Street Smells

 It has been part of my daily activities now that the weather is warmer to take a walk around my block.  Most of the time I use my crutches--the odd time I will wheel in my mobility scooter,but the first thing I do is take a deep breath of fresh air in unmasked abandon (providing there are not people close to me)!  

 

A few weeks ago it was around supper time and I was walking---savoring---breathing!  As I breathed in,  I smelled the smells of the world coming from the many beautiful local multicultural restaurants that make home in my end of the city.  In one sniff you can be carried to a far away land by the scent of curry, cardamom and cinnamon.  You can smell food from India,  Africa, Thailand, and China! If you walk far enough all of that could be mixed with the smell of bannock,  bread , fried chicken & coffee just to balance it all out and make us not forget that that though are noses may have transported us to another place---we still are very much in Canada :) I also could tell you stories of smells that do not evoke such beautiful things, but I'll leave that part to your imagination. 

As I walk(ed) these streets these days it makes me pay attention to the smell I leave behind in the rooms, friendships, connections and meetings I participate in?  Has Jesus so invaded my character, words,  body, mind and spirit that in every place I am people are left with the smell of God and desiring Him in their life? This means more to me than leaving the smell of my favorite perfume fragrance behind me or filling my apartment with the smell of fresh baked things.  Does the fragrance I carry leave an aroma of home, fragrance of love, beauty and the scent of the most Holy?

It's amazing to me how the smell of something can trigger a memory or a certain feeling.  A glass of wine, my morning coffee,  a certain cologne/perfume, the smell of dirt,  rain or even the smell of my  roasting chicken dinner in the oven at this very moment can all take me back to moments of love, security, home and just a deep sense of joy and delight.

So what?

I encourage us to live and breathe in the smells of joy and delight wherever we are. Smell deeply--breathe deeply and ask for the grace to leave an aroma of the Person of God in the places that we walk.  Oh that we would be like the woman at Jesus' feet whose fragrance of worship filled the room long after she had left it (See John 12).  May our neighborhoods, streets, families, zoom rooms and lives smell better than all the smells of this wonder-full world and cause us to want God more.