Needing New Names

As I sat watching the ever engaging "Mulan" with my adorable nieces and nephew this weekend, there was a strange moment of clarity as all three main character sit dejected in the snow after their joyous moment of vanquishing personal demons quickly dissipates into disgrace and Mulan acknowledges that she has brought dishonor to the family, the lucky cricket confesses that he's not lucky at all, and the scrawny family dragon admits that essentially he wasn't even worthy enough to be considered being sent by the 'ancestors' to help Mulan.

Perhaps it was the company I've been keeping of late, Blood on the Tracks, "The Man Watching," and the Heidelberg Catechism, ...but as I watched...I kept thinking about Jacob wrestling with God, of fighting for faith, of how even that faith is a gift to us, of what it is to be found a good and worthy servant of the Lord, of the man in Lamentations 3 who could end by that devastating verse that is so rooted in God's character and not his own circumstances, and what it meant for me that Christ endured opposition from sinful men, so that I could be redeemed. In the end it was about God afterall, not being worthy or lucky because of me, but His love giving me worth. I know all these thoughts seem like a plate of stringy nonsensical leftover pasta but really for one second...it almost was as touching and pertinent as a Pollock.

"What we choose to fight is so tiny!
What fights with us is so great!
If only we would let ourselves be dominated
as things do by some immense storm,
we would become strong too, and not need names.

When we win it's with small things,
and the triumph itself makes us small..." Rilke

"Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail" Lamentations 3

"...you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome." Genesis 32