This morning I caught a whiff of burning sage. And, as smells often do, it spirited me back to a Native American ceremony I attended at a local hospital years ago where a tribal elder was burning sage to purify an eagle feather altar.
It was — and remains — a holy aroma.
For some Native Americans, the scent of smoke is like a prayer. Smoke carries their longings and gratitude upward to heaven.
I thought of how, for Catholics, the smell of burning incense must embody all high and holy ceremonies.
I thought of the scented oils among the Hindus.
But not one distinctive LDS aroma came to mind.
Among the Mormons, apparently a nose is just a nose is a nose.
Smells are not us.
We have many sacred sounds. There's the unique timbre of the Tabernacle Choir, for example, the sing-song sounds of little children praying, the organ preludes.
We have sacred sights, like the image of a golden Moroni lifting his trumpet, or the sight of a circle of men blessing babies.
We even have sacred tastes — the taste of holy bread, of Jell-O at Thanksgiving and ice cream at family home evening.
But sacred scents?
None come to mind.
In ancient days, the children of Israel often associated scents with the sacred.
In Philippians, Paul speaks of "an odour of a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable, well-pleasing to God."
For the ancients, the scent of sacrifice was a delight.
But in modern times, our sacrifices are often made within. A broken heart has no fragrance.
In fact, for early Latter-day Saints, the scent of sacrifice was seldom pleasing at all.
They had grown weary of the scent of sacrifice.
Sacrifice smelled too much like the burning rafters and roofs of too many homes.
It smelled too much like gunpowder.
It smelled like burning tar sprinkled with feathers.
Sacrifice had the scent of blood in it.
Perhaps, in the end, they felt the only scent worth smelling was the smell of nothing at all.
People can decide what they'll look at, what they'll hear or taste. But aroma comes with breathing. And one can't stop breathing — or smelling.
And just as the scent of burning sage whisked me back to a moment in my past, perhaps the early Saints were tired of smelling smoke and remembering the flames.
But here in Utah, they could put such things behind them.
Here, they found the "dawning of a brighter day."
Here, in the West, the smell to cherish was the crisp scent of mountain air.
It invigorated the soul, filled the heart with hope.
The scent they wanted was odorless, free of contamination.
It was pure and clear.
Perhaps the distinctive Mormon scent is simply that — freshness scrubbed of ugly odor.
The Mormon scent is the absence of scent — the absence of the aroma of tobacco, coffee, alcohol.
It is the absence of the scent of fear and despair.
It is a scent of promise and purity — the untainted breath of spiritual renewal.
Jerry Johnston is a Deseret News staff writer. "New Harmony" appears weekly in Mormon Times.
e-mail: jerjohn@desnews.com