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2007

9th July
Smells

2nd July
Smile

26th June
Waterlogged

11th June
Plans

6th June
Letters

21st May
Friends

May 9th
Stereotypes

May 1st
Broken

April 16th
Climbing hills

April 9th
The Three Trees

March 28th
Toby the SuperDog

March 19th
Mountains

March 4th
Lone Daffodil

February 26th
Working hours

February 19th
Memory

February 12th
Piercings

February 5th
Patience

January 29th
Surprise

January 22nd
Wind

January 15th
Honesty

January 8th
My Car

January 3rd
Happy New Year

Smells
9^th July

 Close your eyes and take a deep breath in through your nose…..what can you smell? 

At this moment from the chair in my study I can smell the faint aroma of my printer – a mix of all things electrical and of ink, and that officey kind of smell. But the most powerful odour to reach my nose at the moment is that of Indian food. My next door neighbour regularly cooks up massive pots of curry and she must be doing so now, as the lovely spicy smell drifts in through my window. In fact it is making me quite hungry! 

I was out walking the other day when the beautiful perfume from some wild flowers almost knocked me over – it was so strong that you’d have to have anosmia (the lack of ability to smell) to not have noticed it. I was lucky enough to have been bought a bunch of lilies the other week and the perfume they gave off was tremendous. It lasted for days and even masked the stench of wet dog – another strong smell, although more pungent than perfumed!

 The power of smell is, well, quite powerful, and often overlooked. For example we use our olfactory sense (smell) to taste – obviously our tongues are used too, but did you know that if you put peeled pieces of apple in one bowl, and peeled pieces of potato in another, and then closed your nostrils while a piece from one bowl is eaten, the taste of apple and potato are indistinguishable! How cool is that?! They say that a smell can be the factor in selling a house – the difference between the aroma of baking bread or the whiff of damp. So if smell is so important it makes me wonder how do I smell?

 For all those of you who replied ‘with your nose’ then tut, tut. For those who replied ‘awful’ I tell you that I have showered this morning and in fact I smell of summer fruits shower gel! What I was meaning was more about our fragrance – we talk about the fragrance of Jesus and how we should be filled with this for us to be a life-giving perfume to those around us. So once again I ask how do I smell? Do I smell of Jesus or  do I stink of something a little less holy? 

Maybe I smell like coffee? I love the wonderful aroma of freshly brewing coffee, and I could sit in a coffee shop all day just sniffing and smiling. But much as I enjoy a nice cup of java I find that the taste is somewhat disappointing compared to the smell. Am I like that? I go to church, I even talk about Jesus and from the outside I certainly look the part of a Christian, but the real me is somewhat disappointing, there’s something missing, I’m not quite smelling of a real disciple.  

Maybe I smell like air freshener? Air fresheners are wonderful things for getting rid of bad smells. If you are unlucky enough to possess smelly feet, or have a bad case of wind you will be highly grateful to the fresh flowery fragrance of an air freshener. But some of them can be sickly sweet or too overpowering. Am I like that? A bit full on, in your face about my beliefs, about how great it is to be a Christian, yet hidden beneath my confident exterior there are hidden sins and mistakes, built up anger and hatred. Like the air freshener doesn’t take away the bad smell but rather masks it, I am masking my imperfection with a synthetic scent of Jesus. 

Maybe I smell like me? They say that natural body scent plays a key role in whether or not we find someone attractive. Forget all the expensive perfumes and the numerous deodorants, it is in fact our own smell that we should be emitting. If I was to go natural in the fragrance department I would not always smell very nice. After a hard day in the garden yesterday I smelled a little bit ripe – not that attractive I can tell you! But then in my life I find myself getting things wrong and making a real mess of things and you know what, I reckon at these times I stink too. But I’m not sure that I want to try and hide these pongy times with artificial odours, after all it’s not like I could ever hide them from God!  

There are other times when I am just out of the bath and I have that fresh, clean smell about me. There are times when I am just out of the close intimate presence of God where I have been washed clean and am smelling spiritually fresh and untainted (yet!). You see smelling natural is not necessarily a bad thing, but it’s more a life thing. Sometimes we get it right and the fragrance of Jesus emanates from us without us really noticing, and sometimes we get it wrong and we’re not so much smelling of the life-giving perfume as much as releasing the scent of death! But despite this, we are still being real, we are being honest about who we are and the way that life is – sometimes we don’t live up to the expectations of others and sometimes we want to hide our mistakes and our pain, but I believe that the fragrance of Jesus is one of love, forgiveness, and above all the courage to smell of ourselves.