As Far as the East is from the West

I've been thinking a lot about forgiveness this past week.

Forgiving others who have hurt me.
Forgiving myself.
Forgiving the past.
Forgiving in advance the hurts of the future.

In Christian Orthodoxy, we celebrate Great and Holy Lent for 6 weeks before Holy Week and then Pascha (Easter for the rest of you).  The Sunday before we begin our Lenten journey is quite possibly the coolest Sunday of the year, right after Pascha (again, that's Easter for those of you who weren't paying attention).  The Sunday that kicks off Lent has a very beautiful and exercise-friendly service called "Forgiveness Vespers."

Now, the word "vespers" means evening prayers.  And the word "forgiveness"...well, let's hope you have some experience in giving it and receiving it.  So the prayers we say that night are all about forgiveness.  At the end of the service, and this is where it becomes a little sweat-inducing, we ask forgiveness of the priest, and every single parishioner there (whether he/she is Orthodox or not, mind you).

Now, I bet you are wondering how asking forgiveness could possibly work up a sweat.  Good question!  It's because in Orthodoxy, it's all about humility.  We don't just go up to somebody and say, "Hey, sorry about giving you dirty looks at church last week when your cell phone went off...and interrupted the entire worship service."  Oh no.  We say to each other, "Please forgive me, my sister/brother, in any way I have offended you," and then we make a prostration before the person in total humility of our sins, and the person we're asking forgiveness from says "I forgive you," and they in turn ask forgiveness of you.  This continues until you have asked/received forgiveness of everyone there, and made a prostration before them.

If you've never prostrated, or even know what it is...then you can check out this You Tube link and see it done.  It involves a full bow to the floor, which done once or twice is no problem.  However, at my first Forgiveness Sunday there were close to 60 people there, and that means 60 times of bowing and touching your head on the floor.  My thighs were burning pieces of rubber by the end of the night, let me tell you.

Lent is quickly approaching, and so is Forgiveness Sunday.  I'm a little happy to be apart of a small mission church at this time, because bowing in front of 12 people is much easier than bowing in front of 60.  But, all this has me thinking of people who have hurt me in the past, and who I need to forgive.

How is this related in any way to losing weight?  Well, I think it has to do with changing myself on the inside just as I'm trying to change myself on the outside.  And as you'll soon discover, most of my past hurts have to do with my weight.

Let's travel back in time to my elementary school years....

I was probably 10 or 11 the first time I joined Weight Watchers with my mom.  I was embarrassed to be the only kid there, but I went.  Maybe for a month or two, I don't really remember how long it was.  I know I didn't stick with it, because I really didn't care about it.  I thought I was going to lose a bunch of weight and look normal right away.  I didn't realize that it was actually going to require hard work on my part.

When I went to school, I'd sometimes take my lunch, and my mom would put my jello or pudding or whatever in plastic containers that she had saved.  Well, W.W. had a margarine that we used, and sometimes my mom packed my food in that container, and I can remember the boys at the end of the table where I sat mooing at me and making fun of me for having the WW container.  They didn't know I was actually doing WW, they just were being imbeciles.  But I can remember the feeling of shame and embarrassment. 

These same a**holes ahem...jerks...would bounce up and down on the benches when I sat down at the table, as if I had caused a great big 5.0 tremor.  I don't know their names or remember their faces.  I just remember the pain, and how I've been carrying that around for about 20 some-odd years now.

Another bright and shining moment of pain was from a boy who I'll call "Mike"...because that's his actual name.  (I'm not here to protect the innocent...he wasn't innocent at all.)  Mike seemed to want to torture me whenever he got bored.  Once at the playground he got in my face and pushed me backwards over some other friends of his who got on the ground behind me on their hands and knees so I'd stumble over them and fall on my butt.  I did.  It was pretty embarrassing.

This same gem of a human being constantly called me "fatty" when I saw him at the swimming pool.  I thought my brilliant reply of "I may be fat, but you're ugly and I can always go on a diet," would make me feel better, but it really didn't.  He pretty much left me alone after grade school, but I had to see him all the way through college, and every time I did, I felt 10 inches small.

This last piece of work I'll call "Chris"...again, that's his actual name.  He seemed to take extreme pleasure in taunting me throughout my 7th grade year.  I unfortunately had 2 classes with this guy, Physical Science and PE.  In science he sat right in front of me and refused to leave me alone.  He'd throw stuff at me, knock my stuff on the floor, make rude comments about me, pretty much do everything to make my life hell in that class.  But by far, the worse was gym class.

Most of the time, the girls and boys were separated during PE.  The only time we really did anything together was during the Square Dancing unit.  You can see where I'm going with this, can't you...  Well, guess who was my partner more often than not.  It was humiliating to be told to hold hands with this guy.  He refused to hold hands, and when he finally acquiesced to holding my hands, he'd make these faces to show his utter disgust.  I did kinda get him back the day that I'd had enough.  I pulled out the big guns and did what any other girl would do.  I cried.  Loudly.  He got all worried that the teachers would hear and that he would get in trouble.  He apologized, and I never had another problem with him.

But the hurt is still there inside me.


It's not like I sit around dwelling on these things a lot.  Just every once in awhile they come popping in my head, eliciting those same feelings all over again.


So I've decided that it's time to let them go.  I know none of these people probably even remember who I am, not to mention what they did to hurt me.  And I think I need to be done with giving them and my memories of them, the power to hurt me anymore.  So, I'm going to forgive them.


So...

Mike...I forgive you.

Chris...I forgive you.

Stupid jerks at the lunch table....I forgive you.

And to myself, I forgive me also for having held onto these things and letting them embitter me and make me feel puny and small in my own eyes.  I am a child of the King, and there is nothing small or puny about that.