In Jin Moon
May 2, 2010
Lovin' Life Ministries
On the morning of May 2, 2010, Rev. In Jin Moon spoke on how each of us is able to look at ourselves, so that our behaviors, attitudes, and approach to life become hopeful, inspired, and empowered. Rev. Moon introduced what she calls "the attack of the WIF-ers," which is when one goes through a period of thinking they are Worthless, Invisible, and Failures.
With referral to the scripture Proverbs 23:7, "As he thinketh in his heart, so he is," as well as a different translation, "As he thinketh in his heart, so he becomes," Rev. Moon reminds us all that when we can see ourselves through God's eyes and we understand the divinity of ourselves, we can come to know that we're not failures. Because we can logically understand who we are and we can think of ourselves as the children of God who have the attributes that God has, that gives us an incredible foundation to be extraordinary.
Good morning, brothers and sisters. How is everyone? I'm very happy to see you once again. We've been traveling quite a bit, as Dave Hunter mentioned earlier. We had a wonderful Tenth Youth Concert for World Peace and Ideal Families in Japan, and then we went on to celebrate the Golden Anniversary of our True Parents in Korea.
When we got to Korea, one of the things I realized was that the whole country is in mourning. I'm sure you've heard about the 46 sailors who were lost at sea. There was a great deal of speculation as to why their ship broke in half and sank, but it's pretty clear that it was due to a torpedo fired by North Korea. South Korea has been very slow in confirming that it was indeed a North Korean torpedo because for it to confirm this and respond would mean a declaration of war.
Korea is in a very precarious situation. I feel that the presence of our True Parents is so crucial because True Parents are the only ones who have the kind of relationship with the North Korean government that can facilitate a conversation on behalf of the rest of the world and South Korea. Even for peace in Korea, our True Parents are incredibly important. As the story unfolds and as South Korea feels more and more pressured to respond in some way, it will need to seek the help, support, and wisdom of our True Parents so that this will not be the beginning of another war.
Brothers and sisters, we are living in extraordinarily turbulent times. But we are also living in a time when so much can be accomplished if we truly unite with our True Parents and the will of our Heavenly Parent. As I spent time with our True Parents in Korea, seeing the country continuing to mourn day in and day out and watching the ongoing coverage of the families of the sailors who were lost on March 26, I sensed that our True Parents somehow felt that an incident like this would happen. I don't think it was just a spur-of-the-moment idea or coincidence that Father started the Legacy of Peace tour on March 18 here at the United Nations, in a sense preparing the world and Korea to understand death not as a time for grieving and mourning but as a transition time when we can offer up these representatives of Korea back to our Heavenly Parent in the proper way: in celebration, gratitude, and love.
Even though I see True Father as my biological father, he is an extraordinary man in that he has a sixth sense about the way the universe moves, about things that are going to happen and things that might need his preparation. The Legacy of Peace tour was preparing and helping not just our community to understand and honor these great men and women who have accomplished so much in their lifetime but to share the beauty of our tradition with the rest of the world, and Koreans in particular.
I feel it's highly significant that on April 29th, the day when the whole country was in mourning and watching the funeral service for the 46 sailors lost at sea, was the same morning our True Parents were celebrating their fiftieth wedding anniversary. Life and death, celebration and tears all come together. But our True Parents were right in the middle of it, their presence giving such a sense of security and stability -- not just spiritually but also physically to the country of Korea. We are very lucky to have them in our lives.
Over the last 10 years I've been trying to raise up the Second and Third Generations of Japan to become great men and women of God. As you know, our Japanese movement has been instrumental as the financial backbone of our worldwide community. The First Generation have made incredible sacrifices for the sake of the providence. They have sacrificed everything. Many times I have felt that their children were ignored and left aside.
I thought, just as the First Generation of Japanese members sacrificed themselves and gave so much to help build this worldwide community that we call our own, how wonderful it would be if a member of the True Family could really love and inspire the Second and Third Generations of our movement in return! I do not want these young people to approach life with ingratitude, saying, "We have nothing because our parents sacrificed everything. I have nothing to look forward to." It's important that they understand their parents' sacrifice and then be able to decide on their own to make something of their lives and become great men and women.
A big talent show was organized for True Parents' anniversary, and the First Prize winner was one of the Sun Hak choirs of Japan. These choirs of our Second and Third Generation are something I have supported and nurtured over the years, and there they were in front of our True Parents, performing Korean songs so gloriously and winning First Prize. The Little Angels are considered to be some of the best representatives of Korea artistically in terms of dance and song, and they performed first. Most of their performers are not from our blessed families. Then our own Japanese choir came on stage in beautiful kimonos and sang with all of their hearts. Not only was their performance beautiful heartistically, but musically it was truly unbelievable: Japan and its children were better than the Little Angels. There was no comparison between the two choirs. The Japanese children were luminous, and I was so proud that they won First Prize.
In going to Japan with determination to inspire and raise up great kids artistically, academically, athletically, and spiritually, I approached that responsibility with a mother's heart. I think we mothers struggle with helping our children navigate the battlefield of the mind especially when they enter their teenage years, wanting to experiment, not wanting to delay gratification. How do we parents help our children navigate this time in their lives?
When I'm confronted with this problem with my own children, I refer back to Scripture. It says in Proverbs 23:7 in the King James Version, "As he thinketh in his heart, so he is." A different translation says, "As he thinketh in his heart, so he becomes." The power of the mind, the power to think actually has a creative component to it in that when we think about things, we are actually creating the energy that's going to affect our behavior or our attitude. When we have negative thoughts or have not such pleasant thoughts, that pattern produces negative actions, behavior, and attitude.
On the other hand, when we think positively and when we believe that we are capable of so much more, of becoming incredible human beings, then our positive thinking creates a belief and affects the way we look at ourselves, so that our behaviors, attitudes, and approach to life become hopeful, inspired, and empowered. The way we think is so crucial to how we are and to how we live our lives.
Children at this age deal with what I call the attack of the WIF-ers. I remember being a teenager, going through a period of growth when we think we're Worthless, we're Invisible, we're Failures. This is the WIF that many times Satan uses to get us confused. When we're plagued by this, we feel insignificant and lost many times. Even grown men and women who are still emotionally children feel as if they're worthless and unloved. How many times have we felt that way? I've certainly felt that way. "Nobody loves me." We tell ourselves that we're worthless, and that's why nobody loves us.
One thing I've learned in my life is that if we don't learn to love ourselves, believe in ourselves, and realize that we are unique men and women of God, who will love us? But the minute I start thinking that I am somebody special because I was hand-crafted by God, prepared by God, loved by God and that's why I've been given this opportunity called life, then the feeling of being worthless changes to a feeling of being a winner. We are all winners in that we have been given the ultimate gift of life. It's up to us to decide what we're going to do with our lives.
I think all of us at one point or another in our lives have felt invisible. I certainly did. I grew up in a family where my parents were hardly there; even when they were at home, they only saw the leaders and members. The children felt invisible, like we didn't exist. They were so busy saving the world that we felt like we didn't exist in front of our parents. When we feel invisible, then we feel like we have to make ourselves visible by reaching for extreme measures or seeking materialistic attachments that will somehow make us visible.
What do teenagers dream about when they're engulfed in their teenage years? Usually boys want a hot sports car. Why? Because they love it so much? Yes. Because it's a thrill to have this amazing machine respond to their commands? Perhaps the young man is so intrigued by the mechanics of the car that he is happy and inspired. But when we get down to the real reason the young men want a hot car, it's usually because they would like a lot of beautiful ladies to look at them when they drive past. They want to be visible, and the hot car -- the Benz, the Lamborghini, the BMW -- they want that because it makes them visible.
When young people are trying to figure out who they are and feel they're invisible to the world, they reach for material things like cars, like the huge house with the pool. When a young man wants to be validated by society and appreciated for his success, he usually gets a trophy wife who's beautiful to look at to make the statement "Look how successful I am. A woman like this wants to be my wife. Am I not successful?" Such a man aspires to have a trophy wife because her beauty makes him visible to the world.
But if we realize that we are really the children of God, that we are born with an incredible divine light, we are not invisible at all. In fact, we are all prepared, so visible to our Heavenly Parent. Once we realize how incredibly important each and every one of us is, we glow from within. Instead of feeling invisible, we begin to see ourselves as something incandescent and brilliant that infuses the whole environment with beautiful, sparkling light. That's the beauty of having God in our lives.
When we're going through different periods in our lives, many of us have phases of seeing ourselves as failures: "I'm going to fail; I'm going to make a mistake so I won't even bother to try."
I grew up in a huge family. Often in large families, the older ones are held up as examples for the younger ones so the younger ones can aspire to reach the kind of achievements of their elders. I found myself in that position. My parents would say to my poor younger siblings, "Look at In Jin. She went to Columbia. She went to Harvard. All of you must go to Columbia and Harvard." Can you imagine? No wonder my younger brothers and sisters had a time in their lives when they absolutely hated me. Understandably so.
At the end of the day, my family all want the best for each other. After heated discussion they would break down and say to me, "Father and Mother put you up so high. I could never achieve that. I'm a failure. So I'm not even going to try, and I'm just going to hate you." That was honesty. Whenever I heard that, it made me think, "I'd better try to be invisible for the sake of my siblings." That was a lesson I learned a long time ago: to try to get behind people and not always stand in front.
But here I am every Sunday, before all of you. The approach that I had toward my younger siblings is very much the approach I have to my congregation. When I was preparing early this morning for this sermon, I thought, "Here I am preparing for another Sunday ser-mon. Why is it ser? Like his-story. Why is it not her-story? Why is it not her-mon?" I said to myself, "Today I'm going to prepare a her-mon and I am going to enjoy the fact that I'm a woman. I am going to enjoy the fact that every Sunday I share with my congregation is her-story in the making."
You know, brothers and sisters, as much as my parents said, "Look at In Jin and be like her," I myself felt many times like I was a failure. I could never be what my parents wanted me to be. Then the minute I start thinking negatively, the minute I start thinking I'm a failure, I've already defeated myself because I've invited a self-fulfilling prophecy. I've already told myself I'm going to fail. So when I fail, it's no surprise. I knew I was going to fail, so why did I try?
In my relationship with my younger brothers and sisters, during the time they hated me so much because my parents kept holding me up as an example for them, I felt like no amount of love and care would make the relationship better. So I went through periods when I didn't even try because I knew it wouldn't move this mountain.
The extraordinary thing is, every now and then I would feel, "Why am I not trying? These are the people I love. These are the people I want to live for." So I would work up the courage to reach out and love, and many times I still felt an incredibly cold wall. But when I kept on trying, though I might fail the first time, I would try again. I might fail the second and third time, but when I refused to see my efforts as failures and kept on believing that these small failures were just steps toward a better relationship, the most extraordinary thing happened. Sooner or later we came to a moment when we would both break down, my siblings and I, and we would have some of the most profound and delicious conversations of our lives.
This has been a lesson for me. When I'm feeling like I'm a failure, when I'm feeling like no amount of good effort is going to yield any result, so why bother? That is exactly the time when I should try again. Instead of being so overcome with fear that we keep ourselves in this comfort zone of "I'm a failure, so I'm not going to try," when we bring God into our lives, when we know that our lives have a purpose, that we have a destiny to fulfill, and that each and every one of us is so important to each other, then we realize there's no need to have fear. There is no need to fear failing in the future. In a sense, we become fearless.
When I was working with my second son and daughter to help them become great classical pianists, I came to know that the secret to a child being successful in his or her area of passion involves three things. You need the cooperation of the child, you need the parent to fully support that child in his or her gifts, and you also need a third component, a great teacher.
I've met a lot of parents over the years, and whenever I come across kids who are doing incredibly well, I want to know what makes them so special. When I look into why that child is so awesome, it usually comes down to these three things. It's the child willingly wanting to be great. It's the parents who are going to bend over backward and support that child in his or her gifted area. And the third component is securing the best teacher that you can find.
When I think about our lives of faith, it relates to the example of how you can turn a child into a gifted classical pianist who has the opportunity to perform with some of the best orchestras in the world. When we think about our spiritual lives, we become great men and women of God when we allow the magic of this trinity to work in our lives as well. First and foremost, we have to understand that God is our eternal Heavenly Parent, which means we are his eternal sons and daughters. Even if you have the greatest relationship with God, one on one, why do we still need True Parents?
As gifted as you are and as great a parent as God in heaven is, you still need a living example, somebody who can take you through the application process, help you overcome different obstacles, and help you solve the problems that life puts in your path. We need a great teacher. That's the reason why the world has been waiting for the Anointed One, that great teacher, that great paradigm, that great model who will show us and guide us, who will advise us to be that incredible, gifted son or daughter of God.
When we have God and our True Parents in our lives, then the attack of the WIF-ers becomes something that we can handle. Because we can logically understand who we are and we can think of ourselves as the children of God who have the attributes that God has, that gives us an incredible foundation to be extraordinary. So the Bible says, "As he thinketh in his heart, so he is." Instead of being plagued by negative thoughts, thinking, "I'm worthless. I'm invisible. I'm a failure," the minute we allow this trinity to work in our lives, helping us to become gifted human beings, we realize, no, we are not worthless.
When you see a worthless person through the eyes of God, that person becomes a winner. You take an "invisible" person and you put that person in God's hands, and that invisible person, that inadequate person, that person who thought he or she didn't exist and therefore had to reach for all the materialistic things he or she could possibly get -- a trophy wife, a hot car, a big, big house -- that person becomes not invisible but incandescent in the light and the divinity of God.
Maybe some of us were parent-pleasers, so busy trying to please our parents that every time we were in front of them, we would make ourselves so nervous that we would always make a mistake. In our desperate efforts to please, we taught ourselves to always make a mistake and always see ourselves as failures.
When we see ourselves through the eyes of God and in the embrace of God, we can come to know that we're not failures. When we see that we are not failures and we are not our own design, then we can rid ourselves of the bondage that we keep ourselves in by repeating the self-fulfilling prophecy, "I'm a failure, so I'm not even going to try." Thinking at different times in our lives that we're failures, we're mistaking that for being a work in progress. The minute we invite God into our lives, we become fearless in knowing that we can achieve everything we believe in.
Part of the reason why we wanted to perform "Trooper," the Iron Maiden song I'm sure some of you know, is that it's a song about a battlefield, about dying alone. Most young people, when asked what their greatest fear is, will say, "My biggest fear is dying alone." The wonderful thing about our True Parents' understanding is the knowledge that our own minds tend to be our toughest battlefield and the attack of the WIF-ers is like atrocious little mines that explode every once in a while and make us feel so insignificant, inadequate, and worthless.
Heavenly Father knows that we go through the attack of the WIF-ers. But in order for us to learn how important we are, to ourselves and to each other, he allows us to experience these WIF-ers because when we have felt the depth of the abyss of misery and suffering, it prepares us for that ultimate liberation, making the liberation that much sweeter.
God is counting on all of us to one day grow up and understand how wonderful it is to have God in our lives and to be divine human beings. But God allows us to suffer through and experience these moments of darkness. Mother Teresa herself experienced such darkness. When she passed away, some of her letters and journal entries over the years were made available to the public. Some people who read them were shocked because in some of them she talked about not having any faith at all, about not being able to go on, about feeling worthless. For those of us who look at Mother Teresa as an exemplary woman of God, that image doesn't go together with her writings about darkness, faithlessness, and disbelief.
When I was made aware of her writings I did not think, "How could such a woman write such things?" The realization that I came to was "No wonder she's a great woman of God. Despite having gone through these things, look at what she has done with her life."
So, young people, don't be discouraged. Don't give up hope when you find yourself in a very dark moment in your life. You don't have to be a Goth or an Emo. It's okay to feel the pain. It's okay to experience the darkness. But always remember that God always gives us another day, and there will always be God walking beside us, behind us, and all around us.
Young people fear dying alone on the battlefield of their mind. Some cannot deal with life, so they feel compelled to take their own lives. This is why young people need God in their lives. When you invite God, you realize you're a winner, an incandescent being, and a fearless and courageous son or daughter of God.
When we invite God, we can turn this negative thought process around. When we invite God, this negative thinking is replaced with not just a cold, intellectual, logical understanding of things. Rather, a different understanding comes to pass: an understanding that has love; an understanding that has heart.
The Scripture doesn't say, "As he thinketh, so he is," or "so he becomes." It says, "As he thinketh in his heart, so he is and so he becomes." When we invite God and we understand the divinity of ourselves, we start breathing not just with our minds but with our hearts. And we start living with the understanding that we are unique human beings and that, no matter how difficult life is, God has his way to always be there, right there, in the darkness of the night. When nobody is there, God is always there.
God will never leave us. So even though we are confronted with an insensate clock that ticks on and on through life, we need to take heart and be grateful that we are not alone. Especially with our True Parents educating us and sharing with us the meaning of life and the profundity of these three transitional phases and moments in our lives, with death being a transition into the eternal world, we learn that we don't even have to fear death. We can look forward to it and be thankful for it.
Our True Parents are great teachers in this trinity for each and every one of us that will make us great men and women of God. The only thing we need to do is to start thinking with our hearts. Then we need to start living with our hearts and breathing with our hearts.
Brothers and sisters, we have a great deal to be thankful for, but please keep in your hearts and prayers the 46 sailors lost at sea. Be peaceful and calm in knowing that God has given us these great teachers called our True Parents. Regardless of what the world is going through, regardless of how precarious the situation might be in the two Koreas, our True Parents will guide us through it and help us turn our world into that amazing world of peace and love that we all so dream of.
So have a lovely Sunday and a lovely week. Thank you very much.
Notes:
The Books of Proverbs, chapter 23
1: When you sit down to eat with a ruler,
observe carefully what is before you;2: and put a knife to your throat
if you are a man given to appetite.3: Do not desire his delicacies,
for they are deceptive food.4: Do not toil to acquire wealth;
be wise enough to desist.5: When your eyes light upon it, it is gone;
for suddenly it takes to itself wings,
flying like an eagle toward heaven.6: Do not eat the bread of a man who is stingy;
do not desire his delicacies;7: for he is like one who is inwardly reckoning.
"Eat and drink!" he says to you;
but his heart is not with you.8: You will vomit up the morsels which you have eaten,
and waste your pleasant words.9: Do not speak in the hearing of a fool,
for he will despise the wisdom of your words.10: Do not remove an ancient landmark
or enter the fields of the fatherless;11: for their Redeemer is strong;
he will plead their cause against you.12: Apply your mind to instruction
and your ear to words of knowledge.13: Do not withhold discipline from a child;
if you beat him with a rod, he will not die.14: If you beat him with the rod
you will save his life from Sheol.15: My son, if your heart is wise,
my heart too will be glad.16: My soul will rejoice
when your lips speak what is right.17: Let not your heart envy sinners,
but continue in the fear of the LORD all the day.18: Surely there is a future,
and your hope will not be cut off.19: Hear, my son, and be wise,
and direct your mind in the way.20: Be not among winebibbers,
or among gluttonous eaters of meat;21: for the drunkard and the glutton will come to poverty,
and drowsiness will clothe a man with rags.22: Hearken to your father who begot you,
and do not despise your mother when she is old.23: Buy truth, and do not sell it;
buy wisdom, instruction, and understanding.24: The father of the righteous will greatly rejoice;
he who begets a wise son will be glad in him.25: Let your father and mother be glad,
let her who bore you rejoice.26: My son, give me your heart,
and let your eyes observe my ways.27: For a harlot is a deep pit;
an adventuress is a narrow well.28: She lies in wait like a robber
and increases the faithless among men.29: Who has woe? Who has sorrow?
Who has strife? Who has complaining?
Who has wounds without cause?
Who has redness of eyes?30: Those who tarry long over wine,
those who go to try mixed wine.31: Do not look at wine when it is red,
when it sparkles in the cup
and goes down smoothly.32: At the last it bites like a serpent,
and stings like an adder.33: Your eyes will see strange things,
and your mind utter perverse things.34: You will be like one who lies down in the midst of the sea,
like one who lies on the top of a mast.35: "They struck me," you will say, "but I was not hurt;
they beat me, but I did not feel it.
When shall I awake?
I will seek another drink."The Trooper
Iron Maiden
Songwriters: Steve HarrisYou take my life but I'll take yours too
You fire your musket but I run you through
So when you're waiting for the next attack
You'd better stand there's no turning back.The bugle sounds -- the charge begins
But on this battlefield no one wins
The smell of acrid smoke and horses breath
As I plunge on into certain death.O-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-ohhh!
O-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-ohhh!The horse he sweats with fear -- we break to run
The mighty roar of the Russian guns
And as we race towards the human wall
The screams of pain as my comrades fall.We hurdle bodies that lay on the ground
And the Russians fire another round
We get so near yet so far away
We won't live to fight another day.O-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-ohhh!
O-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-ohhh!We get so close near enough to fight
When a Russian gets me in his sights
He pulls the trigger and I feel the blow
A burst of rounds take my horse below.And as I lay there gazing at the sky
My body's numb and my throat is dry
And as I lay forgotten and alone
Without a tear I draw my parting groan.O-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-ohhh!
O-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-ohhh!