June 03, 2008
Have a Seat
I have chemical allergies (perfumes and scents) to deal with and the best seat for me is in the back of a room near a door. I always try to arrive early to an event so I can find the most comfortable place to sit that meets my needs. When I go to a movie theater I won’t give up my seat for the elderly, the handicapped or the late arriver because I figure its first come, first serve. In my former church there was plenty of seating, however in my new place of worship, the seating is limited and fills up quickly...and I have a problem. From my seat in the back row I can see all the late arrivers and I feel guilty for not wanting to give up my seat to them. For some reason the first come, first serve rule works better in the world than it does in the church.
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Gail;
-----I think I’ve said this before, but I think I’ll say it again. I had allergies once (still do, but won’t admit it.) When I was only four, if I got around pollinating grass, my eyes would swell shut. By my middle teens, I had started to learn some interesting things about it. For instance, if I went from the heat of the bright sun into a cool shady place, or visa versa, it would trigger a sneeze attack. Same if a heavy cloud cast its shadow on me. But a sneeze attack meant an irritated throat and nasal passages, which become even more sensitive, which leads to coughing, then to wheezing. I learned to either massage my nose a bit, or do what I called “cheat the sneeze,” right at the sneezes critical crest. It became all about avoiding the sneezes, coughs, and wheezes and keeping my hands away from my eyes. But everything changed when I was eighteen.
-----I had heard about the psychosomatic element of allergies, you know, the stories about pictures of roses drawing sneezes when held up in the view of audiences, and such. I was digging out a ditch in the hot July sun. I would work my way up the ditch, stooped over and face down, for about fifteen feet. Then I would stand up straight and stretch out my back. About the third time I did this, when I stood up straight I found myself standing in a face-full of ripe, pollinating Timothy grass. The sneezing hit me immediately. I turned around and saw that I had been digging in that thick stuff for about ten feet, and I had not sneezed once. That is when I realized that the biggest element of my allergy was indeed psychosomatic. So I determined then that I no longer had allergies. And, well, that was pretty much the end of the sneezing, coughing, wheezing, red-eye digging time of my life.
-----But I do not need an allergy to suffer from the overpowering perfumes of the beauty jungle. Sometimes the ladies pour it on so thick you can almost see it rising off them in a mist. And this isn’t about wheezing, coughing, and sneezing. It is about choking, passing out, and dying. (Which gives me a good idea; we need to seat these deadly ladies near the corners and walls of the room where the spiders and bugs aggregate.) If you give up that seat next to the door it could very literally become a self-sacrificing act.
-----But seriously, the first-come first serve rule should be as nearly breakable in the world as it is in church. We all know that the time spent in a movie theater lacks most of the essentials that are part of the time spent in a church gathering. But you also are an other. Your sitting by the door is not simply because you like it there. No matter how involving the psychosomatic element of your allergy may be, the headaches those scents cause still split the head. You need the door seat, at least until someone shows up with a worse problem than yours. So, until then, by my understanding of the economy of love, you are loved, too, as much as you love the others, making the seat yours as long as your need for it is the greatest.
Love,
Steve Corey
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