Greetings from France
Message from Mary
Hello, friends-
As you’re reading this, Doug and I are in France, eating fresh croissants every morning and superb cheese the rest of the time. This is a trip that we had been planning for some time so I am particularly grateful for the flexibility of St. John’s to accept that I’m away for a week and a half.
It is always the case that being away from home sharpens one’s senses. The aroma of France is different. The sounds are different. The places that we see, be they sacred or historical or culinary, do not resemble home.
That’s a good thing. We need to reconnect with our senses, particularly in times when we are distracted by the troubles of the world.
We Episcopalians know a bit about using our senses, because our liturgy is designed to be a full sensory experience. Visual cues like the liturgical colors and the stained glass windows, the sounds of familiar and unfamiliar words spoken by one or by many, the taste of the wafer and the wine on our tongues at communion. In the old days, when beeswax candles were the norm, one could smell the scent of honey in the air. If one’s church followed the Anglo-Catholic tradition where incense was used, that ancient smoke would take us to a different place and time.
Many years ago, while doing an internship as a seminarian in the Anglican Church in Doha, Qatar, I reveled in the spice stores in the Old Souk, where I went to get incense. Frankincense is the resin of the Boswellia tree, and was used in Jesus’ time, as we know from the story of the Magi bearing gifts. To smell that smell is to suddenly be in that cave where Jesus was born and where the Magi came to see him. And it’s just like the smell of beeswax candles, which immediately transports me to the church of my childhood, with the murmurings of the Latin Mass and singing in the children’s choir.
We don’t use beeswax candles anymore, nor does St. John’s use incense, so perhaps the sense of smell doesn’t predominate in our worship, but it is good to be aware of how the rest of our senses are lit up when we come together to praise God and ask for grace every Sunday. So thank God for the gift of the senses, that offer us so many good ways to be aware of the presence of the Divine in our lives!
Be blessed and be a blessing,
Mary+
