Strange Aromas

I went shopping yesterday with some immigrant friends that I have known for the last year and a half. I was really challenged by their not needing to accomplish a goal in our outing. I thought the goal was to buy some school uniforms, but in the end we didn’t buy any. There was of course purpose in our outing: look at school uniforms, shoes and coats, eat together. However, they were not driven to accomplish. Part of me wants to “correct” them about this, to teach them to plan ahead, to create a schedule and to stick to it because they make my life crazy by just living day by day. However, for the first time today, I really appreciated this about them. I still find it annoying, but for awhile today I saw the joy and freedom in just being, even if it was being at the mall.

In this same vein, they teach me alot about communication and how to celebrate small victories. Sometime in conversations (especially phone conversations) we will spend 5 or 10 minutes trying to make the other one understand what we are saying, this is FRUSTRATING for both of us. In the beginning of the friendship, I would say, “no never mind it’s not important” and we would leave the conversation in defeat, a failure. Now we stick with it because it is important. Maybe what we’re saying isn’t important, but it’s important to try. The elation that comes when one of us finally understands, is ridiculously disproportionate for a conversation about traffic lights. Yet we get to celebrate at the end of so many conversations, it’s actually kind of addicting.

After eating one of the ladies announced that our hands smelled like onions, made the international face for “icky,” and pulled out a perfume sample from Dillards. She proceeded to dump half the vile onto my hands. Even as I type my hands reek like rich old lady. It made me think about the story where the woman breaks a precious possession, a bottle of pure nard, and pours it all over Jesus’ feet and how the drenched smell lingers for a long time. It also made me think about the part of the second letter that Paul wrote to the Corinthian church that says:

Through us, God brings knowledge of Christ. Everywhere we go, people breathe in the exquisite fragrance. Because of Christ, we give off a sweet scent rising to God, which is recognized by those on the way of salvation—an aroma redolent with life. But those on the way to destruction treat us more like the stench from a rotting corpse.

This is a terrific responsibility. Is anyone competent to take it on? No— but at least we don’t take God’s Word, water it down, and then take it to the streets and sell it cheap. We stand in Christ’s presence when we speak; God looks us in the face. We get what we say from God and as honestly as we can.

The perfume smells great to her, but to me, it smells very “other”. And this analogy of being the aroma of Christ, it makes more sense to me after today, because I better understand how how things can ”smell different” to different people.  I want Christ to be a pervasive and lingering part of my presence, but I hope that it is becoming more sweet and less corpse like or “other” to my friends. Today I am glad I am merely the conduit of the fragrance, a fragrance with which they are hopefully growing more accustomed as we learn how to live day to day and struggle through communication and shopping trips.