My friend Marshall told me that after his dad died, his mom would go into her husband’s closet and smell. She would smell to remember, and to be close, and to sense one more time the closeness of her departed love.

My wife tells me that when I am traveling she sleeps on my pillow, not because she likes my pillow, but because she can smell me there.

Research indicates babies show a clear preference for articles of clothing worn by their mothers, and within a few hours after birth, mothers can distinguish their child by its smell.

Last month, Dianne and I both came down with COVID. Among our symptoms was the loss of smell. The night before I lost my ability to smell, I removed the spray head on our kitchen faucet and submerged it in a glass of vinegar to dissolve the mineral deposits that had accumulated. The next morning, I picked up the glass and held it close to examine the spray head and noted that I missed the vinegar-smell. I put my nose in the glass and inhaled. My eyes watered, but nothing registered with my nose. For several days, I was disoriented by losing this important sense. It's how I buy produce at the grocery, check the health of the refrigerator, make a fitting meal, and confirm that the air we breath is status quo.  

Even though she could see me and hear my voice, when the dog was alive she touched me with her nose—multiple and random times during the day—to confirm I was me and resolve that her place within the Gillham pack was as it should be.

After dinner last night I stepped outside to sit on the patio. To no one in particular, I said, “It smells like rain.” A thought resounded: Father is close. The thought was so loud I stopped and looked. I decided it was my Older Brother Jesus speaking to me—the kind of talk families engage in that is silly out of context.

For a number of reasons, I’ve been contemplating the first chapter of Romans. Several of its themes are so profound that they are haunting—certainly this is true of verses 19 and 20. Here, Paul declares that God is evident to every person because He makes Himself evident, and of course, this begs the question: How does He do this?

Verse 20 is the answer: In creation God makes His invisible attributes, His power, and His divine nature evident. So evident in fact that no honest person can truly say they have not seen God.

“Seen God” in the sense of recognizing Him, concluding His existence, and acknowledging that His presence is evident and either must be considered for who He is and what this implies or foolishly denied based upon self-ascribed wisdom. In order to deny what is evident, you must embrace futile speculation and adhere to self-proscribed tenets based upon a contrived notion you arbitrarily declare “your truth.” It’s heady reasoning, but while professing to be wise in this manner, you become a fool (cf. Rm. 1:21).

True and honest reasoning is a humble and curious process that assumes what is evident reveals a higher, significant, and more profound truth that exists to guide you and inform your disposition in life, thought, and belief.

First the Hubble, and now the Webb, telescopes demonstrate to our visual sense the grandeur of the universe. I look into the night sky and am soon overwhelmed with the grandeur of God’s creation. I search for Polaris, the Pole Star located in the constellation of Ursa Minor, and am reassured that constancy and direction remain. But it’s all too big, too distant, to afford me closeness with God. I can’t hug the man in the moon or pet Orion’s small dog, Canis Minor.

Closer to home, I can feel God on the wings of the wind, but I can’t contain Him. Like Job, when tasked with answering God from His whirlwind, I have no idea how the foundations of earth were laid. I can only observe their courses (cf. Job 38:1-7). I look around and see the handiwork of God, but I can’t hold His hand or grasp His arm.

But His nearness? This I can smell. He smells like ionized air in the lightning storm. He smells like the rose into which I bury my nose. He is in the dusty smell of the lizard I catch in my hand. He is the fragrance of mint leaves and pepper pods and heat from maple leaves in the sun.

So, take your nose out of what you are reading and go on a field trip. Take the declaration about Him in Colossians literally and then observe: “For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together [lit. consist]” (1:16-17).

“Father is close,” my Brother noted. “Yes. Yes He is,” I replied. “He smells like rain.”