DID YOU SMELL that? No, I don’t mean whatever your “that” might be. I’m writing about the aroma of summer rain that blessed us a while back.
There’s a technical term for that fragrance and it’s called “petrichor.”
I will let you look up the Greek derivation of the word on your own, but, like the Shakespeare quote from Romeo and Juliet, “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”
The rain was welcomed by most of us. Dust was washed. Pollen doused. Crinkled leaves relaxed and fire danger was slightly lessened.
We were graced with its brief presence. What a natural, priceless treasure for the senses.
I love metaphors and I think of the pleasant earthy aroma of petrichor as the kind of aroma God’s grace would have.
“Grace” is that attribute of God that, as humanly frail and prone to doing what we know we shouldn’t do, God still loves us beyond measure … no matter what.
We don’t have to wait for it either, like a seasonal freshening rain. It’s there all the time and it’s free for the breathing.
Our family received wonderful reminders of that kind of generosity over the last two months.
My wife broke her femur back in May.
Fortunately, no surgery was needed to set things right, “just” an unwieldy brace to keep her leg straight for healing and the requirement to become very good friends with a wheelchair.
Meals came from neighbors up the road, calls came from friends offering to do shopping for us and we got on the prayer chain at church.
Where to get a wheelchair though?
A friend who worked at the Volunteer Hospice of Clallam County suggested they have wheelchairs, and I should come down to see what they have.
I knew VHCC had an awesome reputation, but I thought it was for really “needy” people. I mean really needy people, like folks on their last legs.
But then I realized my wife was literally on her last leg.
I drove down to their office in our van, tenuously opened the office door and was welcomed with a smile and a genuine “How can we help you?”
I explained our situation and found that they had wheelchairs and everything else someone might need to convalesce or meet their Maker, and for free as long as you needed it.
It took me some time to accept their generosity with no questions asked.
This just isn’t the way things work in our world.
The saying is true there are no “free lunches,” and we know all about “free stays at a timeshare,” if we will just listen to a “short” talk about how to we can become a part owner in luxury.
But some “free” things are truly free and too good to be true.
For us, we received genuinely free, much-needed services from VHCC when we were suddenly in the humble position of needing help we never thought we would need.
My guess is that, sooner or later, we will all find ourselves humbled in the honest recognition that we need a full dose of God’s grace after an emotionally, physically or, yes, a spiritually scorching summer.
Graciously, we need not wait for late-summer rains to experience the aroma of God’s grace.
It’s there right now.
Breathe deeply. It’s free!
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Issues of Faith is a rotating column by religious leaders on the North Olympic Peninsula. Don Corson is an Ordained Deacon in the Lutheran Church (ELCA) and the winemaker for a local winery. He is also the minister for Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Forks. His email is ccwinemaker@gmail.com
