Lavender Epsom Salt

I’m lowered —I use a wheelchair— into warm, soapy water to soak my tired limbs and scrub them clean. When I learned that Jim, the resident bird artist, was using Epsom salts to moisturize his skin that had become dry and scaly, I was intrigued, especially when told it also came in lavender. Even though I knew it would be more costly, I begged my sister-in-law to send me some. When she did, I splashed it into the water.

Calming lavender fragrance filled the air.

Changing three of the words I had seen on the tub wall, I wrote a metaphor of my own. “Lavender is to the body what fragrance is to the soul.” That became my life mandate. Almost immediately, my mind traveled to a moment that occurred some two thousand years ago just before Jesus’ crucifixion.

This incident was so important that all four Gospels record it. Jesus was at the recently-cured-from-leprosy Simon’s house.

But He was not guest of honor, though He, as the Healer, should have been. Nobody washed His feet, though somebody should have because the roads were dusty. The very grateful, very tearful Mary Magdalene filled the gap.

While everyone else was otherwise occupied, she anointed His feet with a very costly flask of alabaster oil. Tearfully, she washed His feet with the oil and her long hair. Reading from the pen of inspiration, we understand a critical point in the story. “She had sought to avoid observation, and her movements might have passed unnoticed, but the ointment filled the room with its fragrance, and published her act to all present.”* She had wanted a private moment with her Lord, but the aroma had a totally different effect. It attracted the attention of everyone in the space.

I want to be the fragrance that delights the souls of those around me; the element that inspires the joy in our hearts.

Joy effuses the perfume of our souls and diffuses it on those around us. No wonder Mary Magdalene’s story will be remembered wherever that gospel narrative is shared. I can’t wait to meet her.

Glenda-mae Greene