Traveling through a bit of Midwestern wildness last week or so, I saw many pictures of a land still deeply somnolent  but a land that is also slowly waking from its brumal slumber.  At present, it is quiet:  a few birds, a few hints of running water, but not much else.  In a few weeks, however, the land will ring with sound, letting all who would notice that it has, in a manner of speaking, arisen.


     How poignant it is that in order to rise, a plant must die, that in order to give birth, a seed must stop living.  We who love life dearly often forget that it can only be itself when it grapples with death, when that which animates it wrestles with its counterpart.  So did Jacob find after spending the night tangling with an angel (who turned out to be God) that, come morning, God gave him a new name:  Israel.  The one who struggles with God.
     We will not find light without walking in darkness.  And even when we find it, we will always test, struggle, and fight its end.