Mention the smells of Christmas and most people have little
trouble ticking off their favorites: the
perfume of evergreen , the citrusy smell
of fruit in the Christmas stockings, cinnamon spice tea brewing, the aroma of
gingerbread cookies and pumpkin bread baking.
So popular are these smells that they've been packaged in
Christmas aerosol sprays, candles, and refresher oils.
Not so with the New Year.
What does it smell like? Bleh: the burnt sulfur of
fireworks, hangover breath, the stale odor of cold pizza and soggy chips mingled
with spilled soft drinks gone flat from the New Year’s Eve celebration.
We ring in the New while the bad smells of the Old linger on,
presuming that the mere dropping of the ball will fumigate the heritage room of
our wanton domicile.
It doesn't work; we get fogged in year after year, mired by
the memories of our myriad mistakes.
All it takes is a scratch to sniff the scent of most any
year.
I scratch 1976, for example, and smell my guilt when my dad
proudly gave me my first set of New Testament commentaries. They were in
paperback covers, and when I mentioned that I had wanted them in hardback, I
saw his smile fade. He doesn't remember
this event. I asked him, just to make sure. (Or was he pretending, just to ease
my conscience?) To this day, when I open one of those books, I often think of
my insensitive remark.
There are years marred by misdeeds (more bluntly known as
sins) when I’ve wronged others (“through my fault…my fault…my most grievous
fault”), and those errors can still torture the soul like stick pins on a voodoo
doll.
Indeed, the smell of the years has the power to grab us by
the nape of the neck and before we can twist free from its stinky claws, the
odor of remorse (Why didn't I? How could I? Should I have?) arrests us, while
in other years, the smell of resentment (How could she? How dare he? They had
no right.) stops us cold in our tracks toward progress.
Just a whiff can make your heart race, even after all those
years.
It’s a heavy aroma that throttles our momentum as we try and
motor our way onto the highway of a clean new year.
But hope can be found, sometimes in the most unusual of
places---even a church.
Several years ago, on a New Year’s Eve, while in downtown Cincinnati,
Ohio, I wandered into the Cathedral of St. Peter in Chains. Not really thinking
why a long line had formed to my left, I took my place and waited, admiring the
beauty of the sanctuary as we crept forward. Were we in line for a short video
about the historic Cathedral or maybe a gift book?
No, it turned out to be the line for the Sacrament of
Reconciliation (confession).
Oops.
I discreetly stepped out of the queue.
Bumping into people on my way out, I stumbled onto
something--- not really a thing but an aroma that drew me back. It smelled ancient
but new, familiar but foreign, strange but normal, invigorating yet soothing.
It was incense wafting down the aisle of the Cathedral, and
that holy smoke accompanied me all the way to the exit, surrounding me like an
invisible halo.
Perhaps confession is the on-ramp to a the new day of a new year, and at the same time, the exit from the stagnant days of every old year
we've ever known---years that bog us down, tethering our souls, pulling us
backward through the muck and the mire of regret, remorse, and self-reproach.
Stepping onto Plum Street in front of the Cathedral, the fresh
air met me with the invitation of an inaugural event: It was the next moment beckoning me into a
sparkling new year.
Could I accept the overture? Releasing the past isn't easy,
you know. Did I really want to take the hand of the new? After all, hanging on
to the past feels secure, even if it conjures conflicted feelings that can make
us smile even as they smite us.
I didn't know if I could, but I stepped forward anyway, and taking
a deep breath, inhaled a healing balm and lightly moved on--- into the
direction the fresh New Year.
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