Wrestling with angels can pose a danger – just ask Jacob, who woke up with an injured hip after a restless night of wrestling with an angel. For his troubles, Jacob received a new name, which is interpreted in many ways, but perhaps most commonly as indicating someone who has wrestled with an angel, or with God, and although wounded, survived the encounter.

I have happily struggled most of my life with spiritual questions and the varied answers given throughout the thousands of years that humans have been asking questions about the meaning of existence. I started out as a Quaker, and attended services in various Christian denominations, but roughly 20 years ago found my spiritual home in Judaism.

As I have moved through late adulthood, and entered what I like to picture as wise old womanhood, the forms and metaphors of my writing has moved as well. Lately it has been through poetry, or poetic prose that the inner longings of my heart have blossomed.

This is the place where I will share the joys and sorrows of my personal wrestling with angels and express as best I can in human language ways in which the Divine has touched my life.

©2020 Martha Hurwitz