WHAT’S that awful smell? “What smell?” I asked the friend of mine, who had just entered my home. “Can’t you get it?” he asked surprised.
It was after he’d left, I went around sniffing at every nook and cranny and finally found the odour came from my old dog, who with age had developed a dry skin.
There was a time I would have taken him to the vet immediately, but with that becoming difficult during the lockdown, I had instead got used to the smell.
Well, we all get used to a stink, don’t we? We all complain how corrupt our country is but I wonder how surprised we would be to find that we ourselves smell of the same corruption? We’ve just got used to the smell! I’ve sat on boards of religious trusts, one time as a general secretary and the other as a Vice-Chairman and found a chairman who had stopped taking his mandatory one year break from the board but continued as chairman for twenty-five years and in the other, a member getting selected year after year to attend an out of town all paid for conference, one year saying he was a priest and the next year going as a lay leader.
When I mentioned their acts were smelling, they told me there was no smell. If they couldn’t smell their own putrid stink, why blame those around us?
Yesterday, I heard about the death of Dr Sam Kamaleson, a man of God and was also forwarded a video in which Dr Kamaleson spoke about a person named Shankar who talked to everybody about God, and was mocked by many for his courage and frankness.
Dr Kamaleson then a veterinary student stood up for this friend, and later asked Shankar, questions about his faith.
Shankar’s conviction and faith changed the life of Dr Kamaleson, who went on to become one of the most powerful preachers I’ve ever heard in my life.
What changed him was a simple boy’s purity, what doesn’t change us are powerful boards and money rich organizations meant to influence the lives of others but filled with individuals who stink.
The problem is that as we get used to taking shortcuts, we cease becoming influencers.
“Come here!” I told my grateful dog as I began to scrub him gently with a moistened cloth as he was too old to handle a bath.
He looked at me gratefully as the smell left the room. “Come here!” whispers the One above to me, and cleans and scrubs away all that’s causing that awful stink! We don’t even know we smell..!
