An Odd Aroma

 

“What’s that smell?”  My beautiful wife said, as I opened the door to our humble abode.

“I hope that’s not Elliot’s pie,” I said.  “It smells as though he was cremating it, not just baking it.”

The aroma of something burning wafted out into the garage.  As we walked into the kitchen, Elliot pounced before we had a chance to say anything.  “Look at my pumpkin pie!”  He said.  “Isn’t it beautiful?”

It did look OK – I had expected to see something resembling a volcanic crater based on the atmosphere in the kitchen, but although the edges were a little dark, it certainly didn’t explain the smell.  “What happened?”  I asked.

“What do you mean?”  Elliot said blankly.  “I baked a pie, that’s all.”

There was general laughter from the other children sitting in the kitchen.

“You didn’t burn anything?  Then why does it smell the way it does?  I hope this isn’t your new cologne.”

“You smell something?”  Elliot said and then.  “Well, I sort of spilled some of the pumpkin on the bottom of the oven when I was putting it in.  I was surprised at how much smoke it made.  It kind of set of all the smoke detectors and I had to turn off the oven and clean out the bottom before I could bake the pie.”

“That certainly explains it,” I said.  “I wonder how long it will take before the atmosphere clears in here?”

Someone told me once about a restaurant on the moon – they have great food, but no atmosphere.  On the other hand, we had great food and too much atmosphere.

One of the things I have realized is that our lives leave behind an aroma.  The things we do, the words we say, and even the ways in which we say them touch people and leave behind an impression long after we leave the room.

“Our lives are a Christ-like fragrance rising up to God. But this fragrance is perceived differently by those who are being saved and by those who are perishing.” (II Corinthians 2:15 NLT)

In the Old Testament times, the Jewish people saw the sacrifices they made as pleasing God.  Even then, God told them that He was more pleased with obedience, mercy, and justice than with sacrifices. 

In the New Testament era, we no longer offer sacrifices and yet, there is still an aroma that goes up based on our words and actions.  Hopefully it is a Christ-like fragrance that others perceive and not the thick, harsh smell of burned pumpkin on the bottom of an oven that wafts up to the throne of grace.

Crazy Weather

 

"This weather is crazy!"  My patient warmed to his topic, just as quickly as the temperatures had cooled from the previous weekend.  "We got up to eighty degrees last week and then it snowed on Friday!  It was 24 degrees at my place Tuesday morning!  It's no wonder everyone is getting sick."

"Actually," I said (relishing my ability to bring science to bear on the situation), "Weather has very little to do with infections.  I think most respiratory infections are caused by either bacteria or viruses."

My patient wasn't buying what I was selling.  "Then why do so many more people get sick in the winter than in the summer?"  He shot back.  "I've had six close relatives die in the last couple of years and all but one of them passed in the winter months.  It's right scary when December rolls around again -- you just don't know who you'll lose, but it's bound to be someone."

"I mostly blame it on school," I said.  "I think schools are the perfect environment to spread viruses around -- after all, you have a bunch of kids packed together in a room for multiple hours a day.  More than that, pre-teen children are terrible at washing hands and covering their coughs."

"Maybe so, but none of my family members who died was either a student or schoolteacher.  That didn't stop them from getting sick."

Later on, I googled the question and discovered that there are multiple reasons people get sick more frequently in the winter months.  Of course, in cold weather, people do spend more time in close quarters with others, but more than that, in cold, dry weather, water droplets from a sneeze or cough fly farther than in warm, humid air.  Even more interesting is that when the inside of our nose gets cold, the little cilia inside don't work as effectively to sweep out mucus and viruses.  When the janitor cells in our noses go on strike, the sinuses get sick.

Of course, it is understandable that people blame the weather for various illnesses.  After all, there is little more certain in old literature than that a character who has spent time in a cold, damp location will begin to cough and depending on the author's whims, eventually find themselves knocking on the pearly gates.

It strikes me that unless we understand the reason behind the things that happen to us, we can do little to prevent them from recurring in the future.  As long as people believed that malaria and yellow fever were transmitted by inhaling bad air, people would continue to perish from them, but when they figured out that was actually mosquito borne, they could begin to eliminate it.

Jesus said, "A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart, and an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart. What you say flows from what is in your heart." (Luke 6:45)

When we say something unkind or unchristian in some way, our tendency is to believe that we need better filters.  "That's not really me," we say, explaining away the slip of the tongue with excuses like fatigue and stress.

The reality is that what comes out of our mouths is quite definitely an indication of what is in our hearts.  The fact that we filter most of the negative things out, doesn't change that at all.  Jesus doesn't want us to change or improve our filters; He wants us to change our hearts.  Only then will we be able to speak without fear of what we share.

Once we understand the source of the problem, we can do something about it, whether we are talking about loose speech or respiratory illnesses.  For fixing the weather in Virginia is unlikely to eliminate viruses, even if warmer weather would put a smile on the face of the dying man who can't stop coughing.

Holy Food?

 

“I hear you all are having a donut sale next weekend,” the lady said to me.  “I always look forward to that – Mennonite donuts are SO good!”

“That’s our plan,” I said.  “We’ll be selling hole-y food at the gym as long as it lasts.”

“Holy food?”  The lady seemed surprised.  “Will your bishop be blessing the donuts before you sell them?  That would be a big attraction.”

“No, I don’t think so,” I said.  “I just meant that donuts have holes in them.”

“Oh,” the lady seemed disappointed.  “Well, I’m sure with a doctor helping with them they will be especially healthy.”

I wasn’t too sure about that.  “They’ll be tasty,” I said, uncertainly.  “I’m not too sure about how much nutritional value they will have.”

The woman went on to talk about the quality of homemade food.  Even if Mennonite donuts weren’t vitamin fortified, they were still “a cut above.”

I have noticed that many people look for reasons to do unhealthy things and at the same time they find plenty of reasons why they don’t do the healthy things they know they should be doing.  They buy holy donuts from the Mennonites but completely skip the vigorous exercise that all of us should be doing to get into shape.

The Prophet Jeremiah had one of the darkest assessments of the human condition that I know of.  “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9) 

The world around us tell us to “Follow your heart.” But is it wisdom to follow your heart?  Jeremiah would say “no.”  Following your heart will simply get you into trouble.

At a minimum, you need to have a basic understanding of what your heart desires and why it wants those things, because most of us are amazingly good at coming up with reasons why we should pursue things that are not good for us.

We call this “reason creation” rationalization.  Rather than asking the question about whether or not we can come up with reasons why we should do the thing we want to do, maybe it would be better to ask whether this activity will help us achieve our long-term goals.

If buying donuts doesn’t help us get healthy or draw closer to Jesus, then maybe we should leave them alone.  This, even if the donuts are holy, almost-healthy, Mennonite delicacies from Gladys, Virginia.