I brought you into a fertile land to eat its fruit and rich produce. But you came and defiled my land and made my inheritance detestable. Jeremiah 2:7
Today, Amy and I went for a walk through Central Park. After a while, we both began sniffing the air. What’s that aroma? Is it cookies? No. Is it cinnamon? No. It’s Christmas. It smells like our apartment when, sometime in early December, the kids stick cloves in an orange and hang it from a ribbon. Yes. That’s it! Cloves.
Were we crazy? I Phone in hand, Amy googled “Cloves in Central Park.” Sure enough, there were other people smelling spices on the breeze. Then, we found an explanation. There were official signs. To control pests, the Park Service had sprayed “a non-synthetic pesticide containing the active ingredient clove oil” on foliage north of 72nd Street.
With so much bad environmental news in our heads, we breathed deeply. It was aromatherapy at its best. Cloves—the scent of a sensible approach to caring for our planet.