Chemical Sensitivities

A man I got to know over the past couple years suffers from a variety of chemical sensitivities, particularly those related to perfumes and other scents. When he is exposed to such chemicals for an extended period, as might occur in the workplace, for example, he can become quite ill — even to the point of becoming incapicitated. Such exposure is, quite frankly, toxic to him.

Now since perfume is not really a necessity for life, one would be inclined to think that a great deal of his predicament could be resolved by simple making the workplace in question a "scent-free" zone. That seems like "reasonable" accommodation. Indeed, that is what his employer did, officially.

The problem, however, is that there was a fair degree of non-compliance with the official policy by certain employees — employees who seemed to take reminders of the policy and the reasons for it as a personal effront. They, after all, experienced no toxic effects from any of these scents, but rather quite enjoyed them and found their presence of positive benefit to their own work experience and productivity. My friend, therefore, was just being petty about a matter of preference, and making them out to be villains — evil, even.

This situation, of course, made the workplace even more toxic. Now it was no longer merely chemically toxic to my friend, but also socially toxic. It was, in many ways, a good place for my friend to work, with many good people, but it had become hazardous to his health.

I saw parallels between the chemical sensitivities of my friend and some reactions I and my family members were experiencing to certain aspects of the ongoing church reality we were in the latter part of last year. Like the chemical sensitivities of my friend, these sensitivities arose in large part from prior life experiences which left us particularly vulnerable, although our reactions were not just sensitivities to what was present, but also sensitivities to what was absent. In any case, the sensitivities we had developed meant that the environment was not entirely healthy for us.

Now the fact that a particular environment is noticeably not healthy for someone who has developed particular sensitivities does not mean that the environment is uniformly bad or toxic for everyone. Actually, a church environment which is uniformly unhealthy for all who attend is probably an extremely rare phenomenon. (And I suspect that a church environment that is uniformly healthy for all might also be rare). Yet this seems to be incomprehensible to many people, who seem to automatically read a wholesale attack against the church into any suggestion that some may not find the environment helpful in some manner — church leaders may perhaps have become particularly sensitized to taking things far too personally. Just like the perfume wearers in my friend's workplace.

Three years ago, I started this blog as a place where I could "think out loud" openly about the things I was experiencing in this journey of faith, in and around the church. I talked about the challenge of hearing God's direction of when to stay and when to go. Ironically, this time it seemed necessary to avoid such openness, as I began to sense that that would simply add a kind of social toxicity to the other issues that we were experiencing as unhealthy. And perhaps doubly ironic was the fact that when we first joined with this particular church community two and half years ago, one of the things we found most notable was that here it seemed people could be free to be open about their struggles, disappointments and failings — even those involving their past experiences with "church". And now we were feeling that old guardedness — the sense of having to wear a mask over our true selves in order to coexist with others who also increasingly seemed to be much more guarded.

It's been over two months now since we left. A decision that was necessary for our ongoing spiritual health, but a decision made painful by having to leave a lot of good people who would never be in position to fully understand either why it was necessary or why it was painful. Because to be truly open about those matters was just going to rip apart what was still left of what was good there — if not for us, at least still for some, maybe even many.

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