The Dying and Rising

Now that the temperatures start with the number 3 and 4 and maybe soon even a 5, and the snow piles are shrinking lower and lower everyday, the outside world is coming into focus after weeks and weeks of being hidden under blankets of snow.

When I was parking a car yesterday I walked right past this old, dying birch tree. Look how it's come through the winter--pretty beat up, I'd say. But doesn't it have "character" and even beauty in its dying. A Lenten meditation just waiting to be found.