Savory Scents
Earthy, folksy, rich, down home, all words to somehow describe the way the Czech advent season commences and progresses. In so many ways it is perhaps what Christmas once was in so many years gone by in America, before rampant consumerism became the season’s prevailing rallying cry. A common conversation theme is the bemoaning of greater commercialization creeping into the Czech traditions each year, filling the grocery aisles with kitsch imported from China but never requested. Santa Claus and his reindeer trespassing into the hallowed ground of a land that never knew him or invited him to the party.
The Christmas whimsy welcomed is that of a different sort. It’s school children singing carols around the village tree as the mayor plugs in the lights for the first time, it’s open air concerts involving portly gray-haired men with accordions, and heaps of mistletoe spray painted silver or gold being sold in ribbon-tied bunches from small wooden stalls accompanied by mulled spice wines, and pop up ice skating rinks. It’s a wreath on every cathedral and street lamp, and paper craft nativities, and the smell of smoldering frankincense wafting from undisclosed proximities. It’s pigs roasting on spits, chimney cakes turning over hot coals, and chestnuts cooking on the griddle next to Ostiepok cheese with cranberries on toast. That which makes Christmas nostalgic is not so much the stuff or the getting or even giving. It is the sensory bombardment of festivity. A specialness that comes only once per year, where everyone collectively agrees that we will reenact the old world simplicities before life became solar powered and plastic.
It’s a feeling one wants to bottle, and in so many ways they do try.
Readily passing by the Glade™ candles or Johnson & Johnson™ spray products, Czechs create their own fragrances to commemorate the season with a unique blend of earthy shavings, pine needles, and spices. Made for being heated over the fire, these Czech potpourri come with the unspoken promise of capturing the senses of the season ready to be unbound into your living space at will, bringing to memory all that feels right and good.
We can be encouraged that such aromatic allegory is not limited to times and places for the beloved in Christ. We have access to the glorious glimpses of God’s Kingdom in all seasons. And we as those who are hidden in Christ are a fragrant aroma ourselves, being the scent that beckons weary and lost travelers home, and the strangers to find theirs among us. May our lives, empowered by the Holy Spirit in us, make His glory known through us, and be a homecoming call to those around us.
