Scent-sory Perception

“What smells so good?” Howard exclaimed, as he came in from the front porch where he’d been waiting for his lunch before going to work at 1:00. I was making beef stew, and the intoxicating aroma was wafting out the door where he sat enjoying the crisp fall weather. I told him what it was, and he asked what I had put in it that made the lovely smell.

“Onions,” I replied. Since I had put them in when I first put the meat on to cook, he’d been detecting them for awhile. “I learned that from Erma Bombeck,” I quipped. “She said that when dinner was running late, she always put an onion in the oven so her family would assume it was almost ready.”

I guess everyone who has ever sold a house uses the “cookies in the oven” tactic or the smell of apple pie to give potential buyers a warm and fuzzy feeling about their house. I know I fell for it once, coming in to the grandmotherly figure taking a cake out of the oven at the house we would buy and live in for twenty years! (She also had a wonderful pitcher of ice-cold water sitting in the ’fridge, offering us a refreshing drink on a sweltering day. I found out later the water was “egg water,” the name given to water from the artesian well water supply. The taste and smell only disappears when the water sits for awhile.)

In the Bible, Esau gave up his birthright when he sniffed the air and caught a whiff of his brother, Jacob’s “red pottage,” maybe stew or something like our red beans’n’rice with their tantalizing fragrance. His temporary craving made him sell his inheritance for a bowl of food. All that was left was for Jacob to trick his father into sealing the deal with a blessing after eating a look-alike meal that smelled like his favorite venison from Esau’s bow.

Today many are duped by the insidious “smell of success,” and compromise their principles and their priorities to achieve it. I remember a popular song that had the phrase, “There’ll be a lot of compromisin’ on the road to my horizon, But I’m gonna be where the lights are shining on me.” My daughter, who has had a career in nursing for many years, said to me one day, “Mama, poverty has a smell,” speaking of her experience with patients. “It smells like grease, dirt and bad breath.” She went on, “And money has a smell, too. It smells like gum, perfume and leather.” I’d say she has a good sense of smell, and a bit of philosophy, too!

Jesus said the poor would be with us always. Righteousness is available to the rich or the poor. The most important thing to remember is given in Ephesians 5:2, where Paul tells us, “And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us as an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savor,” and in 2 Corinthians 2:15, “For we are to God the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing.” The best smell of all!