GARLIC

PRACTICE: Intentionally evaluate your interactions with others for a couple of hours today.

Here is a secret for the none cooks reading these words. Should you ever want others to think that you prepared a tasty meal, follow this recipe. Heat a pan over medium heat. Add one or two tablespoons of olive oil or butter. Mince, chop, or slice a couple cloves of garlic or take the short cut and scoop one teaspoon from a jar of minced garlic and add to the heated pan. Sautee for 20 to 45 seconds and remove pan for heat. The resulting aroma will whet the appetites and anticipation of guest for what is coming even if it arrived in the takeout boxes that are already secure in the bottom of the trash bin. There is no need to dispose of the sautéed garlic. I would add kale, toasted pumpkin seeds, a dash of salt and pepper and a dash of balsamic vinegar to compliment the meal.

The pleasant and comforting aroma produced by this herb draws your family or friends into an atmosphere, a readiness to experience the breaking of bread, a communal experience of two or more. Just the aroma of sautéing garlic for 30 seconds sets the stage for so much more. I caution you, however, that garlic on high heat for too long, produces a stench that drives people away and destroys the atmosphere you were seeking to create. There is only a small window between the two.

Of course, the garlic is a metaphor for an inquiry into the aroma we produce as we interact with others.

The question that needs our attention is, what does my life smell like? Are others attracted to me because I have been minced, crushed, chopped like a clove of garlic, sautéed slow over the fire in the olive oil of life just long enough to have a pleasant aroma? Or are they repelled because I never took the decisive step of removal from the heat and became a burnt odiferous unpleasant smell?

Honestly, we all have been both. There are times when I am preparing garlic, that I become distracted with another step in the recipe or by someone entering the kitchen. Before I know it, the garlic burns. So goes the case with life distractions -noise, busy-ness, interruptions, and I take my attention off producing the sweet aroma I seek to cast. Unintentional or intentional, the aroma you and I produce with our words, actions, and attitudes, can attract, or repel.

2Cor 2:15,16

PONDER THIS THOUGHT---My behavior produces a smell.