The Smell of Life

"What's your favorite smell?" the radio host asked.  "Call in with your answer and we'll enter you into a drawing for a ham and a $50 gift certificate!"

I can smell that ham now, with some whole cloves poked in it while it bakes, drizzled in pineapple juice, with a sweet potato/sliced apple dish beside it in the oven.  So, what's my favorite smell?

When I was a kid I seemed to be able to smell whatever Mom was cooking.  She laughs that I would open the front door and could tell immediately if she'd made fudge.  Or I'd come in for dinner, take a whiff, and say (pre-speech therapy days), "Ummmm, coun for dinner!"

Perhaps the smell that had the greatest effect on me was rubber!  For years my favorite store was Les Schwab, and it wasn't for the popcorn!

Now I guess I'd have to say that the smell of "clean" is my favorite, not the residual fragrance of the cleaning supplies, but the freshness that you sense when you put a clean towel to your face or finish scrubbing the bathroom.  Or when you bring the crisp, dry sheets in after a few hours on the line, where they've been hanging in the sun.  Oh, that's so lovely.

I began to wonder what God's favorite smell is.  I think it must be incense, as He included it in the sacrifice system that He instituted through Moses.  In Exodus 30 He even gave a recipe for the incense to be placed in the front of the Testimony in the Tent of Meeting, where He would meet with the people.  He told Moses, "Take fragrant spices -- gum resin, onycha and galbanum -- and pure frankincense all in equal amounts, and make a fragrant blend of incense, the work of a perfumer.  It is to be salted and pure and sacred" (verses 34-36).

Ephesians 5:2 tells us that "Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God."  And we, as His followers, spread "everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of Him.  For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing" (2 Corinthians 2:14, 15).  The aroma of Christ through His people is the sweet fragrance of life: clean, pure, inviting and welcoming.  The world needs the aroma of Christ.  May we who follow Him be broken jars of His lovely fragrance.

Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir

When composer Eric Whitacre received a video of a 17-year-old girl singing one of his songs, he was impressed with her pure, sweet tone and the look on her face.  It occurred to him that maybe he could develop a "virtual choir," with many people recording themselves singing their part, and putting them together as a choir.  He went into the studio, "conducted in total silence, I could only hear it in my head," and got the word out to musicians all over the world.  One-hundred-eighty-five singers joined him in singing his piece, Lux Aurumque.  Here is Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir:



A second Virtual Choir recording will release tonight on YouTube.  The piece is Eric Whitacre's Sleep, and the choir is composed of 2015 singers!

If you'd like to know more about the Virtual Choir, you can hear how it all began, or you can read an NPR report by one of the performers.

Family History Through a Camera Lens

I've seen the back of Tom's head a lot in the past year as he has spent hundreds of hours sitting at the computer, scanning old slides!

He's transferred thousands of pictures to the computer that his dad took from 1949 till the late 60s, and his own slides of Europe during college and the military.   And we haven't even touched the many boxes of photos from our 22 years together, or the notebooks of negatives I put together of my pictures before we met!

Here's the tail end of the last box of old slides, film canisters and camera filters, and the trash basket after one particularly busy evening.

As I look at the scanned slides on the screen, I am impressed with the record these pictures provide.  Tom's family life unfolds before me, from the early days till the grandchildren came along.  I see family trips, houses where they lived, their children and their cousins growing up -- these are sweet memories for Tom and his siblings.  His dad had a wonderful sense of art and snapped some exquisite nature shots.  Friends from church and the community come to life on the computer screen.  Over the years changes in clothing, hairstyles and technology are documented.  What history!

Here are just a few of the results of Tom's unflagging dedication to a task that has brought him great joy and has introduced me more fully to the family I married into.

Main Course Salad

Looking for a good idea for an easy, healthy dinner?  Here's one you might try.  Or modify it to fit your taste or your food on hand.

Reflection

To me, 'twas not the truth you brought,

So clear to you, so dim to me.

But when you came,

You brought a sense of Him;

And through your eyes

He beckoned me;

And through your heart

His love was shed,

Till I lost sight of you

And saw the Christ instead.

Author Unknown

{Image Credit}

Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head

How Do You Handle Adversity?

It must have been quite an earthquake!*  The foundations of the Roman jail were shaken, the prison doors flew open and the chains of all the prisoners fell away.  You'd expect mayhem, prisoners bolting from their captivity, cries of victory on their lips.

The jailer woke up and, expecting to find an empty prison, was just about to kill himself.  After all, prison officials don't look too well on a jailer who can't keep his occupants contained!

But what he found changed his life.

Paul and Silas, who had been severely flogged and thrown into prison the night before, called out to the jailer, "Don't harm yourself!  We are all here!"

Why hadn't they all escaped when they had the chance?

Paul and Silas trusted God with their lives.  That's why, even when they were in jail for setting a slave girl free, they prayed and sang hymns to God.  They saw the prison as a place of freedom, not bondage.  And the other prisoners listened to their praises and their prayers.  It was the faith and courage of these men of God that influenced the other prisoners and kept them from running.

And the jailer?  He "called for lights, rushed in and fell trembling before Paul and Silas.  He then brought them out and asked, 'Sirs, what must I do to be saved?'"  That night, he and his whole family turned to Christ and were baptized.  He cleaned the wounds of his prisoners, fed them, and he and his family were "filled with joy, because they had come to believe in God."

As followers of Jesus, how do we respond to adversity?  It could have a profound affect on others.

*This story is found in the New Testament book of Acts, chapter 16, verses 22-34