As I walked this morning I saw numerous daffodils lifting their heads and awaking from the hard, packed, winter soil.  It’s chilly and only half sunny, but they are arising.  It was a reminder to me no matter how long our winter, no matter how packed our soil, no matter how strongly held our opinions or attitudes, our grudges or our personal hurts, nature and Lent always gives us a chance to awake and begin again.

All that time in winter darkness should give us enough strength and nourishment and enough desire to rise above the darkness, to risk awakening to the present graced moment, and to begin again.

Daffodils do it every spring.  And so can we.