Sniff Your Soul

I was in the eighth grade I think, give or take a year. We were packed onto the basketball court bleachers for a West Junior High School student assembly – “pep rallies” they called them. It was summer. Hot. Uncomfortable.

We sang the obligatory songs, the National Anthem and school fight song (ours which loudly defined us as bold and brave Vikings, proud and courageous, ever-true…which all amounts to a funny cacophony of sentiment when sung by a horde of pre- and mid-pubescent geeky kids). The school band played. The speakers spoke. And we sat with numb tailbones, just happy to have gotten out of French class for the day.

During the whole affair though, I was troubled, deeply troubled, by a pervading smell, an insidious stink. This stink seemed to emanate from my right, and obviously from close range given the intensity of smell. No joking folks, this was bad. I’d just as soon as been stuck in the monkey cage at the zoo as right there on those bleachers, trapped next to this smell.

I glanced to my right, my disgust increasing by the minute. My classmate Will was there, a precocious, hyper, and a bit eccentric boy. I liked Will, but my opinion of him was changing with every horrid whiff. How could somebody let themselves go like that? Come on, you’re not five years old anymore, take a shower! Soap and water – use it, brother. Just go away, man! Gross.

For goodness sakes, it was torture. I think everybody smelled what I did, but nobody said a thing. The condemnation was as silent and as intense as the stench itself, neighbors blaming neighbors for the invisible sin of poor hygiene. Sour looks, distrustful looks, were passed around as the inner strife simmered in quiet conviction. I had convicted Will. The fact was clear – he stunk, and he stunk bad.

I’m 35-years-old, but I do have to confess that this was a different generation, perhaps simpler, probably a bit more innocent or naive, and certainly less encumbered by the distractions of pocket technology like cell phones and text messaging. But still, kids are kids, they can be gentle or mean or a little of both. I believe that I have always tipped the scales in favor of gentle. But gentle I did not feel as I sat there, a self-proclaimed victim. In fact, for that whole assembly, I think my thoughts teetered more towards downright mean.

Needless to say, it was a big relief when the assembly ended. I escaped to a pocket of fresh air and basked in the self-righteousness of my own superior hygiene.

Fast forward a couple hours…

It was later that I realized something. That morning, leaving my house, I must have stepped in a pile of dog poop. The sole of my shoe carried a toxic stink, easily dominant when brought nearer the nose (as might happen in the sitting position of the tight-squeezed bleachers). Uh oh. Could it be? Is it possible that…the stench was mine? Aw, s#!*. The stink, it was right there on my sole the whole time.

Guilt consumed me. I apologized to Will, confessing that I had convicted him of stinkiness, if only inside my head. He of course had smelled it, too, but had blamed somebody else. The stink off the sole of my shoe had started a chain reaction of judgment. Whoops.

Too often we might want to settle for this moral of the story: “If you stink, blame the dog.” But this is not right, of course. Let’s face it, the true moral of the story is clear: “When something stinks, sniff your own soul.” I can think of a more elegant teaching parable…you know, something about an eye and a splinter and a plank. Truth is eternal.

Short Epilogue: That’s the beauty of the parable, we can see it come alive in any generation, in any life, most especially our own. It takes mental energy, and that’s the way it should be. The secrets of life are eternal in parable.

bn (Aug06)