Smells

While driving to work this morning I smelled the strong aroma of antifreeze in my old truck. That probably means that I have a problem with either the thermostat or the heater coil. Regardless, I am glad that I can take the truck to someone who knows a lot more than I do about repairs.

Smell is such an important sense. I have been told that I have a powerful sense of smell as I usually smell things that either others don’t smell or I smell it way before they do.

So I spent time the rest of today thinking about smell highlights in my life—I call those “smellories.” Here are some that came to my mind today.

While living in Burkina Faso, we didn’t have too many places to take visitors to buy souvenirs, but one good place was the leather shop. The shop was attached to the building where they cured the cow hides, and every time we went to the leather shop that smell welcomed us. It was a good smell, or at least I thought so.

Another vivid smell memory in Burkina Faso is the smell of smoke. Every village compound smelled like smoke. The villagers clothing always smelled like smoke. When I am burning debris and limbs at the farm, my clothes smell like smoke, and my thoughts always return to Burkina Faso—good smells!

Right at this very moment as I am typing this post, my thoughts about writing are interrupted with the aroma of fresh sausage. Cheryl is cooking sausage for a breakfast casserole—UMMM. Now back to collecting my thoughts…

Once while walking in desert sand in northern Sudan I smelled the camel dung as we walked through the largest camel market I have ever seen. For some of you who don't know me well, you would think that this would be a bad smell (for most people) - but not for this farm boy. UMMMM!

In the weekly market of Atee, Chad, where 3,000 people come from all over the Sahara, I smelled the pungent odor of dried seed from the nyeri tree, which is used in preparing the sauce that provides nourishment for families in the Sahel.

Other “smellories” include: the knock-your-socks-off aroma of a Lebanese bakery! The sweet whiff of mangoes being peeled in Egypt! Mustard greens cooking at Mimi’s house.

My nose burning from the odor of the dyes used in making rugs in the Atlas Mountains in the Maghreb. Crepes from a street vendor in Paris.

The cured leather of goatskin as I walked the narrow streets of the medina in Sanaa. Durian in Jakarta. Haria soup in the Marrakesh market - tastes as good as it smells. Chestnuts roasting on an open fire on the streets during Christmastime in Wiesbaden.

While thinking on all these smellories, the Lord has been saying to me, “Larry, if you have any purpose in My work—it has to do with these smells. For this is the fragrance of the world I died for.”

“For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing.” 2 Corinthians 2:15 ESV