I’ve never been good at stretching or warming up before a workout. Maybe that’s because it’s hard enough for me to drag my bones to the Y. Once there, I want to get to it and get back to my chair as soon as possible. But I’m aware that stretching is important for the muscles, and I’ve watched as football and other teams have changed their pre-game workouts from calisthenics and hitting drills to doing a lot more stretching and flexibility exercises to loosen and soften the muscles.
So that leads me to an obvious question about a very important muscle – our heart. When is the last time you’ve stretched your heart in the spiritual sense. How do we open our chests and stretch out our arms to our fellow man or woman. I think we know the answers. We open our heart when we embrace the beauty of creation and reach out to comfort others.
Stretching our heart doesn’t require a health club membership or expensive exercise gear. It simply requires the same will that we need to get out of bed or off the couch to get exercise. So as you resolve to get “in shape” this spring, don’t forget to stretch – stretch your heart.
Dear Webb,
Sue Bender wrote Plain and Simple, a trilogy on finding the sacred in our lives. Her third volume (the only one I’ve actually read) is titled Stretching Lessons. In it she discusses listening to our body as the guide in becoming “as big in our spirit as we truly are.” She uses “stretching” as a metaphor for dealing with our limited visions of possibilities in our lives .
I like the way you characterized stretching: “opening our hearts” to embrace beauty of creation and to comfort others. And I like Bender’s characterization as well: “Like a hermit crab that had outgrown its shell, I needed to stretch out of this exhausting way of conducting my life.” She would add to your characterization that stretching our heart can help us leave behind the limitations we place on ourselves. Interesting!
Tom
Wonderful vision my friend.