As a child, today’s gospel used to baffle me. Why would the farmer waste seeds on areas that didn’t stand a chance for them to grow? Even when the priest told us that Jesus was giving everyone a chance to believe in him by scattering the seed, it still didn’t make a lot of sense.
   One experience that does help to explain today’s gospel is the farm land   in South Idaho. The same soil that used to be covered in sagebrush, with a lot of hard work, is able  to produce a variety of crops. If our soul is hard like the path, or rocky or thorny, it doesn’t have to remain that way. If we put forth the hard work, like our farm land, it will yield and abundant crop of good works.