Follow your nose
on paying attention in the spirit
On my last preschool music day in one of my schools, I was gifted a huge bouquet of flowers and a couple of very sweet cards from the students and staff. As I promised the kids, I pinned the cards up immediately on my kitchen corkboard so I could enjoy their handiwork, and I set about putting the flowers in water.
It’s azalea season in my little yard and my home is currently an embarrassment of blooming, as I bring in the bright pink branches and fill every available vessel and surface with their hopeful blossoms, but there was something about this new bouquet that just didn’t sit right with me. A day later, I separated out the large bouquet into different color schemes – the red and yellow in one vase and the green and purple in another, and this adjustment helped, but still the flowers felt… unsettling.
When something that is meant to feel hopeful and good instead feels not just unsettled but unsett-ling, it’s important to understand why. Ultimately, I understood that the issue was one of aroma. These flowers, pretty as they were, were rapidly decomposing. The scent unfortunately reminded me of a funeral home. They smelled, to me, like death.
The intention with which these flowers were given was entirely positive, and the emotion they carried with them was love, and this weight of meaning would have been enough for an earlier version of me to tolerate the discomfort and choose not to investigate it further.
But today’s version just stopped typing mid-sentence and brought both vases out to the porch.
If we look around our world, our country and our Church today, we might find things or ideas that were perhaps originally meant for growth and flourishing, for honor and universal good but which in a current iteration, platform or container just does not settle well within our spirits. Or we may learn or finally see information or perspective we’ve been missing for a while. Or we may find that we ourselves have drifted far from the core values we once professed. After all, just because something looks good and even beautiful at first does not mean it always is good and beautiful. When a disconnect happens in our spirit, it is a part of our baptismal call to pay attention, to investigate, and to act, and not ignore the feeling of dis-ease within.
When a political association feels at first like belonging and then calls us to twist or bury our morality in order to stay in alignment with it, we should pay attention. When a religious teaching benefits some but not all of the Body of Christ and the larger human family, we should question that teacher and hold that teaching up to the light. After all, if the Gospel is not good for everyone, it’s good for no one. When we see people cheer the harm of others who don’t look or live like us, when we see our institutions protect the powerful at the expense of the least of these, we should recognize all of that for what it is – rot.
Plainly said, when something smells like death, it is time to get that thing out of your house.
Even if it once looked fine to our eyes, even if we thought it was meant to be honorable or holy, even if we are the ones who brought that thing in in the first place. Even if we lived with it for a long, long time. If it smells like death, it’s got to go.
Jesus said that we will know people and ideas and actions by their fruit. In our spirits, deep down, I believe that we who are in Christ know the difference between truth, goodness and beauty, and pride, greed, and rot. We can smell the difference, can’t we? Our bodies, minds and spirits will always give us the cues and prompting we need to pay attention and to act. But will we stop what we’re doing, pause our routines and our tribal reactions, and finally, bring what is begging to go out the door where it belongs?
Oh friend, I really hope so. Our country, Church and world are counting on us to follow our nose and the prompting of the Holy Spirit who lives within us.
There is so much blooming and flourishing if we will choose it.
