So if the act of separation was undesirable perhaps we would expect that ‘it was good’ would not appear here either?

What if the ‘it was good’ is absent and the second day because the separating of the waters was prep work….and although that was enough for the day, the purpose of the separation had not been accomplished…namely to enable to the forming of the dry land and gathering of the waters on the third day…Perhaps it is ‘it was good’ that is the declaration of completion, not the announcement of ‘the third, fourth day’ etc.

As an artist, I understand the need to separate in order to create. To bring the possibility of order through delineation and division. Craftspeople are familiar with this…are not so essayists? I cannot help but wonder that avoiding and fearing separation will result in stagnation.

God’s intent for separation is to create. A baby must separate from it’s mother. The rain must separate from the clouds. In order to produce warmth, the energy of wood must separate in the form of fire. These separations, it seems to me, happen from within the nature of the entity itself. Yet each still have an element of outside help. A knife separates the baby form the mother; a mountain enables the separation of the rain form
the clouds, human hands or lighting ignite the wood.

When thinking of a stone smashing through a window it seems to me to be talking about a force that is coming from the outside; something that is not integral to the thing that is being smashed. It’s intent and purpose is to destroy, the opposite of creation. Perhaps we should not look at the fact of separation as the work of the devil, but look at the intent..AND if the separation results in new life or death. Is this not the hope of Christ, that his entering into death means that what is broken, even beyond repair, is infused with new life and is deeply reconciled in Him?

The hope of religion, it seems to me is not that destruction or separation never happens ( we are in that sort of world and our hope has to match reality) but that even when something has been smashed with the intent to destroy and cannot return to it’s former unspoiled unity, there is the possibility of reconciliation and beauty and glory. For instance, how would we have stained glass windows if we did not have broken glass?.