Lent

To practice means that you do something you can do in order to do something that you can't. For example, if I decided I wanted to run a marathon, I would know that despite my best intentions I can't run 42 kilometers but I can run, if I was determined, maybe 1 km.

So I would practice. I would run my 1 km and I would run it again and again until I improved and the distances I could run increased. I would keep on doing what I could do until, eventually, I was able to run 42 km. And if I wanted to play the Waldstein Piano Sonata, which currently I can't, I would need to do, repeatedly, those pitifully small things I can do on the piano often and regularly enough until my skill level increased to the point where I could play Beethoven.

As it is with running and playing music, so it is with our spiritual lives, which is why we have spiritual practice. The kingdom of God, says Jesus, is as close to us as our own hand. By that, I think he means that the goodness and power and elegance of God is never absent from us. We are profoundly loved, completely understood and absolutely accepted by the great old wise one who called this universe into being and holds it there.