The Nose Knows

I love the aroma of: leather shops, cof­fee shops, new clothes, new car­pet, spring rain, win­ter snow, fallen leaves, desert dust, new tires, bar­beque, salt air, spent jet fuel, gaso­line, newly cut alfalfa, cot­ton seed, butane, a win­ter fire­place, mesquite burn­ing, libraries, new asphalt, pine trees above six thou­sand feet alti­tude, the Grand Canyon, new homes, new cars, weight rooms, fur­ni­ture stores, rail­road ties, new paint, Dr. Pep­per, candy stores, ice cream shops, and many other such places and sub­stances. My nose knows all of the places I have been. I can close my eyes and pretty much tell you where I am. Take me any place from my past and my nose can give you the loca­tion bet­ter than GPS.

Dogs can smell fear. They can also detect a sin­gle human cell. A dog’s nose is smarter than a lot of human genius-types. I’ll put my money on a Bas­sett Hound’s nose against any Ein­stein when look­ing for a lost per­son. The nose is the fastest way to a mem­ory. No won­der God put it in front of the eyes. He even gave us an “inter­nal nose” to sniff out phonies and fools. “I smell a rat” has noth­ing to do with unwanted rodents. It has more to do with sales pitches and politics.

Paul called Chris­tians the “aroma of Christ” — then implied that we smell great to God but hor­ri­ble to the world. No doubt, we are a stench to the world at large. We stink of tra­di­tion, mys­tery, meta­physics, and faith in the seem­ingly impos­si­ble. Beauty is in the nose of the beholder. I won­der how THEY smell to God. Poop and fer­til­izer have the same aroma. I guess it all depends on the context.

It is good to have a “nose for news” but bet­ter to have one for ulti­mate truth. Some of the most pop­u­lar philoso­phies of our time stink to high heaven. I am often tempted to hold my nose in cer­tain sec­tions of libraries and book­stores. Noth­ing smells worse than dead reli­gion either.

Give me the aroma of gar­den flow­ers at the empty tomb and of embalm­ing spices never used. Those smell pretty good to me. They cer­tainly beat the alternative.