came out of the ordeal with a permanent wound and a new name. Ultimately he was better off because of it, and so was his family. But the fight hurt. Of all the violence in the Bible, we don’t hear about boxing. Some of the promises to Moses evoke it. Written on one boxing glove are two passages from Exodus: “I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment.” And, “The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to keep still.”  The other boxing glove bears a detail from Gauguin’s vivid painting of Breton peasants. Walking home from church, they envision the sermon they just heard about Jacob from Genesis 32. The color is wild, the setting surreal, the wrestling figures encircled by the peasants are imagined as real beings. It is similar to the wrestling that is prayer, prayer in times of agony. This Gauguin painting, commissioned for a church altarpiece, was rejected, tossed out, its superb value stupidly dismissed. Many people have the same experience. All wrestle with it; some take up kick boxing. When anger arises out of the perseverance of truth and faith, it may be holy.
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