And some fell on stony ground, where it had not much earth

A bare patch of dirt was grieved because it was barren.

To add insult to injury, the householder decided to use the patch as a kind of refuse heap. Scraps of food, dead leaves, cut grass, even a dead rat were thrown on it to rot and decay. The patch suffered the loathsome contact of this rotting stuff on its surface.

Then one day the householder jammed sharp tines of a digging fork into the very core of the patch and broke it into pieces. Then the householder deliberately mixed in the filth, leaving no part of the patch’s being untouched and undegraded.

The broken patch was left to weep or so it thought. But then further tortures were added. Sharp, dry seeds were rammed down into it. The pain was not as acute as the tines, but longer lasting. The patch found itself repeatedly drenched. The last bits of integrity it had, of intact pieces that it had by some desperate measure held together, dissolved.

Then roots began to pierce and a ferment of bacterial growth and worms.

In time, there was a noble patch of turf. It was deep, soft, and springy. Sun no longer baked it, and the rains no longer ran off in harsh threads.

I am still I, said the patch, but I am transformed. I could not have understood then what I would be now. Those trials were not a destination, they were my journey.