Our lives are a Christ-like fragrance rising up to God.

Today June and I spent most of the morning and a good part of the afternoon at the Harry P. Leu Gardens in Orlando, FL. It's a fifty-acre botanical oasis just minutes from downtown Orlando. Inasmuch the entrance fee into the garden is waived on the first Monday of each month, the paths and by-ways into speciality nooks of lovely garden enclosures were filled with families, especially mothers and their children, visiting the rose, butterfly, herb, palm, cycads, bamboo, vegetable, wildflower, and bog gardens, among many others. As I wended my way along the many paths and detours, I could help but be overwhelmed with the fragrance of plants and flowers. St. Paul must have experienced much of the same sensation when he wrote to remind us that we are "a Christ-like fragrance rising up to God" (II Cor. 2.155).. Vigen Gurion in The Fragrance of God says that "with the proper discipline even our earthly senses may assist us in the journey to God." When we allow our five senses to complement our faith, God comes ever nearer to us as he uses the visual beauty of flowers, the taste of honey, the sound of breezes blowing through fields and woods, our touch of petals and leaves, and the smell of honeysuckle to remind of us God's pervasive presence. So when I get a chance--as I encourage you to do--I stick my nose into a lilac bush or to sit under a tea-olive tree, and whisper to myself, "Smell the presence of God." It's like the incense about which the Psalmist wrote when he said, "Let my prayers rise before you as incense, the lifting of my hands as the evening sacrifice."