Thanks for returning… the word is divarication and it is defined as “the action, process, or fact of spreading apart, a divergence of opinion.”The word divarication just struck me as appropriate. We are being stretched apart by the social upheaval. Since May 26th, over the past nine days, we are experiencing being stretched and stretched and stretched. Truthfully, it has been wearisome and difficult to watch every night. The rage is disquieting, the incivility disheartening and the destruction dazing.

In one of my dazed moments, as I was minding my own business, “someone in the house” spread out her a very expense mat, banish poor Miss Molly from the room and in the middle of the hallowed space of my thinking chair proceeded to take a virtual yoga lesson.

Dazed and now perplexed (more so than annoyed) I paused and realized that stretching has benefits. Stretching builds muscles and thus strength. Stretching improves flexibility. Stretching helps increase resilience.
Being stretched does not have to assume tearing. Over stretching tears ligaments and damages connective tissue. There does come a place or point when the tension becomes so great that it tears apart, it severs, rips apart the connection but before that occurs stretching leads to a strengthening of the body.

I’ll been thinking about after the upheaval lessens, after the looting and lying, after the brutality and blaming will the stretching strengthen our resolve to work for a “greater country” or will the stretching tear us further apart?

Scripture Reading: Ephesians 4:15&16
“Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.”

Reflection Questions:
What are the causes that are tearing us apart?
What acts tear you apart from others?
What do you need to build up your love?

Prayer:
Holy God, you stretch me to live a worthy life and know my heart and my thoughts. Help me to strengthen my resolve to work in ways that build up others. Bind us more firmly together, so we will not be torn away from each other but remain connected, celebrating our life together. Amen.

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