Brown Grass.

New Mexico is gorgeous. It's dry, brown grass reminds me of Colorado and makes me long for home.  The mountains look as if they pop up out of the desert randomly.

Downtown Santa Fe is full of buildings that look like this; it feels as if I walked into a different world.  A world that my heart didn't know it was missing until now.

Art, architecture, vendors, cathedrals and delicious cuisine.  It's really hard to go wrong here.

Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi

Moving sculpture in the garden of Laredo Chapel

At the Cathedral, there is a huge purple sign that reads: "LENT: A Good Time to Come Home."  That really hit me; Lent is a time of contemplation within the parts of our lives that are uncomfortable: temptations, weakness, shame, and our own deaths.  Maybe the action of coming home really isn't about physically moving anywhere but really a coming home to yourself and taking time to reflect in the depths of your heart.  I think of the prodigal son and think, "Now is as good a time as any to come home. The father will always welcome his son back. Why Lent?"  Lent calls for dwelling in the pain. Within this pain, there is the joy of union.  A union in your own heart between what you believe and how you act or what you feel and what you do.  The union we long for that is found in self-love and acceptance.  The union I am agonizing over constantly.  It's time to come home to myself. It's time for you to come home for yourself.  Everyone deserves to feel appreciated by themselves.