The Kitchen Sink
An occasional piece of paper
March 25, 2007
Vol. 10 no. 12

Everything But...
           Our committee calls itself “Word, Worship, Music and the Arts.” That would appear to cover all the bases around our liturgical life, yet we are missing one. When Mary anointed Jesus’ feet with pure nard, not too many of us can sniff it out.
           Sure, some churches still revel in the thick clouds of incense, but we are largely going the way of “no scents” - in which nothing smells for fear of allergic reactions. I wonder if our noses will be allowed in the kingdom - will heaven smell? We are missing an awful lot if we cannot sense the fragrance of Mary’s gift.
           Susan Harvey has written a lot on “scenting salvation” - how early Christians found smell providing not only a sensory window to experiencing the divine, but that smell actually means something about us. People smell differently according to their spiritual progress. Frankly, I am not sure what a holy odor - or stench - would smell like!
           Mary’s sweet perfume was no subtle whiff for it filled the whole house, and we would not have missed it. Jesus interpreted her actions to be preparation for his burial since spices were their way to hold back the decay of the physical body. Yet Mary was not weeping and drying her tears with her hair as in other Gospels - she simply wanted to make Jesus smell nice and heavenly. Odors, stenches, fragrances transport our spirits to different realms that we cannot touch, hear, see, or perhaps even really taste.
           That there are holy odors may indicate that we have not begun to scratch the surface of how we meet God - we tap only a small percentage of the ways we can come into the presence of God. One way to God, actually, is at the tip of our noses.