Smells!
There are smells all around us. The human nose can distinguish between 4,000 and 10,000 smells. We classify them as either being an aroma or an odor.
Aromas are pleasant and uplifting where as odors are normally unpleasant and cause us to grimace.
The other day I was at home visiting my parents and the aroma of homemade bread filled the house. It was delightful.
A few months back, I was at home and my sister asked me to change my nephews diaper. This was definitely not aromatic. It was odorous to say the least. I think it singed my eyebrows.
To add to the aromas and odors that bombard us, our body also produces smells.
There is a fascinating history to human odor.
The ancient egyptians use to put scented wax upon their head. Throughout the day the sun would melt it and the scent would be released masking the odor of the body.
The Romans and Greeks would just soak their clothes, horses, pets in perfume.
English ladies in the Victorian era would sale their handkerchiefs scented with their body odor.
Of course doctors would use the odor of the body as a diagnostic tools to determine the health of the body.
Today, billions of dollars is spent trying to change our odor into an aroma. We spend a lot of green on breath mints, foot powder, deodorant sticks or roll ons, cologne, perfumes, secneted shampoos, and scented soaps.
We continually want t hide the odor and leave off an aroma.
Recently a study has shown that their is a direct correlation between what we eat and how we smell.
There are foods that make you stink. A high diet of red meat, processed food, dairy, garlic, onions will cause you to stink.
A high diet in leafy vegetables, fresh fruit,whole grains act as a interior deodorizer.
By simply changing our diet we change our smell.
Such is the case in our interior life.
St. Paul tells us today that we "should be imitators of God. We should live in love as Christ loved us and handed himself over for us as a sacrificial offering to God for a fragrant aroma."
We are called to leave a good smell behind. Our lives, as Christians, should be aromatic. Where we have gone, the aroma of Christ should linger.
This of course means, we have to change our diet. We have to get rid of all "bitterness, fury, anger, shouting reviling, and malice" and in its place be "kind, compassionate, and forgiving as as God has forgiven us in Christ."
This is how we leave a good smell behind.
Jesus in the gospel offers us a new diet as well. He gives us the bread of life for our nourishment. The bread of life is his words and teachings, and that of the church. It is also, the Eucharist. A daily does of the bread of life will eliminate the stink in our life and will bring about the aroma of goodness, the sweet fragrance of truth and love.
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