It's All About Love and Service

It’s All About Love and Service
by Steve Ross, MA

As editor of the section on the environmental illness known as Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS) for Medicine.org, I have a passion to inform people about this condition and help them either avoid getting it, or find better ways to treat and cope with it.

The following original article is admittedly very personal, exploring the evolution of my attitudes and feelings about relationship, love, service, and dealing with a loved one's serious illness. I hope you enjoy it and that these thoughts might stimulate some discussion in the forums, especially around the stressful issue of caring for someone who is ill.

There’s research to show that Altruism is built into human nature. In my case, the desire to cooperate, live harmoniously, and help others, came naturally, perhaps nudged along by living in a dysfunctional family that needed fixing. But what about Love? Is Love also a “given?” I think we learn about the nature of love, and how to love, by being loved. I know I learned about love from my mother, my maternal grandparents (especially my grandmother), and my wife, Julie. And I believe there is a close connection between love, generosity, and being of service.

When I was about 12, I was awakened early one morning by a voice that said, "The only way to reach a goal you have been striving for is to set a standard and follow it." There was no one there. I was startled, but not afraid. In fact, I remember feeling calm, inspired, and reassured by that voice, and over the years I have not only remembered those words, but also internalized the principle. Whether or not the belief that my purpose in life was "to be of service" started with this experience, at that point I took it to heart and have taken many opportunities throughout my life to help others.

I grew up in San Francisco. My father was in sales and my mother ran his office. They both smoked for some years, but other than that he did not work with chemicals or toxic materials, and until late in life I knew nothing about MCS or EI. However, my family was unusual. Although I was born Jewish, no one in my family practiced Judaism. Instead, my father was interested in Theosophy, a mystical tradition, and the family followed. We were vegetarians long before that became fashionable, and entertained Theosophical dignitaries, some of whom claimed to be clairvoyant.

My father was a self-educated man, a mystic and a spiritual seeker. Admirable as this may be, his lack of formal education made it hard for him to understand spiritual metaphor. He tended to take injunctions like, "Be In The World But Not Of It" way too seriously for a family whose other members were more interested in experiencing and enjoying life than getting away from it. He often brought me along on his spiritual quest. Although I learned “reform” Jewish tradition and had a Bar Mitzvah, I attended services in many other traditions: Christian, Catholic, Spiritualist, Theosophist, and around age 18 got involved, along with my parents, in Eastern Mysticism. I too, was way too serious. At college I was the only vegetarian, and the one evening I succeeded in getting a campus beauty into my dorm room, I spent these precious hours trying to educate her about reincarnation – as you might imagine, it was our one and only date.

After college I took some time off. It was 1967, Berkeley, CA. I got liberated, and not by meditating under a tree. My new religion was sex, drugs, and rock and roll. I refused to go to Viet Nam but got more political, demonstrated against the war, got tear-gassed at the People's Park demonstration (about my only dangerous chemical exposure to that point), worked at a cool record shop on "The Ave.," and generally had a roaring good time. After a while I entered a graduate program but got frustrated with it, dropped out and instead, earned my teaching credential and taught for a year or two in the public school system.

In 1971 I saw one of my crazy Berkeley compatriots transformed from an angry "revolutionary" to a calm, happy person. Turned out she had gotten into yoga and meditation, so I went to investigate. I attended a lecture by a yoga Monk and didn't think much of it, but that night dreamed about it and felt a strong intuition that this was something important for me to pursue. Probably because of my past experiences, I took the practices very seriously and when I found out there was a yoga order that anyone could join for self improvement and service to humanity, I couldn’t resist. After all, I thought at the time, why bother trying to change the world through the public schools where whatever you teach during the day gets undone at night when the kids go back to their dysfunctional families? Why not teach values and spiritual practices and work with social programs that can really make a difference and change a person – even the whole of society – for the better? So, as a subtle solution, I flew to India, renounced my family, and took monastic vows.

I was a missionary of sorts, teaching yoga, meditation, and spiritual philosophy, and encouraging social change wherever I was sent. It was a very important time in my life, enriching in so many ways. About nine years later, I made the huge decision to leave monastic life and return home. I had a terribly difficult re-entry, and felt spiritually hung out to dry. Although I thought highly of the practices, I felt the group had been unhealthy and I needed to take a complete break from all of it.

After a couple of years I went back to school for an MA in Psychology and then earned a license as a Marriage, Family and Child Counselor in California, dividing my time between part-time teaching, and trying to start a private counseling practice. Around 1986, at one of my teaching assignments, I met my wife-to-be, Julie, who was not yet chemically sensitive. We really liked each other, but I was in a relationship at the time. We parted company and didn't see each other again for eight years.

How Julie and I met the second time is an important story. Even with all my experiences as a monk, our second meeting is the single most compelling evidence I have for the existence of a Higher Power. Without some kind of divine intervention, I just don’t see how we could have met again. It happened in August, 1994. I was out of my first marriage and living north of San Francisco near the Vipassana center called Spirit Rock, where an American Buddhist named Jack Kornfield taught. I learned "mindfulness meditation" from him and started attending his Monday evening classes, looking for spiritual practice and, yes, a girlfriend with spiritual inclinations. Julie, on the other hand, was divorced, ill and disabled from MCS (that happened in 1989), and pretty much a recluse in her San Francisco home.

Spirit Rock was a long way from where Julie lived, at least an hour and a half each way – quite a trek on a weeknight for anyone under any circumstances. Given her MCS, the long drive and the high chance of exposure, what were the chances she would go there? Besides, she didn’t even know about it.

It was at this "critical" moment that Julie's daughter, Rachel, had this strong intuition that she should take her Mom to Spirit Rock. Yes, she thought her Mom would enjoy and benefit from hearing Jack and learning how to meditate, but she also privately hoped that her Mom just might meet someone special. Julie agreed to go since she loves spending time with Rachel (who understands how to get fragrance-free), and since Rachel promised that if the air was bad there, they would just turn around and come home.

After the meditation, I went out for some fresh air before the lecture. I walked out the back door and around to the front. Julie was standing on the landing by the front door. My heart literally jumped when I saw her and she recognized me, too. I can still remember that startling, exhilarating moment. We talked a long time, met at Spirit Rock a few more times, then started dating and were practically inseparable.

But there were bumps along the road. Julie waited a little while before telling me about her MCS, and in retrospect I think that was wise. She risked her health to appear "normal," which gave our relationship some time to gel before explaining to me why maybe we shouldn't do certain things or go certain places. But the more I learned, the clearer it was to me that her condition would probably worsen, entailing a restricted lifestyle and perhaps lots of medical treatment.

Despite the fact that by this time we were living together, the implications of MCS made me anxious. I began having doubts, which I kept from her, although I spoke frankly to a few friends and finally went to see a counselor. This counselor made what I, as a therapist, felt was a major error: after listening for a while he came right out and advised me to find another girlfriend.

Nonetheless, this played right into my conflicted thinking and I decided to leave her. Julie tells me that ever since our first meeting in 1986 she felt I was the right person for her. We had both been overjoyed at finding each other 8 years later, and she thought our relationship was running smoothly. My decision had temporarily relieved my anxiety, but it devastated her. However, over time, as we talked about it, we both noticed I was not taking even a single step to move out. I believe her heart was holding my heart until my head stopped spinning. Eventually, I calmed down and took stock. In exchange for this smart, sexy, happy, healthy (in most respects, Julie is very healthy despite MCS) wonderful friend and companion, who loves me more than anyone since my mother and grandmother, I would be a caretaker from time to time and make some personal sacrifices in the lifestyle department. Not a big deal for a former monk who only owned the clothes on his back and never went much of anywhere, anyway. Once I got my priorities straight, I proposed. Counselor, be damned!

We moved to Novato in Marin County, where we married in 1996, then later north to Petaluma, where we both got exposed to Dursban from two neighbors who alternatively used it each month. At that point, Julie's main MCS symptom, minor, partial-complex seizures, turned into grand mals, and my hormone levels went South. This was my first personal acquaintance with chemical exposure.

In 2000, we went to see Dr. Rea in Dallas, where I unexpectedly learned that my immune system was in danger, and I became a patient along with Julie. In 2002, after putting a new roof on our house with the wrong materials, we realized we had to move and bought land in the Arizona desert about 45 minutes NW of Tucson. We moved all our stuff into the old house there – after a local environmental “expert” gave it a clean bill of health – and then, when knocking out some drywall, found black mold. Further testing from someone who knew what he was doing, turned up more of it in various places. All our belongings were exposed and we threw nearly everything away. I got plenty of exposure doing that, and the rental houses we had to live in were moldy too. Julie was unwell and I experienced brain fog, memory loss and absent mindedness; I’m sure my endocrine system didn’t like it either. Fortunately, after a couple of months, we found a safe rental and started building the "safe" home we live in today.

I am so fortunate that I did not get full-blown MCS and can take care of the things Julie can’t, as well as take care of her when needed. And, it's true that the MCS life is a restricted one. But I love this life, this home, this desert, and ironically I am probably healthier because of what I have learned. I know significant others feel stressed at times with their MCS partners, but think about it? Is the grass really greener on the pesticided lawn?

Anyway, what goes around, comes around, and I can’t think of a better opportunity for giving, and receiving, love and service.