For me, the “kingdom of God” in Jesus’ parables today symbolizes our relationship with the Divine, where God plants the seed of Love in our hearts and watches and waits with infinite patience to see the first seedling of growth sprout forth. God provides the proverbial sun and rain, cultivates the soil, pulls the weeds as needed, and from time to time, encourages our growth with fertilizer and with pruning. If and when our hearts are responsive to God’s transforming work in our lives, we grow to incarnate that Love in the world. We grow in our love for God, for one another, for “this fragile earth, our island home,” for all creation.

Hard hearts, stony hearts, unyielding hearts prevent the seed from growing, while welcoming, accepting hearts accommodate the seed’s development. If we want our relationship with the Holy One to grow and bloom and become fruitful, we can commit ourselves to that purpose and cooperate with God through our spiritual practices. For the past couple of years, people have been sharing spiritual practices that they have found to nourish their relationship with the Divine in the “Try I—You’ll Like It” column in “The Bay View,” Trinity’s monthly newsletter. From the wide variety that have been included, it is clear that our practices are not “one size fits all.” What opens my heart to God may not move yours at all, and vice versa. That’s because, as I’ve said so many times, we are each unique in God’s creation, and God meets us where we are, as we are.

The important thing about our spiritual practices is that they be intentional, that we pay attention to what we are doing and why we are doing it. It’s also helpful for us to have a regular practice to keep our hearts in tune, with some practices daily, some others weekly, perhaps some others monthly, seasonally, annually. Participating in worship once a week is an important part of our practice, of course, but alone it is insufficient to bring us to the depth and breadth and height of that “kingdom of God” that is available to us whenever we commit our selves, our time, our energy, our lives, to grow in God’s Love.