I can’t get this scent out of my head

I had a visitor to my office yesterday.  The person was obviously a chain-smoker who had to interface with the public and so employed various scent masking agents to cover the smoke smell.  We had an “interesting” meeting and not a pleasant meeting and the problem with this scenario is that the persons scent seemed to linger all day.

I should add in the interest of full disclosure that I have almost no sense of smell.  I had it at one time and not sure what happened to it.  My theories are that it shut down during the summer I worked de-beaking chickens.  What would your smell cells do if they worked in a very hot chicken barn/outhouse burning the beaks of chickens flat all day long day after day?  The chicken poop was absolutely horrible but only marginally worse then the burnt beak smoke.  The second theory is the cells went on leave during my job as a dishwasher.  There’s something about breathing in scalding hot steam for hours on end that my nose didn’t like.  My fingers and most of the rest of my body didn’t like this job either but that’s a blog for another day.

So I got this guy in my office and the scent doesn’t go away.  I started thinking about it more and more and then left my office for awhile and came back and I still had the same scent in my nose.  So I thought to myself, ‘Wow that scent was so strong it must have stuck to the inside of my nose.’  Then I thought about it some more and this seemed less and less likely.  I finally concluded the scent got stuck in my brain.  It was like a song you hear that just keeps playing in your head and won’t go away.  Think about it – your ears hear a song, you stop hearing the song, the song keeps playing in your head.  Why can’t the same thing happen with smells?

I don’t know why or how the scent seemed to last forever but by the end of the day, I was anxious to move on to any other scent.  The smell reminded me of the meeting and so I kept thinking of this meeting all day.  I finally escaped the scent by going to workout.  I am not sure if all the breathing cleansed the scent from my nose or the exercise cleared my brain of the thought of the scent.

So the next time you get a smell that sticks with you, see if you can figure out whether it’s a mental of physical manifestation.  Then again, maybe this doesn’t happen to you or anyone else in which case I am probably some sort of idiot (savant) or mentally ill.

Sirens

 

I have been hearing a lot of sirens lately (the police car variety, not the Odysseus type…although now that I think about I hear my share of those too).  I don’t know what the deal is whether people are more accident prone all of a sudden or maybe I never didn’t pay attention as much before.

 

I do tend to listen to the sirens closely though.  It’s an occupational hazard when you live across the street from where you work.  I always hope, the sirens don’t stop at the church.  I have really, really hoping they wouldn’t stop because we have been in a prolonged process to install an automated external defibrillator (AED).  The AED is a devise that pretty much anyone can use to save someone who is having a heart attack.  So I have been worried that someone would have a heart attack before we got the unit and their demise would be because it took so long to get the AED.

 

Fortunately, we have the AED now and so if there is a heart attack at the parish, we can assist the victim until help arrives.  I don’t know that it will cure my desire for sirens to go past the church, but at least we got the heart covered.

 

I started disliking sirens intensely after I started dwelling on what the reason might be for their speedy trip.  They don’t go to happy places.  There is someone in a rough spot most of the time.  It’s not something pleasant to think about the accident or illness or misfortune that exists at the destination.  I have, however, recently found a tonic for the bad feeling I get when I think about where a siren is going.  I say a prayer for whoever they are going to help. 

 I’d invite you to give it a try – it’s free – so if you hear a siren – say a prayer. 

 

Do you suppose flies or insects in general have a notion of family?  Probably not.  It was just a thought.  I mean ants and bees have their communities but I can’t see flies and mosquitoes having communities. 

I was thinking about this fly that was trapped in my car the other day.  He/she finally got out miles from where we started and I wondered if when he got out, wondered where the heck he was.  “I know I laid some eggs in the road kill in the street by the park, but nothing here looks at all familiar.  I sure hope those eggs turn into healthy maggots and grow up to make me a proud fly parent.”  I doubt anything like that goes through a fly brain.  Although you wonder if someone like Saint Francis of Assisi would squash bugs and mosquitoes as he seemed to have a very exceptional appreciation of all of life and creation.   

I was thinking if flies and mosquitoes had a sense of community they would have far greater regard for their lives.  A fly with a family would have the wherewithal to get out of Dodge after someone shoos him away and goes for the fly swatter.  Mosquitoes living in community would probably concentrate their blood seeking attacks on animals without the ability to squash them. 

I’m glad crows have a posse they run with.  Imagine if crows behaved like mosquitoes. All we need so some sort of Hitchcock like situation where crows give up on road kill and start ganging up on live things because they got nothing to lose.  If they didn’t have their buds or family, they’d probably pluck out our eyeballs first and then chow down on some fresh flesh when we are defenseless. 

I am not sure what the point of any of these observations is but I guess I wonder if our biggest failures as humanity reflect our inability to understand and see one another in community and in family.  Do murder, war, assault reflect behavior more fly like than human?  Perhaps what we need to do is emphasize the fact that we belong to a very large community comprised of numerous smaller connected communities.  

You can take the boy out of the East Side…

I grew up in Austin, Minnesota.  With a few exceptions, I wouldn’t have traded much in this environment.  There were plenty of kids in my neighborhood and we did many things in groups including a lot of sports.  No leagues – just got together and played basketball, baseball, football, and hockey.  However, Austin, as nearly every city, was somewhat economic segregated.  The families who were well to do tended to live in the same areas.

I lived on the East side.  The East side was, for the most part, the older section of town, with smaller houses and more hourly workers.  Our home was relatively big and newer than many of the homes but collectively, the east side of town had a reputation for being ‘the wrong side of town.’  In fact, a kid I went to school with, Martin Zellar (Marty Zellar, back then), wrote a song about the, “East Side Boys.”  To give you a better idea of the area town, read through the lyrics:

They grew up on the side of town
Where the Christmas lights hung all year ’round
And the sidewalks went unshoveled
And the dogs barked all night long

They were skinny and they were mean
Had parents that were never seen
Their hair was always longer
Their shirts were always tight

And we knew we’d never get to know ‘em
And we knew we’d never try
Those East Side Boys seemed further from us
Than any star that hung up in the sky

Those East Side Boys never seemed to eat
They just smoked cigarettes across the street
Stared down at the sidewalks
Came to classes late
http://www.free-lyrics.org

On conference days it was always the same
Those east side parents never came
Never read their stories
Saw their artwork on the walls

Once we’d hit the high school
Around grade nine or ten
One by one they’d disappear
And we’d never see those East Side boys again

They grew up on the side of town
Where the Christmas lights hung all year ’round
And the sidewalks went unshoveled
And the dogs barked all night long

No one seemed to know their names
They didn’t go to prom or football games
Just wandered through the hallways like inmates doin’ time

And we knew we’d never get to know ‘em
And we knew we’d never try
Those East Side Boys seemed further from us
Than any star that hung up in the sky

East Side Boys… (5X)

Now that I am living in the best place to live in the nation (Plymouth, MN), I sometimes feel like I don’t necessarily belong.  I feel like I left the East side maybe it never left me.  For what it’s worth, I don’t have a dog and am reasonably good about getting my Christmas lights down around the first of the year, but still, there’s a lingering feeling like Plymouth and I are mismatched.  There’s a little bit of metaphorical mud on that’s always on my shoes representing an incongruity in the environment where I grew up and my current environment. 

There, glad I got that out in the open.  For those of you who actually witness my behavior, I am sure all this explains a lot.  For those who don’t, just imagine a rube thinnly disguised as Johnny-on-the-spot, bean-counter, and you’ll get the idea.

 

In this business…

I heard someone recently use the phrase, “in this business,” and it got me thinking.  The phrase is part of a family of clichés wherein the author tries to explain why something he or she is an expert on is different than other realms of business or life.

The most frequent occurrence seems to be with people in the movies and TV.  “In this business, you either give the people something they like and will pay for or you end up in the gutter.”  Dang – thanks for pointing that out.  I guess I never knew that’s the way Hollywood works and it’s way different than the rest of the commercial world. 

One the most annoying examples I recall was when Joe Sensor was doing color commentary for the Vikings.  Listening to the Vikings on radio is tough to begin with but when he would preface nearly every comment he uttered with, “In this league…” and follow it with something like, “you either execute or you don’t get things done.” Wow – brilliant – never would have guessed that in the NFL you have to execute.

I suppose there is an appropriate use of phrases of this sort but it’s difficult to use it without sounding condescending.   I was trying to imagine an appropriate use of the phrase that would be appropriate, relatively insightful, and in my business.

Some potential phrases might include:

In this business, you really need to focus on mission, vision, and identity – Not sure this is distinctly different than selling pancakes or Cheerios but it might be).

In the church racket, you either got to build relationships or forget about it.  -Again probably applies to many other service organizations but does distinguish us to some extent.

If you want to survive doing God’s business, you really need to focus on improving the morality of everyone’s behavior or you’re wasting their time and money. -Too harsh?  -Accurate?

I tell you what, in my numerous years in the faith building game, one thing you must really focus is on adding value with contributed resources, or those contributions will disappear.  -Probably too much left unsaid but accurate nevertheless.

Listen, my friend, if you only focus on one thing in this gig, don’t be a hypocrite. – Definitely not distinguishing but probably valuable.

Anyway, how about it – can you come up with a statement from your perspective that would differentiate the church ‘business’ from others?