The Struggle for Blessing
40″ x 50″ oil/canvas
Jacob is on a journey to his ancestral home. He is troubled, fearful, conflicted. The past is behind, the future not sure. Night comes. Jacob, an imperfect and confessing self, wakes and wrestles with the Angel of God. On his knees he asks for that blessing of forgiveness and affirmation. The Angel, with a look of great kindness, raises the right arm in blessing and with the left grasps Jacob’s arm – perhaps to steady, to keep him from falling, to help him rise. The night is illuminated by the light of God’s power to transform. This powerful, archetypal story is about a universal experience of transformation: a soul responding to an inner spiritual call to transcend and prepare for the responsibility of self and community leadership.