So I have come to the conclusion that if you didn't have to write a first blog, everyone would have one. Seriously, I decided that I wanted to have a blog months ago, but have put off starting one until now for only one reason... I didn't want my first post to suck. I am going to tell everyone I know that I opened one of these things and I am really nervous this is going to suck. So, I have decided to boldly step out and contribute my thoughts for all the world (or at least the people who like me enough to read about my life) to judge. So I will start with the classiest and most intelligent of all American cultural phenomenons, professional wrestling.

Are you still there? Well for the five of you left I will explain. The other stressful part of blogging is naming your blog. Without an intriguing name, you really start in a hole. My friend Denice has a blog that is name "Year 23". What a perfect name! It's simple, classy and looks great at the top of a page. So I decided to flatter her the best way I know how... I stole it! Well not exactly, but come on, "Gen 26" has the same simple classy look and since it is from the Bible, I can keep using it after my next birthday!

Yes I do have a point. "Gen 26" is short for Genesis 32:26, my favorite verse in the Bible. Since it is kind of crucial for what I am going to write about, I will tell you what it says for those of you without a Bible next to your computer (SHAME!);

"Then the man said "Let me go, for it is daybreak." But Jacob replied, "I will not let you go unless you bless me."

Profound huh? Well I guess not really, but maybe this will help, the man, is God (or an angel, or Jesus, depending on who you ask, but this is my blog so it is God, got it?) and God and Jacob have been wrestling all night. Still not impressed? Okay how about this, at some point during the night, God touched Jacob's hip and dislocated it, which I assume hurt a lot. So if your sill lost I have one more piece of background info, Jacob is a pretty mamma's boy who stole his twin brother's inheritance and than ran away and spent the next twenty or so years hiding from his large, hairy, hunting enthusiast brother. Oh and this wrestling match with almighty takes place with Jacob on the way to try and make nice with the hairy brother.

I like Jacob. A lot. I like Jacob because up until this point in Genesis he is completely unlikable. I'm serious, he has no redeeming qualities. Remember Caesar from Gladiator? Jacob is just as unlikable and whinny as him. Shockingly, God keeps helping him out and good things keep happening to him. Professional wrestling is like this. I'm not kidding. Bad guys in wrestling are usually not big, scary jerks who beat you up, at least not the entertaining ones. No, usually they are whinny, manipulative cheaters, who have big friends do all the work. Oh, and they are usually really pretty and use big words, I forgot that part. They never win because they are better than the guy they are wrestling, they win because they use steel chairs as weapons. Or chains. Or sledgehammers, briefcases, sticks, bricks or they just save the trouble by having a big friend of theirs hit the good guy. Also they win almost all the time. This part infuriates my wife Donan. She doesn't like wrestling anyway, but really hates it when the bad guys win, which is 90% of the time. She really doesn't like wrestling.

But I do. And I usually like these bad guys, in no small part because at some point they have the Jacob wrestling God moment (usually in a steel cage). They come to a point where they have to actually wrestle the good guy, who EVERYONE knows is better than them. But sometimes, when the chips are down, these pretty, whinny, cheating bad guys actually show a lot of heart. Sometimes they fight back. Sometimes they refuse to give up. Sometimes endure an incredible amount of (fake) punishment and keep coming and coming. Yes they usually end up losing these fair fights, but they usually come out of these fights the new good guys. Like Jacob. Jacob the mamma's boy. The pretty boy. The coward, held God in a headlock, fighting back tears from a dislocated hip and would not give up. And God liked that. Sure he could smite-ray this punk, but instead decided to bless him and give him the name Israel, which would prove to be pretty significant name for Jacob's ancestors.

So yeah, I like Jacob and wrestling. I relate to Jacob and to wrestling's bag guys. I feel like I am somewhere in the midst of that match with God, I would stop, but I also want to be blessed. So next time you flip through the channels and see fat guys in their underwear fighting, try thinking about Jacob. Then turn the channel, I bet you can find something better on.