Reseeding

 Like many kids, I was brought up with a faith, a religion.  I was baptized Catholic.  I  was "seeded" with faith.  As a boy in the Bronx, my religion had certainty.  I was surrounded by authority figures who did the rituals and obeyed the rules.  Life was good in that cocoon.  But as I grew up and moved out on my own, my field of faith went fallow.  I did not work it.  I ignored my land of faith.  Weeds of life grew up in it.  Eventually, I decided that a spiritual path was better than the destructive weeds that were doing all too well and choking life out of me.  I needed to reseed my field, but now it had to become my faith, and not one given to me as a boy.  I think of adult faith and practice to be one of reseeding.  I have to work on the weeds of life everyday.  They don't go away, but they no longer choke me, nor do I feed on weeds as my only food.  Like the farmer, it is perseverance, trust in a spiritual power, and hope.  It works.  I work it.