Thursday 10 April 2008

Can you smell it?

It only happens for a few hours, maybe a few minutes when you enter a new country. You can smell it. I don't mean the smells of street stands, perfumes or hygiene, urban or rural; I mean the smell of a nation. Other senses will continue to remind you that you are in a new place or have been to one - vision compares images, sound compares languages, taste compares foods and water, touch compares climates, cultures, and topographies. With just one breath, scent can have us travel across time and space and circumstance faster than any plane. Our will is not involved in this journey; suddenly we are there, in the midst of a memory.

Since smell works by detecting changes, you can stop smelling the ordinary. Whether we spend our days in a rose garden or a pig barn, after a few minutes our noses can't pick it up. But someday, when we've left those places, those scents will bring us back. Not just where we were, but who we were and what was happening in the midst of it. This is how the mystery occurs of how one person can smell crap and think happiness, another roses and think misery. This observation is both literal and figurative.

There is another scent that lingers in the air. For some they are so inundated with it they fail to recognize it anymore. Others fear it or hate it and try not to breath it in. But those who love it can detect its aroma in every place. It is the smell of God. His book tells us that the fragrance of His knowledge is diffused in every place through those that trust in Him. For some it is the fragrance of life, others the fragrance of death - who is sufficient for these things? It is the breeze that blows through both the rose garden and the pig pen, and it is free. May each of us breath deeply today, and may it be life to us.

To all of you I will see again and for the first time - smell ya later!

1 comment:

Unknown said...

DRA!!!
It's nice to read your last few blog entries. This last one was fantastic. I've been thinking about that the last few years. We often talk about hearing God or seeing Him or feeling Him, but never smelling or tasting Him. Thanks for your insight.
-Art