When cat was still a kitten, he used to disappear occasionally into the other rooms in the house, when we weren't watching. We should have known better for as yet he wasn't house trained. Then one day a strange aroma began to waft through the house and as the evening wore on and the next day arrived, we began to suspect that the smell, getting stronger by the hour, might have a sinister cause, somewhere in the spare room which now appeared to be the epicentre. After some initial investigations, that only took about two minutes, a wet patch was discovered on an old, disused sofa that seemed to be closely related to the offending stench. Kitten was evicted, after some stern words but it took much longer to evict the smell for as the sofa dried out the misdemeanours of the feline hung in the air for days as a reminder of our neglect and carelessness as much as the kitten's unknown mistake. Even the presence of a variety of air freshener sprays, pot pourri and flowers did little to redeem things and eventually the sofa found its way out of the house. So this week when a strange aroma began to surface in my classroom, I immediately drew on all my experience of the past and came to some rapid if slightly unfounded conclusions. You see, I knew that our caretaker had lots of cats which moved easily in and out of his own house and, as far as I knew, were all house trained, but on many mornings as I arrived or late in the evening when I was packing up to leave, either a single white feline or a mottled brown kitten would be standing somewhere near the front door, waiting patiently for their master to emerge. I assumed that maybe they had gained entry through the front door and then into my room and somewhere in the mists of time had left a calling card near the back windows. All this I had based on the similarity of the aroma emanating from that area with the one that I remembered from our sofa. I suppose I should have been a little more thorough in my investigations, noting that the cats always ran away every time the door was open and also would have had to stand on their hind legs to turn the handle and gain entry to the classroom. And I guess I should also have noted that the pupils always left the milk cartons at the rear of the room every morning. So when the sun came out last week and the room got hotter until it was stifling, the aroma became unbearable, almost to the point where drivers on the main road were holding their noses on the way past. Well not exactly, but it was bad. I had intended to investigate it before but now there was no time to lose. And it only took ten seconds to discover the cause. For lying at the back of one of the plastic drawers, lodged behind a block or two of old file paper, was an almost full carton of milk, dated December 2007. Enough said!
Like all foods, milk perishes quickly and you don't have to leave it for six months to discover that. Wife is paranoid about sell-by dates on food and although I have tried to convince her that, in most cases, these are only guides, some cartons and packages end up in the bin anyway. But you can usually tell when food has perished beyond use by its colour and especially its smell though I suppose from the day it hits the shelves, deterioration has already set in. It just can't be reversed and almost all our preserving methods will eventually succumb to the dreaded microbes that make it unpalatable.
I was reading today from the New Living Translation, in Paul's letter to the Corinthian church and was reminded once again just how frail we are as humans. He writes 'But this precious treasure - the light and power that now shine within us - is held in perishable containers, that is, in our weak bodies.' But he also gives us great confidence when he writes, 'For we know that when this earthly tent we live in is taken down (that is, when we die and leave this earthly body), we will have a house in heaven, an eternal body made for us by God himself and not by human hands.' I suppose, like most people, as I get older, I know I'm not able to have the same stamina, can't run as fast and the bones and muscles ache just a little more after a hard day than they did even ten years ago. And I've watched as the senior members of my family circle have become old and have seen their bodies head towards the inevitable perishable stage. We can't put off the passage of time and despite the creams and remedies and surgery that many try, life is shorter at the end of each day. But here's a thought that keeps me going. Not only is God going to give me a new body that will not perish with time but while I'm here on earth I intend to live the rest of my years for His glory and not mine and then look forward to everlasting happiness in His presence. Jesus says, 'Don’t be so concerned about perishable things like food. Spend your energy seeking the eternal life that the Son of Man can give you. For God the Father has given me the seal of his approval.' With God you're never past your sell-by date.
