In Jin Moon
November 6, 2011
Bridgeport, Connecticut
Good morning, Bridgeport. How is everyone this morning? I'm delighted to meet all of you here. It's been a couple of years since I last visited Bridgeport. Ever since our True Parents really invested in this community and in this university starting in 1992, we've been hearing glowing reports about what our community has done for the state of Connecticut. To hear about all the different renovations and improvements that are taking place on your campus is really exciting.
I believe this is an incredible opportunity for the Lovin' Life team to come and celebrate our Sunday worship, not just together with the Bridgeport community but with all our brothers and sisters around the world, and in particular in this country of America.
First of all, I would like to give my heartfelt thanks to the Lovin' Life production team, who have been up all night, working through breakfast and on to Sunday worship. They have truly done a phenomenal job of bringing a little bit of the Manhattan Center to your college campus, so hopefully this can be as close to a Lovin' Life experience as we possibly can make it technologically.
I also bring you greetings from our True Parents. As you know, they're always praying and thinking about this great providential country of America. I know that when our True Parents first became interested in this university in 1992, they had great plans.
Bringing True Parents' Message to Bridgeport
As you know, this university sits in the center of the town of Bridgeport, and I think in many respects my father was very much hoping that this could be like a hub or a port city to create all sorts of bridges to link the world and bring it into one glorious, unified, harmonious family of God. I know my father is hoping that this university can grow to be a representation of all that is wonderful and good about the American people and that it can be a symbol to inspire and empower the American youth to become the great men and women of God that my father and mother pray fervently for each day.
It's truly my honor as senior pastor to spend time here. Whenever I feel called to come and share the pulpit with different brothers and sisters around the country, it is such an honor for me. It is my wish that wherever the Lovin' Life team travels, we can share with you a bit of the breaking news of what an incredible time it is to live at the time of True Parents. As a woman pastor, just the fact that this whole concept, the living paradigm of true love composed of a man and a woman, is so exciting.
As you know, our Heavenly Parent sent their loving son Jesus Christ 2,000 years ago, but the people were not ready to understand that Jesus was the Son of God sent to give the good news, to share the message of true love, and hopefully to enlighten the consciousness of the people in his time. If the people had truly understood the fullness and magnitude of his mission, they would have realized that the purpose of Jesus' coming was not to die on the cross. In fact, he had a glorious mission that was cut short because the people did not realize who he was. People were not there to protect the Son of God and to realize that he was the hope for all of humankind.
Also because Jesus never had the opportunity to find his beautiful wife, to complete God's original intention for creating Adam and Eve or men and women in the first place, he could not build a beautiful family. He never had a chance to build what we call the Four Position Foundation, with God at the helm and men and women representing both sides of the hemisphere coming together in holy matrimony, creating beautiful children, creating the building block of a beautiful family, society, nation, and world.
This was what Jesus was supposed to do. His mission was to marry, find that beautiful wife, and create a beautiful family. I'm sure, just like all of us, in his attempt to create this ideal family Jesus would have gone through all sorts of obstacles, trials and tribulations, all the same issues that we deal with as parents, as brothers and sisters, as siblings, as members of an extended family. In so doing, he would have provided a living paradigm for all of humanity to say, "W ell, if Jesus can do it, so can we. If Jesus can deal with these issues and overcome them, growing deeper, wider, taller, and stronger in the process, then so can we."
Then we would have had a working paradigm as an example to emulate, to be inspired by and to aspire to. But because we didn't have that in the family of Jesus Christ, the last 2,000 years of Christian history have been lonely and desolate. If we wanted to be the true believers, if we wanted to be great servants of the Lord, of the Son of God, we thought that we had to deny everything; we had to reject the world and isolate ourselves in a convent or monastery, and the only thing we really could do was work on our individual salvation. That was the best that we could do with the model that Jesus left us.
A great many Christian men and women have lived lives of total sacrifice, of total denial, and never had a chance to build that beautiful family, part of that original mission of Jesus Christ. Because we were following the solitary life of sacrifice, we felt we had to do the same.
But fast-forward 2,000 years, and here we have with us this wonderful man and a beautiful woman by his side, the True Parents. Our True Father is great in that, yes, he is the Second Coming and, yes, he is the Son of God returning, but no matter how great the Son of God is, he alone cannot be the True Parents; he needs a female partner there by his side.
So the last 2,000 years of the silent and the voiceless suffering of women in the life of the church was finally answered in the existence and person of our True Mother. We realize that we don't have to be voiceless, and we don't have to be faceless. We don't have to be women burdened by so much guilt, fear, and insecurity. We can reclaim our dignity as beautiful daughters of God and together actively build something beautiful with our spouses called a family.
We realize that women have equal value. Yes, men and women are different, but before God we have equal dignity and equal value. Therefore, it is no accident that our True Father propelled our True Mother forward in the early 1990s, starting with the creation of the Women's Federation for World Peace, and that she as the international chairman toured the world and preached the breaking news. This is a great time for women, not just to liberate ourselves from men but to truly liberate the world. We need to work together with our brothers, with our fathers and with our sons and inspire them to be better brothers, fathers, and sons, better men, to be handsome, confident, wonderful eternal sons of God.
In this beautiful example of our True Parents, we see the completed teacher. In order to aspire to want to live a life of faith, it doesn't mean that we have to lock ourselves up in our closet, in a convent or monastery. We can lead an active, modern life but also be internally excellent as well as externally excellent people. The harder thing to do is to deal with our problems: not to ignore, not to neglect our problems but to actually be in the thick of them, dealing with our problems and doing the hard work of actually building that relationship, building that church, building that community, building this campus, and building an ideal world.
A Living Paradigm of True Love
When we look at our True Parents and when we realize that it was God's original intention to provide a living paradigm of what true love is all about, we see that the picture that Jesus left us is like watching a movie halfway. It was not the completed picture. We never saw what happened after Jesus got married, had kids, raised a family, and raised a community that thought more about the other than themselves and really encouraged all the different nations to heal themselves and to work together as a global community, as one family under God.
What Reverend Moon is famous for is the very thing that Jesus Christ would have done 2,000 years ago. When you ask people, "What do you know about Reverend Moon?" the first thing they say is, "Mass weddings, where everybody goes 'Mansei' and a lot of people are getting married together." And if you don't understand mansei, it does sound quite monstrous, doesn't it? Thousands of people getting married together in huge stadiums around the country, all going, 'Mansei.' It looks rather militaristic, but mansei actually means 10,000 years of peace.
So when a couple gets married, we want to wish them not just a happy decade or two; we want to wish them a happy millennium. When the community comes together and thousands of people get married together in a stadium, they're all wishing each other 10,000 years of peace. That's what our movement is famous for, aren't we, brothers and sisters?
If Jesus had had a chance to finish the story, he would have done the same thing 2,000 years ago. And he would have encouraged all different races, different religious backgrounds, different belief systems, different cultural backgrounds, and different national interests to lay down their barriers and come together to love each other as one family. Jesus Christ would have done the same thing that Reverend Moon has done. He would very much have encouraged international marriages. How else do two countries come together and truly learn to love each other? When they walk through the portal of matrimony.
This morning when I was waiting to come into the hall, I saw my beautiful niece here, with her tall half-Korean, half-German husband. In the True Family we like to tease them, they're so lovey-dovey. It's a new thing for old-timers like my siblings and me. We really like to watch them because they actually hug each other. When I walked in, he was stroking her hair. It's a beautiful thing to see. So just in this couple alone, you have Germany represented and Korea represented. It's an international community, and that's what really makes our movement special.
One of my friends works for a Christian pastor in a church and said to me, "The interesting thing about your movement is that when I come to your service, I don't just see white people, or just black people, or just Korean people. I see all different colors. I see all different age groups – grandpas with their grandsons – and it's the feeling that you're worshipping together with the world." That's the beauty that True Parents bring to all of our lives.
Fighting for Religion Freedom in Japan
Our movement has come a long way. I love especially having the new generation coming to the forefront, stepping up to the plate and getting involved in their faith, getting involved in their communities. It's beautiful to see young faces working with me at Headquarters each day.
We have a great deal to be proud of, to be excited about.
But, working with my two younger brothers in Korea – the international president Rev. Hyung Jin Moon and also Kook Jin Moon, who runs the Korean foundation – we've been engaged in a fight revolving around the faith-breaking issue that is taking place in Japan. Through the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s the American movement had to deal with the various misconceptions concerning the Unification Church. We were branded as a monstrous parasite infecting society, accused of turning young minds into brainwashed zombies. We've had to fight that.
But with the due process of law and with the Constitution, we could bring cases to court to seek justice, and we were able to win many legal matters concerning our members being kidnapped and held against their will. The same thing has been taking place in Japan, but Japan still refuses to recognize our movement as a church. Many of our Japanese brothers and sisters – especially the sisters who have been kidnapped – have suffered unspeakable atrocities during their time of captivity. At least here in the United States, when we were fighting for religious freedom, we had good friends, pastors all around the country who came to our True Parents' defense and fought together with us for our liberties as citizens.. But in Japan it's actually the government itself, together with Christian ministers, who are perpetrating these kidnappings that have scarred a great many brothers and sisters.
The story of Mr. Goto came to our attention a year ago. He was held in captivity for 12 years and five months. His family forked over $1.5 million to the organization that deprograms people, just to hold him captive. But because of his unbreakable faith, even though they starved him almost to death, he refused to give up his faith. His captors finally had to surrender, seeing there was s nothing more they could do, and threw him out. Thank goodness that when he attempted to crawl to safety, the second person that he met on the street happened to be a sister of our faith. She was able to take him to our hospital, where he was able to recuperate.
When he did recuperate, he came to America to tell us his story. And he came here to ask the American brothers and sisters to help Japan so that the Japanese government can finally recognize our faith as a legitimate church and allow the citizens of Japan, our brothers and sisters, to exercise their right, guaranteed under the Japanese constitution that was implemented after World War II by Gen. Douglas MacArthur. Although I t guarantees religious freedom, it has not being adhered to: It is being neglected and ignored.
In the process of the last 30 years, many of our brothers and sisters have been abused. Some of our sisters have not just been physically and emotionally abused but sexually abused as well. One sister in particular, during her captivity, was raped consecutively 33 times. You can well imagine anything as traumatic as one rape would do you in, but this poor woman had to suffer much more. She is from a culture that really looks down on talking about personal problems. So she felt she had no voice, no way to get her story heard.
A couple of other sisters who were also victimized wanted to meet me only in secret because they didn't want their identities to be shared even with their own community. They suffer in silence. But what they want to see most is to see our faith recognized as a legitimate faith, and for them as Japanese citizens to be allowed to exercise their freedom of worship. All of these people are over the age of 21. They should be allowed to decide for themselves how to worship.
There is one sister over 60 years old who was abducted by her family because they thought she was brainwashed. This is the kind of thing taking place in Japan. Even this year, there are brothers and sisters continually being abducted and abused.
"Change the World by Changing Yourself"
In anticipation of speaking today on this campus, I thought a lot about how a campus is where young people who just graduated from high school are living away from home for the first time and have a chance to explore who they are, coming to an understanding of their own identity and what they want to do with their lives, discovering their passions, applying themselves in preparing for a great career. But this is also a chance, with a huge group of people coming together, to change the world.
In the 1960s, the civil rights movement took over the American consciousness. That movement started in the churches, but it was the college campuses that really allowed the American people to realize what was going on. It was the students that turned the movement into a mission of social activism and in so doing helped the civil rights movement accomplish many of its goals.
It's the same thing with this issue of faith breaking. We're talking about ignoring the religious liberties of men and women, about the physical and emotional abuse of these men and women. Their human rights are being violated even as we speak. We become aware of what is going on through the churches, but we need the help of young people on the college campuses of the world to really turn it into social activism, to make it their mission to say, "Do we really want to grow up in a world where our human rights are being violated, and that's okay with our government, with our country?" We need to start asking the kind of questions that many times people don't want to ask. Often we've become fixtures in our careers or our lives; sometimes it takes the young people who want to be agents of change to really do something about creating a world better than the one they were born into.
I just met with the directors of CARP and said that this is an incredible time for different CARP organizations around the country to highlight the human rights violations that are taking place in Japan and all around the world and help the student bodies recognize that we as members of the campus, as citizens of this country, have a duty to the future of world, and we need to do something about it. Instead of waiting for the politicians or the pastors to do the work for us, how much more wonderful would it be if we become agents of change?
Gandhi once said, "Be the change that you want to see in others." In other words, don't wait for the world to change for you. You can change the world by changing yourself. I can change my world by changing myself. You can change your campus by changing yourself. This is a place where people come to gain knowledge, but we need to do better than just be somebody who is drinking from the straws of knowledge and enjoying it for ourselves. If we do have the opportunity to gain knowledge, we have to think about how we can share what we have learned from others. How can we think of ways to make our world better? To make our families better, make our communities better, make our nations better? How can we as a new young generation help in creating one family of God so that we can overcome the barriers of hate, overcome the barriers of religion, overcome the barriers that divide us all?
Sun Myung Moon, November 8, 2011
"True Father Is a Universal Man"
When you really ask why so many people are so afraid of Reverend Moon, honest people will tell you a couple of things. They say, "He speaks funny. He doesn't speak our language. He doesn't look like the blue-eyed, blonde-haired Jesus Christ pictures that we've seen. How can he be the Messiah? He doesn't look right."
He does more than just share glorious words of love. He really provokes us to be better. Many times he comes off like one of those Chinese village teachers who teach with an iron fist. He pushes people to be better. He prods them to do things they never thought they would do because he knows that they can be so much more than the limitations that they put on themselves.
Often we fear what we don't know. When the fear button is pushed, all sorts of insecurities come out in many different ways. When we don't understand, many times we can get angry at that person, or hate that person. Often we can make that person's life miserable because maybe he or she is a little bit strange and scary, but at the same time intriguing. It stirs something inside of us. That person is provoking us to feel something – ooh, dangerous!
But when people are willing to surrender to the way God works through providence, God works in mysterious ways. He doesn't always send us exactly what we are waiting for. He kept his promise. He sent his son again. We have the Second Coming in our True Father, but it's not necessarily what we thought he would be. He's not Jewish! He's Korean! Why an Asian man? Why somebody who speaks Korean? Yes, he speaks Japanese, but what about English? Or maybe he just doesn't look like a lot of people's idea of what a religious man should be.
Our True Father is a universal man. The True Parents come to fulfill, to make the picture whole. We've been preconditioned to think that a person or a gift of God can come only in a certain package. But if we can put aside our fears and our own limited expectations, opening up our hearts to allow God to work in mysterious ways, then we realize, "Wow, that weird cheer actually means 10,000 years of peace. These people who look like brainwashed zombies are actually doing something really phenomenal. They really want to commit themselves to God and humanity and then to each other. They've decided to love the world first and then join together as a family. How beautiful!
They're willing to live a life for the sake of others. Instead of me, me, give me the money, show me the money, make me rich, make me not hungry – these are idealistic, inspired men and women who really want to serve the world as God's children. They want to serve humanity, serve their nation, serve their parents, and serve their community. How wonderful!"
When people are willing to take that first great leap of faith – come to our gathering, come to our worship – and really spend time together, they realize that our movement and our families are one of the most beautiful things they have ever seen. Where else do you find extraordinary kids who are respectful of their parents, who understand the need to have inter-religious dialogue, who understand the need to respect different faiths and different cultures, who understand the need to rise above their own understanding of things for a common purpose? Where else do you find young men and women not driven to succeed because they are following the philosophy of "show me the money," but because they are inspired to be great eternal sons and daughters? Success and prosperity is a by-product of their lifestyle. Where else do you find these kinds of people? We find them in our community of faith.
It's a beautiful thing, so we should not be afraid to share this wonderful breaking news with the rest of the world. Probably one of the most wonderful gifts we can give each other is the news of our True Parents, the news that instead of living our lives in this fallen lineage, we have a chance to graft onto the true lineage and become part of the heavenly family.
Our True Parents were able to indemnify the human Fall, and by uniting with them we can build a beautiful world. We can build a holistic world that is fulfilling, a world that is satisfying, a world that is enjoyable, beautiful and loving. God wants us to love our life. The greatest gift God has given to all of us is this chance at living out this life. In one sense, life is incredibly short, but in another sense, it's incredibly long. Really, what we need to think of as eternal sons and daughters of God is, what are we going to do as great men and women of God, as citizens of this great country to truly take it a notch up, a step further, so that every generation that comes after us slowly starts building a beautiful world, one family at a time?
"We Need To Work Together"
Brothers and sisters, we at Lovin' Life, when we think about how we are going to share the breaking news, talk about different methods. Lovin' Life has unrolled in the last year or so something called the Launch Pad. We're not here just to share the word of Reverend and Mrs. Moon. We're here to do the actual work of building the Kingdom, of building that family. Before you build a skyscraper, you have to have a blueprint, and our True Parents have that blueprint.
But regardless of how wonderful that blueprint is, it will never come to fruition in that glorious skyscraper or beautiful condominium or mansion on the hill or that log cabin in the woods if we don't build it, if we don't work together. We need people with different skills – plumbers, electricians, carpenters, framers, people who can dig the right kind of foundation. All sorts of different people with different skills have to come together to build a great monument or building.
Likewise, building one family at a time takes teamwork. You cannot build a family on your own. If you don't have a partnership with your spouse, if you don't have an understanding with your kids that you are a team, regardless of how great the blueprint is for that family, it will never be as great as it could be.
Likewise, when we're building a ministry, it is not just about Headquarters. It's really about creating a kind of community. It's not just about receiving Father's words and being gloriously happy that we can recite them from time to time. It's not just words; we have to make the words flesh. We have to turn the words into the reality of our lives.
Therefore, building a ministry is like building a huge family. You cannot do it alone. We need everybody from Seattle to work together with Headquarters. We need everybody from the Bay Area to work together with Headquarters. We need everybody from Atlanta to work together with Headquarters. We need everybody to work together with each other in order to fully experience the beautiful house or community that God envisions for all of us.
Brothers and sisters, we have to realize that God has a great vision for our time. God has a huge and beautiful house where he wants to welcome all of humanity. God has the blueprint in his hands, and what he is asking different leaders, district directors, and co-ministers of Lovin' Life is to work together to build it one family, one community at a time.
The great thing about having different district pastors and Lovin' Life co- pastors all around the country is that even though we have the same message, the different pastors are cognizant of the needs of each community. This is a wonderful chance to inherit and apply the same vision. Because God made us so gloriously unique – men and women, different ages, different interests – then the way it is expressed in a community can be in many different ways, truly representing everybody in the community who participates.
If we work together through the Launch Pad, through our district pastors, and through the different things we're doing at Headquarters, sooner or later we're going to realize that we are changing our world and changing our movement. Brothers and sisters, look around you. The Sunday Service that you used to go to three years ago is vastly different from the one you're attending now. The summer camps that we are developing for the children are very different from those that the older blessed children have gone through. The leadership training module that we're creating for future leadership is very different from what we had before. In fact, we didn't have any. The educational curriculum that we are rolling out month after month is incredibly different from what we had before. We never really had a unified educational curriculum. And even certain things like providing a blessing manual – who would have thought it was something people might want to have?
These things are necessary in terms of applying the Principle in our daily lives so we can make the word flesh. This is what we are doing at Headquarters to inspire and empower each man and woman in our movement to be their best. This is a time when we need to understand that we're going through a transitional phase here, from first Generation to second Generation, onto the third Generation.
Each generation has its pros and cons. Each generation has its great habits and not such good habits. What we are trying to do is not throw the baby out with the bath water; we would like to keep the baby, but we would also like the baby to grow up healthy, holistic, organic, and inspired. We would like this baby to grow into an inspired and empowered person who is going to be a bridge to connect all the different interests, passions, careers, and nations around the world. These are the people who are going to be the agents of change who connect the dots for all of humanity.
We may be wondering, where is the grand vision? The vision is there, and sometimes we have to have the courage to trust the leadership. I know it has not always been easy, but I need your trust; you need my trust. We need to work together.
So when the senior pastor asks each district pastor to connect the dots, you might be thinking, "What is she putting us through – kindergarten? Asking us to connect dots, asking us to work together?" Yes, you work for UPF; yes, you work for Women's Federation; yes, you work for CARP. But you know what? If we really want to fight the faith-breaking issue, we need to work together. And you know what, ACLC? When I go up to Capitol Hill, you're coming with me and you're bringing your ministers with me. We need to harness the power that's already there.
Manhattan Center
The Manhattan Center, the New Yorker, and the Learning Center
The great example is the incredible foundation that our True Father laid in New York City alone. For example, we have the Manhattan Center, we have the New Yorker, and we have the 43rd Street building that we now call the Learning Center. These are three incredible, monumental assets that our True Parents have prepared. But before, every entity was working independently and against each other. The CEO of the Manhattan Center did not talk to the CEO of the New Yorker, even though they share several floors in their buildings. And 43rd Street was more like a tomb; there was no life.
What Father envisioned for those three assets of our movement is almost like a trinity, to really come together as a holistic body. The Manhattan Center is the cultural gem of Midtown New York. It's artistic; it's feminine. The New Yorker is a great example of art deco architecture: It's massive and very masculine. The Learning Center is like a birthplace for future leaders. It is like a family, with a mom and a dad and a place where children can grow and be inspired.
When these three assets start working together, then we see the magic happen. I told the hotel staff, "Here you are trying to sell individual rooms, but if you and the Manhattan Center work together, think about the kind of vacation packages you can offer your guests. Guests could get a discount on some phenomenal concerts that are taking place in the Manhattan Center." Again, we're talking about working together, connecting the dots, creating a synergistic relationship so that what we have together is much greater than what we were separately.
The Manhattan Center, New Yorker and 43rd Street are just one example of being a unified family in the city of New York, but our True Parents prepared huge assets all around the world, and especially in America, in the beautiful brothers and sisters who have really hung on and been with our True Parents all these years. If we can really harness all of our strength, we can really build something exciting.
Raising a Generation of Peace
As senior pastor, my vision truly is to raise that beautiful Generation of Peace. By that, I mean young men and women who understand that they belong to one family of God, who know that we all belong to our eternal Parent of peace, and who know that as eternal sons and daughters of God they have a responsibility, a purpose in their lives to give back something to the world, to honor God through the way they have lived their lives, by leaving something beautiful in their inspired and empowered children.
And the young men and women of Generation Peace would really be compelled to live a life of compassion, thinking about others, caring about others. How many people can you meet in New York City who are willing to go out of their way to give you a warm hello? Our modern day is quite cold, fragmented, and compartmentalized. We need to be the people who care. We should not be, regardless of what a great judge or lawyer we may be, those who look down on the less fortunate, on the less educated. We should be the kind of lawyers who want to do great work to raise up society to be better than we are.
Then we also need to be people who want to live lives of altruism for the sake of others; we will not just be satisfied being happy ourselves. This reminds me of a conversation I had with a young girl who was going through a difficult time. She said, "In Jin Nim, you're doing Lovin' Life and that's all good, but I want to do my own thing. I just want to be left alone." I asked her, how much do you want to be left alone? She responded," I don't need the world, I don't need my parents, I don't need anybody. I just have me. That's all I need."
I asked her, "Regardless of how independent or fabulous or capable you are, do you not need to go to the grocery store?" She looked at me, like, what is this crazy woman saying? I said, "Don't you need to eat?" She said, "What are you getting at?" I said, "E very time you get to the grocery store and you have an opportunity to prepare food for yourself or your siblings or whoever else is on your like list, you have to realize that there was somebody who harvested that grain or that vegetable that you like so much. You are dependent on other people. Regardless of how independent you want to be, you can never really be independent."
If you're going to use public transportation, you're dependent already, aren't you? You're dependent on the person running the system. If you want to see a movie, you're dependent on Hollywood to produce the movie. You're dependent on the theater to show it at your favorite time. So regardless of how independent and alone we want to be, we all need each other.
We might think that we are just one special dot, or "All I need to do is take care of my family. You know what – the work you're doing is great, but I'm going to concentrate on my family and that's the only thing that matters."
Well, the thing about the world is, regardless of how well-meaning we all are in thinking we are going to take care of only our children, if we don't partake of building a better world, a safer world, then we're not being great parents in that sooner or later the world is going to affect our precious children. "I don't want to get involved. You guys can do the work. I'm just going to concentrate on my family." That's really not a smart thing to do because there is just no way you can keep the world away from your children if they decide to participate in the world.
As parents we have a certain level of duty to be our own agents of change in wanting to create a better world for our children. And therefore, living a life of altruism in the end is actually a very rewarding way of taking the best care of our children.
Especially on a campus like this, we have the opportunity to be not just internally excellent but externally excellent. But we need to ask ourselves the tough question: Why do we want to be externally excellent? Is it because we want that quick fix, that hot shiny car, or that beautiful woman, or that handsome man, that mansion, the swimming pool? Is that the reason why we want to be externally excellent?
I work with a lot of rich and famous people in New York City who do have their mansions, their swimming pools and whatever. Many people who are not internally excellent know they are missing something in their lives, so they try to fill their lives with these superfluous things that make them feel they're somehow respected and accepted by society: "By living at an incredible address up on the hill, I should be respected. This is the mark of my achievement. This is the reason why everybody greets me in such a way. Or I belong to a certain club and therefore I'm a worthy person."
We need to ask ourselves, why do we want to be externally excellent? We want to be externally excellent because our life is a gift that our Heavenly Parent gave to us. We have a duty not just to be beautiful internally but to manifest that in everything that we do externally.
A Generation of Peace will be kids who are solid in their faith, in their understanding of who God is in their life, who True Parents are, who they are, and how they should live their lives, that their lives should be full of purpose. And yet at the same time, if they consistently be the kind of awesome people that they are, regardless of what they do, then success and prosperity will become the by-product of the kind of people that they are.
As a mother and a senior pastor, I realize that probably one of the greatest missions I have is raising young kids and inspiring the second-, third-, and fourth generation to really be their best. But I'm also hoping that the parents can work together with me. Regardless of how well-meaning I am, I cannot do the job without you.
Connecting the Dots
Yes, doing the homework, connecting the dots can be monotonous, sometimes grueling work, sometimes tedious work. But every now and then, take a step back. For the last three years at Headquarters we've been connecting the dots. But every now and then, take a look and ask yourself, is our movement different from what it was three years ago? Are we making improvements? Are we going in the right direction? Are we losing our second and third generation, the way we have been for the last 20 years? Or are they being inspired – and not just inspired, but committing themselves to their life of faith, being more involved in their active life of faith? Ask these questions.
When we do take a step back now and then to look at that big picture, we can see that what seems like tedious, grueling, difficult work actually is a process that we have been going through and are going through to create a tapestry, a painting worthy of being hung in the Smithsonian: this beautiful picture of a loving family, a loving society, a loving community, a loving nation. And we can take pride in knowing that we've done it together.
Brothers and sisters, the first three years have been a time when we've been digging our foundation, inspired by the blueprint that we see before us, the one that God has shared with us. All we need to do is keep on building on that foundation, and develop in trust, develop in love as we go forward. Before we know it, when we take a moment to step back and look at our community and our movement again, you and I will come to realize that we have something incredible, something exciting, something beautiful in each other.
The band earlier sang, "I Want to Know What Love Is," and probably more than anywhere else on earth, college campuses are places where many students and young people ask, "I want to know what love is." We may think love is something that we have to find out there, that we have to search long and hard, that it's not something tangible nearby. "I want to know what love is, I want to feel what love is."
But what God and our True Parents are telling us is, "You are the love. You are that agent of change unto the world." I want to feel what love is, but in order to be that agent of change we have to feel the love ourselves. We have to know that we are the love that we so long for, that we so strive for, that we have searched long and hard for.
Let's just change our way of thinking to realize that we are the whole package, that God has prepared us well, and that the only thing we need to do is to tap into our own divinity and to decide today, "Wow, I am the love I want to be, I am the love I want to feel, so I realize it starts with me, and you, and us together." If we decide today that we are going to be the love unto the world, then we can change the world into that beautiful, peaceful world that we're all longing for.
So, brothers and sisters, continue making that bridge. Continue to connect the dots and know that there is a beautiful picture at the end of the rainbow and all we need to do is to stay vigilant in our unity with our True Parents and persevere with a new determination that there's really nothing that we cannot accomplish once we decide to do so. So you are the love.
God bless, and thank you.
Notes:
I Want To Know What Love Is - Mick Jones, Foreigner
I gotta take a little time
A little time to think things over
I better read between the lines
In case I need it when I'm older
Aaaah woah-ah-aahNow this mountain I must climb
Feels like a world upon my shoulders
And through the clouds I see love shine
It keeps me warm as life grows colderIn my life there's been heartache and pain
I don't know if I can face it again
Can't stop now, I've traveled so far
To change this lonely lifeI wanna know what love is
I want you to show me
I wanna feel what love is
I know you can show me
Aaaah woah-oh-oohI'm gonna take a little time
A little time to look around me, oooh ooh-ooh ooh-ooh oooh
I've got nowhere left to hide
It looks like love has finally found meIn my life there's been heartache and pain
I don't know if I can face it again
I can't stop now, I've traveled so far
To change this lonely lifeI wanna know what love is
I want you to show me
I wanna feel what love is
I know you can show me
I wanna know what love is
I want you to show me
And I wanna feel, I want to feel what love is
And I know, I know you can show meLet's talk about love
(I wanna know what love is) the love that you feel inside
(I want you to show me) I'm feeling so much love
(I wanna feel what love is) no, you just cannot hide
(I know you can show me) yeah, woah-oh-ooh
I wanna know what love is, let's talk about love
(I want you to show me) I wanna feel it too
(I wanna feel what love is) I wanna feel it too
And I know, and I know, I know you can show me
Show me what is real, woah (woah), yeah I know
(I wanna know what love is) hey I wanna know what love
(I want you to show me), I wanna know, I wanna know, want know
(I wanna feel what love is), hey I wanna feel, love
I know you can show me, yeah