Wednesday, September 21, 2016

Getting a Whiff of Things

Baxter’s nose is amazing. It leads him through life. When I am having lunch, Baxter is usually just waking from his morning siesta. I come in the door and go back to my bedroom to see him, and he looks up at me but doesn’t make any effort to move. He continues to lounge in place, easing himself into consciousness and activity. When I go into the kitchen to prepare something to eat, he still remains prone and seemingly apathetic. Nothing is going to force Baxter to disturb his comfort. Nothing, until he gets a whiff of something appetizing.

I don’t know how he does it. His sense of smell is so acute that it picks up the slightest hint of his favorite foods. I can understand how opening a packet of tuna might set Baxter stirring, but opening a package of graham crackers? He loves graham crackers, and as soon as I break open the package to get a treat to top off my lunch, Baxter comes running to my side for his share. From two rooms away, he picks up the scent, and this olfactory stimulation sets him begging for a morsel. (I may have to try eating in my car in the garage to have an undisturbed lunch.)

What are we prone to sniffing out? Often it’s not thekindest smells. Some of us are keen on gossip. We wake from our drowsy, boring ways of getting through the day when we get a whiff of something shady on someone. Somebody’s marriage is rocky. Someone’s kid is in trouble with the law. Someone is sick with a serious illness. Somebody lost a fortune on a business deal. Someone has a drug or alcohol problem. Whatever misfortune we smell about another, we can’t often resist the hunger it rouses for more.

A tidbit only whets our appetite. Having tasted a juicy piece of information about another, we want more, the full story, all the details. We aren’t satisfied until we think we have it all. What gives here?

Gossip allows us to avoid what really smells around us—our sin and weakness. When we get caught up in pursuing gossip, we stop looking at ourselves and reflecting on how we need to grow. Our attention is drawn to other’s faults and failures, so that we don’t have to be honest about our own and try doing something about them. We lose focus on our own lives, so that we begin to assume there is nothing wrong.

“Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye?” (Luke 6: 41)

Baxter’s nose is programmed for “good” smells, things that nourish him and that he likes to consume. Our noses are often in the air for the opposite kind of scents that we hope to discover on each other. We need a way to freshen theair between us. Smell the roses in other’s lives, and the rot in our own. Admire the roses and get rid of our rot. In that way, the world will be a fresher place for all of us.

-Monsignor Statnick