Smell
I read this week a relatively old news report that dogs are being trained to sniff out the COVID-19 virus. Amazing! I never cease to be amazed at the extraordinary abilities of the dog’s olfactory capacity.
One of the pleasures that I enjoyed earlier in my life was to follow a pack of beagles on the trail of a rabbit. The dogs were so good at tracking the elusive rabbit, and they were so persistent in the briars and thickets that the tips of their tails became bloody. The rabbit was rarely in sight, and I would think that the dogs had lost the trail. But their noses were always near the ground, and most of the time they would pick up the trail and take off in hot pursuit.
Recently as I exited our house next to where our two yard dogs were snoozing in their bed, I walked near them with a garbage bag with chicken scraps tucked away somewhere in the bag, and the dogs were immediately awake and sticking their noises in the air.
A dog’s sense of smell is from 1,000 to 10,000 times greater than that of a human. Humans perceive the world through their vision, while dogs experience the world through their nose. Every smell is different for a dog, and each smell has a story behind it. When a dog smells a person, another dog, or any random scent, he is trying to determine the history behind it.
Like all humans my smelling ability is only minuscule compared to that of the dog, but I do have some history behind “smells”—experienced during my travels in many other countries over the years.
Walking in the sand of the desert in eastern Chad, I smelled the camel dung in the largest camel market I have ever seen. Most people would turn their head away from the smell of animal manure, but for this farm boy, that’s like potpourri!
The aroma of fried dumplings on the streets of any city in China made me hungry even when my stomach was full.
As I walked the narrow streets of the medina in Sanaa, Yemen, I smelled the newly cured leather of goatskin.
Crepes cooking in a cart on the street in France. Coffee beans roasting in Guatemala (and I don’t even like to drink coffee). The sweet smells of a Lebanese bakery or mangoes being peeled in Egypt. Smelly open air fish market in Abidjan. Durian in Indonesia (Yuck). Haria soup in the Marrakesh market - tastes as good as it smells.
Where we lived in Burkina Faso, I smelled the dried seed from the nyeri tree, which is used in preparing the sauce that provides sustenance for families in the Sahel. It is a repelling smell, but the taste is not bad!
One of our closest neighbors to our house in Sanwabo used natural indigo dye to color hand spun cotton material. Every time I came near one of his dying pits, my nose burned from the odor of the dye. I dreaded shaking his hand as it always reeked of the dye.
The Lord has been saying to me, 'Larry, if you have any purpose in My work - it has to do with these scents. For these are the smells of the world I died for.'
For we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing, - 2 Corinthians 2:15 (NIV)