For we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ.  2 Corinthians 2:15

Perfume and incense bring joy to the heart, and the pleasantness of a friend springs from their heartfelt advice. Proverbs 27:9

The women who had followed Jesus from Galilee went with Joseph and saw the tomb and how Jesus' body was placed in it. Then they went back home and prepared the spices and perfumes for the body. Luke 23:55-56

Haven’t the flowers moved, slowly, across Asia, then Europe,
until at last, now, they shine
in your own yard?
Mary Oliver

Preparing spices and perfumes

We were just finishing erecting the final tent, stopped and quizzically glanced over our shoulders. What was that down the glen?  A flock of birds?  Awfully low and large, a white flurry. A blizzard!  Compact and low and moving fast.  We quickly threw ourselves into securing the second tent and then it was upon us, buffeting, pushing and howling.  As quickly as it arrived it then passed.  We saw it swarm on and down the glen.

From somewhere, who knows where, joy envelops us, with its aroma.  Paul describes the stench of death as opposed to the scent of resurrection. Oliver describes the flight of light scented flowers blown from foreign lands into our own backyard to shine.  The lily crucifix wraps life around death, not removing it or masking it but transforming it.  Lent/Easter is a 'fundamental option for life', a 'revelation of God's desire to use all of life for our wholeness and our healing - the revelation that he will pull life from death'.*

Scent is a vivifier, it brings us back to life from the dead or at least to the present, to being more aware of ourselves and our surroundings. We come to.  Imagine yourself in the above storm not of snow, but of scented flower stems. Breathe in, what comes to you in the flurry of flowers?   What joy or resurrection is God offering you?