In Jin Moon
1. Good morning brothers and sisters! How is everyone this morning? Congratulations to all the blessed couples that are celebrating their 30th anniversary!
2. It's amazing how quickly the years have gone, isn't it? We feel young at heart and yet we look at the date and we realize 30 years has gone by and all these strange people that we call our children now embellish and entertain our lives and we realize, this whole work of building an ideal family, the dream that we had of building an ideal family, is truly something that has taken us on a very, very intriguing and interesting journey. Has it not?
3. Our True Parents, they really want to celebrate this day with all of you and they send you their greetings from Las Vegas. It's really all of you and the Blessed Central Families who have really protected our True Parents over the years, through the years in the wilderness and many years of persecution and misunderstanding. But surely the first-generation stood by our True Parents and really protected our True Parents, like a good solid defense, so that they could continue their mission and go about the work of the Providence. And it is really because you were there, not just as brothers and sisters, not just as men and women, but you were really there as children of God, really loving your parents, not just your Heavenly Parents but our True Parents throughout the years – that has really allowed our community to grow as a worldwide movement. And all the foundation that has been laid over the last 40 and 50 years is really the firm shoulders that the second generation and third generation now stand on. It's because of your sacrifice, your dedication, and your persistence over the years that really has us well-positioned to be extremely prosperous and to lead extremely fulfilled and satisfying lives.
4. When I think about how important this day is, and in this Unification Church, Blessing is such an important, should I say, mark of our lives – in that we come to this movement as young men and women but through the grace of God and because God has given us his representative in the form of True Parents, really a true man and a woman, perfected Adam and Eve who come to share this gift of the Blessing with all of humanity, by allowing us to change our lineage from the Satanic to that of a heavenly lineage, is really something that is incredibly blessed, beautiful, and profound.
5. In a way, through the blessing we enter through the portal of something that has never been done before in the history of mankind. Jesus came 2000 years ago, in a way his mission was cut short because he was crucified on the cross. He never had the chance to meet that beautiful wife with whom he could build a wonderful family and stand in the position as the True Parents 2000 years ago. And Jesus Christ would have been quite famous for the very thing our True Parents are famous for, the mass weddings. In a way, 2000 years ago, had the people been prepared to receive the Messiah and really understand that his mission was not to die but that his mission was to find a beautiful wife and create a beautiful family and thereby encourage all of humanity, despite the barriers, despite the differences, despite the great divide that separates God's children – to really compel all of us to live as one family under God. This would've taken place 2000 years ago.
6. But fast-forward to the modern-day era and all of us are so privileged and blessed to be living in the time of our True Parents when they are going about the world and going about their business spreading this breaking news, that this is the time when we must realize that we are all children of God. And, instead of realizing that we have the power to destroy our world 100 times over, we have the technology to do so, but this is the time when, centered and united with our True Parents, we can be well poised to usher in the new millennium of peace and love – and all that we have been waiting for if we realize that the purpose of our lives is not to just celebrate ourselves, but to celebrate each other as that one family under God.
7. And that's why the whole concept of the blessing is incredibly important. Because, most people when they get married, it's really about me and my spouse, it's about my man and my woman. But here, the blessing is about honoring God, it's about honoring humanity, celebrating our humanity – and it's about honoring each other as husband and wife and celebrating each other as husband and wife.
Bar Mitzvah
8. Just as, in the Jewish tradition, you have the right of passage when the young man and a young woman celebrate bar mitzvah or bas mitzvah, and they become in essence a young woman and a young man instead of a young child. The blessing kind of allows us to go through another portal, or another rite of passage if you will, allowing us to become a part of this wonderful thing called a universal family. And therefore, this is not a day when we just honor each other as that spouse, that husband and wife that has lasted for 30 years, but this is really an opportunity to celebrate with humanity, with our Heavenly Parent up in heaven, with our True Parents that really brought us this gift – and to remind ourselves that we have pledged ourselves to each other and to our humanity and to God all at the same time. And that we realize, that because we've been afforded this incredible gift of a blessing, that we are going to be the kind of people working on ourselves, building ideal families, and truly leaving something beautiful behind so that our world will be better after we are done, than how he found it when we first arrived. In a way we want to leave the world better and well poised for that world of peace that we have been talking about.
9. Whenever I think about blessing and whenever I think about different anniversaries that arise in the context of my own immediate family, the True Family, I am often reminded, my father reminds me, "You know In Jin you are quite a peculiar child." That, I knew already. But he said, "You know you were very peculiar."
10. We grew up on the second floor of a church. So, we woke up to singing, we fell asleep to singing, we woke up to prayer, we fell asleep to prayer. But one of the most exciting things for all of us as children was witnessing these beautiful young man and woman all dressed up, men in suits and women in these white robes and dresses with a veil – all going into the assembly room of the church to get blessed.
11. I was only three or four years old but I wanted to attend the Blessing. I wanted to go in. And so I demanded that my nanny buy me a white dress. And so I took whatever material I could find that was on the floor from the different sisters who were preparing their wedding gowns and their veils – and I stuck it all together. I don't remember what it looked like but it must have looked quite funny. So different scraps of veil, which I believe I tied with a rubber band, I wanted to make that my wedding veil and wedding gown.
12. I asked my parents, "I really want to attend this Blessing." My father just looked at me and said, "you have a bit of waiting to do." But I didn't want to wait. I was three or four but I wanted to attend this Blessing, I wanted to be there. I didn't know who my husband was so I enlisted the help of my younger brother [Heung Jin Moon]. I said, "You're going to the Blessing with me. You're my husband. So get dressed." My poor younger brother and I, even though my father said you cannot go, we were determined to enter. So, as the people progressed into the assembly room we thought that we could follow at the tail end of it and nobody would notice. My parents were already in the room waiting for the couples to come in. And so we stood on the sidelines waiting for everyone to pass through. And different couples looked over at us thinking, "Oh how sweet, how cute – they are dressing up for us." Not realize that we fully intended to attend.
13. They passed us by and I told my younger brother, "Get in position. Get ready." We didn't know how to stand, he didn't know how to stand. I didn't have any clip to stick the veil in my hair so I remember holding onto my veil like this (demonstrates) and I said, "Let's go!" So, after the last couple went into the assembly hall I dragged my brother, while holding onto my veil, off we tried to go in. But of course, the people at the door said, "you can't go in." I asked why not. But they didn't really have an answer for me. They said, "You're too young!" And I said, "Why can't I go?" And they asked me if my father gave me permission. And I said no, "but I still want to go!" And they slowly closed the door. And I thought, they closed the door on me but they are not going to get rid of me. So I said to my brother, "we've got to cry. We've got to cry really loud. No mercy, we've got to let it rip."
14. The couples were inside the assembly hall, and we wanted to be let in. So these two pitiful children stood outside crying our eyes out. And my younger brother did a really good job of it. And so people came and said, "You can't make noise. This is a very profound hour." I said, "I want to go. I want to go in. Let me in!" They said no, and I let out a few more screams until they finally dragged me away. Later, my father called me into the room and he said, "what were you doing up there?" And I said, "they didn't let me in and I wanted to go in, but then they closed the door on me so I had to cry. And I had to be heard, so I had to cry extra loudly." My father just laughed out loud and he said to me, he said to me something I will never forget, "you know, Blessing is a beautiful thing. But the Blessing is just the beginning, it's not an end." Because you kind of think that when you go to the wedding you're gearing up for this beautiful event, and once the ceremony is done it's over. Right? Or at least that's what I thought. But my father said, "The blessing is the beginning. It's not easy you know. So you have a lot of years to work on yourself. So, stop crying."
15. So that day I was terribly, terribly disappointed. But when I look back on my married life I was thinking, "geez, my father knew a thing or two." Because it is incredibly difficult. And, when we came and we joined and we wanted to build ideal families and we prayed to God, "please give me this opportunity to build an ideal family." Well, our Heavenly Father gave us just that. He gave us an I-deal family.
16. And I always say, God delivers exactly what we asked for. And we have to do our part in making sure we specify or give a little more details – with 30 years' worth of wisdom. But 30 years ago we got what we had asked for. In a way, when we are asking for ideal families we are really asking God to give me a family that I can true rub against – where I am going to be put in a situation to 'deal' with, I deal with all the different issues that arise when we attempt to build this thing called an ideal family.
17. I was talking with one of my friends and I said, "This Sunday is really, really kind of special because it's the 30th anniversary of 8000 couples." My friend said, "oh my goodness, 30 years!" And he said, "You know what they say about 30 years of marriage." And I asked what do they say? He said, "those people who have lasted 30 years of marriage – they say the first 10 years is trench warfare, they say the next decade is a lot of kamikaze soldiers, like World War II, and the third decade is kind of like going through the Cold War. So people who have survived 30 years of marriage have survived all three world wars." And you guys are still going strong!
Forest Gump
18. And I said, "That's kind of interesting. I've never heard that one before. The one I heard is from the movie Forest Gump, "life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're going to get." In the Unification Church marriage is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're going to get.
19. And for those of us who didn't know what we were going to get or what we got, it's been 30 years of quite a journey and quite an experience and I'm sure that many of us have garnered wisdom throughout the years. And even though maybe our hair is slightly grayer, maybe our waistline has expanded a little bit more, even though we might be a little more tired than what we were 30 years ago – nevertheless the incredible thing about our community is that we are still young at heart.
20. I don't know how many times people, who have met brothers and sisters and Blessed Couples in our community, they said to me, "oh my God! That guy is really 60? He looks 40!" Because we are young at heart, because we are infused with the Divine Spirit, because we are plugged in to this heavenly circuitry – we tend to look much younger than a lot of people out in the world. Because, regardless of how difficult life might be, we see it as a challenge, we see it as an opportunity to learn something from it, to grow and really discover something we've never really noticed or realized about ourselves. So in a way, as difficult as life might be we still have this incredible hope, this incredible feeling of inspiration – which lends itself to all of you looking much younger than you really are. In a way, God has, not only kept you externally beautiful, but internally beautiful throughout the years – throughout the last 30 years.
21. And I know that, as somebody who came from a different country, to realize the beauty of this country America – truly this is like the melting pot of all different races, all different traditions, all different cultures. I was so intrigued and inspired to see people other than just Asians or just black hair – curly hair, blonde hair, red hair, black skin, olive skin, white skin, red skin – it was such a beautiful thing to see.
22. Even as I was growing up in Korea, my father and mother have always talked about being part of a universal family. But I never really saw it, but coming here when I was eight years old it just hit me like a big tsunami, "oh my goodness! So this is what my parents were talking about all those years when I was growing up in Korea. This is what it means to look and feel like one family under God."
23. When I realized how beautiful all of you guys were, bright eyed and bushy tailed – straight out of high school or straight out of college, so infused with this spirit to change the world, to be that agent of change, not wanting to be changed by the world but wanting to basically be the one to say, "I am going to be the agent of change that is going to usher in something beautiful," there was incredible excitement, an incredible amount of hope. We were looking forward to all the different things that we'd accomplish. And we thought that in a way, the next step of getting blessed would be just like that too, full of hope and full of intrigue and full of mystery.
24. But when we have been married and raising a family for the last 30 years we realize that there is a bit of work to be done. And when we asked for ideal families God really gave us different issues to work through, when it concerns our spouses, when it concerns our in-laws, when it concerns our children. 25. When I think about our movement and how I would really like to see it blossom in the near future – one way I like to think about it is – the first generation was really about finding God. You guys joined the church in order to find God. You guys went through a process of conversion experience where you experienced something divine, like a spiritual energy or a spark that changed your life forever. And you decided, "I am going to commit myself to God. I'm going to commit myself to the Providence and I am going to commit myself to building this thing called an ideal family."
26. Well, then we start having families and children and we realized that if you look at the second generation… and if you look at the first generation it was all about finding God and you did find God in this movement, but for the second generation, for all of us who were born in the movement – we never had to go through the process of the conversion experience. We never had to be put in the situation where we actually had an opportunity to own our faith. For those of us who have not gone through the process – the second generation is really about trying to figure out who we are – finding ourselves in the context of this movement and in the context of a family where our parents actually went through a process of a conversion experience and decided to connect. In the second generation it's not so much committing, but it's realizing what kind of tradition we come from and it's realizing that we are God's eternal sons and daughters and that we have been given this blessed life, and it's really up to us to use our life as that precious opportunity to create something beautiful by living a life of gratitude.
27. In a way, each generation has its own struggle. And as a member of the second generation, what I would really like to see going forward, when I think about the third and fourth and fifth generation, in a way, I would like the third-generation and the generations coming after to really be about finding happiness. Having happiness, having fulfillment in our lives. And instead of the first generation, who went through a process of finding God, and the second generation who went through a process of finding ourselves in the context of this thing called this movement, the third-generation really needs to be about finding happiness. How do we substantiate happiness in our lives?
28. When I think about that as a mother and as somebody who has children of my own, when I think about what I would like for them in the future. Well, I would very much love for them to go to the blessing. I would very much want them to be inspired by the dream or the romance of finding that special someone. So, in preparation of finding that someone, really going through a process of working on yourself in preparation to meet that beautiful someone – and coming to a place where they can commit themselves to this other person, not like the way the first generation or many of the second generation did, like opening up a box of chocolates not really knowing what we're going to get, but taking an active participation in the process of the blessing with the help of the parents and the help of True Parents, so that the future generations have a chance to own their faith, to own their commitment, to own their blessing.
29. So, people going to the blessing are not going with question marks on top of their heads, but with a clear sense of purpose and determination and commitment to say, "Blessing is something incredibly beautiful that I waited my whole life for. This was my dream. And now that I've found my eternal partner I'm going to create something beautiful." Knowing that the other partner is fully cognizant and in agreement with my understanding of the blessing which is, once you commit, then you try your best. And you don't take each other for granted. You don't abuse each other because you think you guys are eternal partners and there is no place that our spouse can go. Provided that it is a healthy relationship and a thriving relationship and a respectful relationship, then that commitment needs to be honored with loyalty, respect, and love. This is what I want for my children. And I think all of us as parents want that for our children.
30. One of the great things about being part of a movement that has 40 or 50 years of history is that we can learn a lot from our victories. But we can also learn a lot from our mistakes and from our failures. And, going forward, we can utilize the wisdom garnered through the years to make sure that the future of our movement, or the future blessed candidates, are better prepared and are better equipped than the one when we started our family life.
31. I often like to say, the first generation found God, but we really didn't know how to make that ideal family. Nobody gave us a manual on how to raise these perfect kids, these sinless kids. In a way, the first generation kind of had to wait for the second generation to grow up. Those that were born and raised in the movement that had experienced the learning curve of our parents, to really kind of work together to create a great manual or an educational curriculum so that we understand where our parents came from and our parents understand where we came from – and so the victories we celebrated will continue to be celebrated, but mistakes and failures that we ourselves as parents or we ourselves as children do not repeat over and over and over again.
32. This is a really important time. Whenever we are faced with our anniversary, to not just celebrate, but to also take into account how we did as human beings and really learn from each other so that we can better prepare for the future.
33. And, when I think about a blessed life I often like to refer back to Genesis 33:10. This is a story about Jacob and Esau and everyone knows the story of Jacob and you saw how Jacob stole the birthright with the help of his mother and Esau was really really angry. He wanted to kill Jacob. "How dare you take my birthright! How dare you scheme and supplant my rightful birthright." And so you have this older brother who is out to kill this younger brother, and I'm sure he is exploring all his options. Which way is the best to kill or best to deal with this silly younger brother of mine who took my birthright. And I'm sure he saw spent many, many years doing so.
34. But the reason why I like Genesis 33:10 is that it contains one of the most inspiring statements that a younger brother can make towards an older brother. After years of living their separate lives they come to this reunion scene. And we all know the story, Jacob sent all his prosperous gifts forward first, his servants with his children first, his two wives Rachel and Leah first with their children – and even as he approaches Esau bows 7 times to truly show his humility and humbleness and his love for his older brother.
35. And you can imagine what Jacob must have been thinking, "Oh my goodness, this is the final reunion and it's got to go well or I'm not going to be standing in this real world much longer. Here comes Esau with 400 of his friends and buddies and his family – and what is going to happen to me?" But one of the things that Jacob says to Esau is something that inspires me because, again, this is really an example of positive thinking. And, here at Lovin' Life Ministries I often like to talk about how we are eternal sons and daughters of God. We are divine sons and daughters of God. We are that prepared son and daughter inspired and empowered to do incredible things. So much of religion and so much of the religious life has been that of this idea that we are sinners. We are awful creatures. We are from the satanic lineage. We are not worthy to lift our heads before our Lord – in dignity and knowing that we belong to our God, our Heavenly Parent. In a way the life of religion has been really quite miserable. But here at Lovin' Life Ministries we are following our True Parents tradition in emphasizing the fact that we are inspired children of God. We are the divine children of God. We are like the light bulb that is plugged into that heavenly source of light which allows us to glow our magnificent light with the rest of the world.
36. In a way, instead of feeling the weight of sin and being worthless and horrible miserable creatures, we have a chance to find our own dignity and our self-worth and become that great human being. In a way, the message that our True Parents bring is incredibly positive and in a way it gives us an incredible amount of hope because all throughout the years our True Parents are saying – you need to be better than me. You need to be a better parent than me. You need to be a better father and a better mother than me. In a way, you can be great. You can be that Nobel Prize winner. You can be that gold medalist at the Olympics, you can be the best lawyer in the state of New York. You can be whatever you want to be as long as you can decide on what your passion is, commit, dedicate, become that empowered person, be a great person and contribute back to your society. You can be an awesome agent of change.
37. The story of Jacob and Esau is extremely positively reinforcing to me. Because, the words that Jacob utters to Esau is he says, "truly when I look into your face" – it says, "if … I have seen the face of God." Basically what he is saying is, "when I look at you brother I see the face of God." In a way, it's an incredibly affirming, positive, reinforcing message.
38. Here is this older brother who he thinks is going to kill him, but what he says in that crucial moment, when the two brothers are finally locked arm in arm and finally face-to-face he says, to a brother who can so easily kill him on the spot, he says, "brother when I see your face, I see the face of God."
39. In a way Jacob is doing a couple of things here with that line. Jacob is proactively giving a positive message to his brother. He is saying, "Esau, you are like God. You are God's son. You are that divine being. If you are like God and you are God's son, are you going to kill me?" In a way Jacob is proactively reaffirming everything that Esau is, as that beautiful elder brother. In a way, Jacob is reminding Esau at this really dangerous and profound moment when the two brothers unite, "Esau, you are that beautiful face of God. You are God as far as I'm concerned."
40. And Jacob does something else that is incredibly important. When you say to somebody, "When I gaze into your face I see the face of God," it's probably one of the most beautiful compliments that we can give to each other. Is it not? It's incredibly beautiful. And it's interesting to note in what he says, the compliment is not convoluted. It doesn't have an addendum attached to it. It's a very clean complement.
41. And what I mean by a clean complement is, sometimes in the context of a family life, we find ourselves wanting to better each other. And sometimes it might be two siblings, it might be a husband and wife, and we might say to each other, or it might be between parent and child. It might be a parent saying to a child – "you know you are pretty awesome when you're doing that, when you play the piano." That's a wonderful complement. But, what I mean by a clean complement is, many times we as parents when we are talking to our children, do not stop there. "You are really awesome when you play the piano. You are really awesome when you play the piano if only you would practice a little bit more." We as parents, we have done that many times, haven't we? In a way it is not a clean complement. What we are doing is we are adding an addendum to our offering or our complement to somebody.
42. Jacob is not saying when I look into your face I see the face of God – only when you are smiling at me. He doesn't say that. He says, "when I look into your face I see the face of God." Period. It's very clean. It's without any motivation. It's without any screwdriver that you want to turn in just to make a point. It's an offering, a complement, a beautiful offering. And that's what really inspires me about what Jacob said to Esau.
43. And another thing that I realized when I read this part in the Bible – and I kind of say to myself, it's really a loving thing to say. Many times words are incredibly powerful. And I often like to say words are vehicles of emotion in that words can build, and words can destroy. Words can build up our children's self confidence in themselves, their awareness of who they are as that divine son and daughter of God. Our words as parents can truly empower them and uplift them and build them. But our words also have the power to destroy them, to discourage them, to belittle them – out of our own frustration. Perhaps out of our own misunderstanding in how to best deal with the situation at hand, or to best deal with the issue that we are dealing with, thinking that whenever an issue arises we as the parents look at our children, saying, "that issue is you! It's you!" Not realizing that many times it's us. The issues arise because there are two people involved and we need to work things out.
44. When you read this part of the Bible, you realize that Jacob is being very proactive with this positive message, and very loving, and giving a very, very clean complement. And I have often thought, "You know what? That is the key to building a beautiful family. That is really the key to building an ideal family." Because we as human beings and we, in terms of our responsible day to day affairs that we have to deal with – so many things happen, or what I like to say, "Life happens." Things that are unexpected arise. Things we did not anticipate happen. Things that we didn't want, smack us in the face and we are left wondering what the heck happened?
45. But we realize that building an ideal family is really an opportunity for us to practice positive, positive thinking, and not just thinking but positive reinforcement in that the words become that vehicle of emotion – to not destroy, but to build and empower. And through our actions really encourage people to be the best, encourage our children, encourage our spouse, encourage our siblings to be the best that we possibly can.
46. So just as Jacob, kind of stunned Esau with this incredible positive message, which must have hit Esau really hard. You know, he was looking at his brother as somebody he wanted to kill and murder for taking away his birthright. But the younger brother is being proactively positive. He is being clean with his compliments. He's being extremely loving in his words, lifting his older brother, really honoring him as that older brother that he wants to dedicate everything that he owns to.
47. And he puts Esau in a situation where he finds himself being reminded by the positiveness of Jacob that, "yes! I may want to kill my brother! But yes! I am that loving older brother. I am that divine son of God. I am that child of God. In a way, my face is like my father's, because I am the son." In a way it reminds Esau to his true potential as that beautiful elder brother. But it also, in a way, creates a healthy dissidence in his mind with what he wanted to do, with what he is dealing with in terms of being face to face with the younger brother – being hit by this positive love bomb. In a way he wants to kill Jacob, but the positivity, or the power of positive reinforcement is so great it allows him to tap into his own divinity and his own dignity as that good older brother. And so the only thing he can really do is to decide to embrace and not to kill.
48. When we reaffirm and when we reinforce each other positively it's really giving the other person an opportunity to choose what kind of a response or what kind of a person they want to be. When we give an offering of a true compliment without any baggage, in that it is clean, what we really want the other person to do is to be reminded of the true worth and the true dignity of the person that they are – so that they choose to do the right thing. In a way, even though Jacob is the younger brother, he becomes a catalyst to help his older brother Esau do the right thing and embrace his younger brother in this beautiful reunion. And that's the power of positivity and that's the power of words or language.
49. When I think about how do we build a culture of heart? How do we build a loving environment where we don't become a church that condemns, but we become a church that builds up, that empowers. We don't become a church that discriminates who's better, who's purer, who prays harder, who fasts more. But, we become a church to say, "Wow! That brother, that sister is better than me! Wow! That family is truly a family of God!"
50. I was brought to this part of the Bible and the story of Jacob and Esau because, as a senior pastor I received lots of e-mails from many brothers and sisters and one e-mail that I received was from a young man. This young man, growing up as a second-generation, he's had a long journey in terms of finding himself. His difficulty has been his relationship with his mother. He always had this incredible fear growing up of disappointing God, disappointing True Parents, disappointing his parents, and in particular disappointing his mother. But you know, life happens. He didn't take up with the best group of friends and he kind of went the roundabout way. He admitted to me, freely, that he must have caused a great deal of concern and suffering to his mother. But after a couple of years of service, he came back home, and he was so happy to see his mother. And they had a long conversation and he said, "Mom, I'm really, really sorry for all those years that I was so immature. I realize that I now have a passion, I know what I want to do with my life. And, I just really hope that you can trust me, and you can kind of give me this chance to really make it up to you. And I really want to hear you say that I didn't disappoint you." He kind of described what happened. And this was his mother's attempt at really wanting to be real with her son – and she said, "yes all those years have been extremely difficult. You were a rebellious child. You were a difficult child. And yes, you disappointed me." And this young man, who had the fear of disappointing God, True Parents, and his mother his whole life was suddenly hit with his mother, after a long confessional talk, that yes, she was disappointed. In a way it was his mother's attempt at being real, but I think his mother did not realize what an incredible weight she had with those words, in telling her son, "Yes, you know, you disappointed me."
51. In a way, I think many times in the context of a family, we as parents, and we are all guilty here, we as parents, we don't realize how incredibly painful or difficult or burdensome our words can be. In a way a lot of parents that come to me, because they have difficulty with their children – when I hear the story that they share with me about their child in particular, certain things kind of pop up that I noticed. Most of the parents when they are dealing with a difficult child, they will say things like, "He is such a headache. He just can never do anything right. He just really, really pushes us to the limit. He is so rebellious. He is such a bad child."
52. And this is what they say to me, not realizing that this has been the kind of language that has been spoken in that family for over 17, 18 years. In a way we want to raise positive, inspired, empowered children, not realizing many times we create at home, where the language is far from being that inspired and positive reinforcement to our children – we don't realize that many times we are the ones that have created a language, or perhaps created almost the belief system in the kids that, "Yes I am bad. I can never do anything right. I am rebellious." So simply what a child decides to do is take it, or accept the language the parents are using on the child and say, "Okay I will run with it, and do that even more."
53. In a way, even though the mother was disappointed in the child, if she thought about how incredibly powerful her words were, her words are, and words continue to be, she might have chosen her words a little better. Instead of saying, "you've disappointed me." She might have wanted to say, "you know, life is difficult for me and for you. And building an ideal family is a very, very difficult thing to do. But you never disappointed me in that I've always believed in you, I always trusted in your true potential, in your true capability. And what you've gone through is just a process that you needed to grow out of in order to become a much richer and a much deeper person."
54. In a way, this is an example of taking, sometimes what we want to say to each other in the family, but reminding ourselves of Jacob's wisdom in using the power of positivity and the power of affirmation and the power of reinforcing what is good. Because, what we speak builds up the emotions in our children as they adapt to it. They take it to heart, whether we like it or not. And we don't realize that the language we use when we perhaps call them, when we perhaps are frustrated with them, when we perhaps are just exasperated – because actually the lesson taught, makes them difficult children or helps them to continue the difficult process. So, in a way this is a reminder to kind of take part and think about what we are actually saying.
55. I received another e-mail. This was a wife, really at her wits end. She was so consumed with herself righteousness that she felt compelled to basically launder the dirty laundry publicly about her husband. And she basically threw out to the public arena everything that the husband has done wrong. Usually in a situation like that, when you are trashing your spouse publicly, you have to realize that you and me, we as wives, and I wanted to bring this up because I am a woman, and many times we as women, we have an incredible power to build or to destroy with our words. And you know, not all of us have ideal husbands and not all of us have ideal wives. And in the context of a larger community like ours it's never a good thing to be so self-righteous, so selfish about what we want out of life that we are willing to destroy another human being, in a way condemning another human being in the public arena. This is not what an ideal family is all about.
56. We all have our shortcomings. We all have our strengths and weaknesses. But our community is really about celebrating our strengths and working on our weakness. And so instead of trashing the husband publicly, we have to realize we have children. And when we attack or trash our spouse publicly, we are teaching our children that half of them are evil. Half of them are bad. Half of them need to be trashed publicly. In a way, we are teaching our children to condemn half of what comes from the father or from the mother. If we really love our children, and we're really building a better future for our world – regardless of how difficult a husband and wife relationship might be we cannot go around trashing each other, fighting and lashing out at each other around the kitchen sink. We cannot scream at our spouse within the earshot of our children. We cannot publicly condemn and destroy the dignity of our spouse publicly.
57. And the interesting thing about people who tend to do this is that usually the person complaining is the one with the problem. This person in particular, when I found out her story, I realized that she was trashing her husband so badly for being such a bad person – when, at the end of the day, she was the one guilty with all the problems that she was accusing her husband of.
58. I always thought it was quite funny how, you know here at the headquarters my brothers and I in Korea, Japan, and America we are all involved in this faith breaking issue in which 4300 of our Japanese brothers and sisters have been abducted and held hostage against their will in Japan, simply for wanting to be Unificationists. Of course the extreme situation of that is Mr. Goto who was abducted by his own family with the help of de-programmers and was held captive as a hostage for 12 years and five months. It's just unbelievable what is being done in Japan. But what is taking place in Japan is the fact that these de-programmers are kind of victimizing the parents to think that the children are brainwashed zombies, no longer capable of making adult decisions and therefore they have to be brainwashed back by the de-programmers after the parents pay, in the situation of Mr. Goto's family $1.5 million, to re-brainwash his child to leave the Unification Faith, to leave the church.
59. In a way the parents are being victimized by the de-programmers. They are saying awful things about our church. Many times they miss understand what we talk about when we are saying that the Blessing is the portal through which the blood lineage is changed from the Satanic to God's lineage.
60. Many times people have misunderstood that – to think, you know, when I had some Korean PhD friends they said, "We heard that you swap spouses in your church. We heard that you have this thing called the change of blood. You swap spouses in your church? And you drink blood?" I said, "No we do not." And they said, "We heard that your church is a sex cult. Rev. Moon has sex with everybody." And I said, "No, that is not the case."
61. These are the type of information that the deep programmers used on that parents and on the children. And what they are doing is basically, they're saying we are a church that wants to be pure that wants to preserve our sexual purity for the sake of that eternal partner, for the grand Hollywood romance that we are preparing ourselves for. But, de-programmers turn that story around and say that this is a corrupt sexual cult.
62. But the funny thing is – when my friends, who are creating a documentary about the faith breaking issue, we went to Japan and we did research on these Christian ministers who work in the programming of our brothers and sisters away from our faith – we realize that here are the ministers who are accusing our True Parents of being a sex cult leader and taking away our members, while at the same time, they are brainwashing our sisters to leave the church and become their girlfriends. You realize that the person who is throwing the garbage is the one that is guilty of the garbage.
63. You realize that the people who tend to accuse and persecute and tear down people publicly – why would any good person do that? Why would anyone decent try to do that? Life is tough enough as is. The only thing that we really should think about is how do we support and how do we nurture, how do we empower each other? But usually the people that want to create garbage to throw at another person publicly, is usually the one guilty of the crime. And you see that time and time again.
64. If we are going to have a beautiful community where the culture is a culture of heart, not a culture of judgment, condemnation, disappointment, and discouragement – then we really need to take stock of how we are doing as parents, as children, as brothers and sisters, as citizens of this community, of the faithful, and think about how we are going to be better positioned and better prepared for the future.
65. And then there is another case of a family that really is a wonderful family, I feel. But this family is so wonderful and they are so infused with the spirit, but many times we don't realize that we think so highly of ourselves that we don't realize that we are discriminating our own happiness our own success vis-à-vis the others in the movement. We don't realize that we are saying, "Oh, my family is so awesome – much better than yours. My family doesn't have your problems."
66. In the context of 30 years of marriage some of us have remained intact as a Blessed couple. Some of us are single parents now. Some of us have failed in our initial blessing and have gone on to be re-blessed. In a way the picture is a very different picture than when we first walked down the aisle. In a way, life happened, and we had to grow, and we had to deal with all the issues that hit us along the way – in terms of our own life of faith, in terms of our own effort at trying to build families – in a way, our family is no longer all the same. It is not homogeneous. Every family is different. Every family has their unique problems that they need to overcome. Every family has their own unique issues that they need to work out.
67. So going forward on this day, when realize our purpose in life is to create the culture of heart, we have to ask ourselves, "are we really going to be a community that spends time distinguishing who is better than the other? Whether the intact couples are better than this single parents, or the intact couple who fight like cats and dogs and scream at each other is really better than the single parent who is trying her best, or his best, to raise decent kids? Or whether that single parent is better than somebody who's Blessing didn't work out and had to try again?"
68. We have to sit back and realize that everybody, every human being is that unique and eternal and beautiful child of God. And just like every seed you plant has its own cycle as to what we need to do in order to produce the best crop or harvests, likewise – each person is like that precious seed. And God is waiting to reap the harvest of our true potential. But just because our cycle is slightly different than the other, we should not be the kind of community where we are discouraging each other by saying, "oh, my family is going faster than yours. My family is much better than yours, much purer than yours, more intact than yours."
69. In a way every family is precious. And despite the differences what unites us all is that common vision, or that common dream that we all had when we first walked down the aisle. Regardless of what our situations may be or what our particular issues may be, we are still committed, we are still trying to best – and that's what we need to affirm. That's what we need to reinforce. It's the positive that we need to reaffirm. Because, the positive re-acclamation and reinforcement will create a new language of positivity that will continue to nurture our children, that will continue to comfort our children, that will continue to empower them to be the best that they can possibly be.
70. And I don't know about you but my dream is to really raise that generation of peace. At lots of young people are trying to find out what they want to be. Are they going to be generation X? Are they going to be Y? Are they going to be Z? Are they going to be the millennials, show me the money? What I would like to see is to see this generation of peace, young, inspired, powered, young people wanting to connect with their humanity, wanting to connect with where they are coming from, their Heavenly Parent. They want to contribute to the good of society by developing their passions so that they can give back their own touch, unique touch, back to the world. And really become the kind of people that inherits the true love of God in wanting to build ideal families.
71. The generation of peace are going to be that bunch of young people that understand they come from a common parent, that they are eternal sons and daughters of God, that here we want to live a life of altruism, living for the sake of others. Here we want to live a life practicing compassion, not condemnation, not discouragement, not discrimination – but a life of compassion, in really working on ourselves so that we not only become internally excellent but we become the embodiment of everything that is good, internally excellent in our life of faith but also externally excellent in whatever we decide to do.
72. It doesn't matter what the world might think of what a Unificationist is as long as they say, "they might be a Unificationist, but oh my God, that's the best violinist I've ever heard! Oh my God, I hear he is a Unificationist, but he is the best darn Poli-sci teacher I have ever met. You know, that child might be a Unificationist, and I've heard a lot of stories about the Unification Church, but all my God! She won the gold medal for our country, the United States of America. And here, the guy running to be the next president is a Unificationist. What an incredible man! What an incredible family! What an incredible vision!"
73. If we are excellent internally we need to be excellent externally as well, because what we are needs to come out and be expressed like the light within needs to be shared with the rest of the world. And that's what being an agent of change is all about. You guys have run your course of really being there for our True Parents, protecting our True Parents. And this second generation and the generations coming there after must receive the baton of the good work and the foundation building that our first generation has done and be grateful for the basement foundation that was laid.
74. But now it is time to build the house, a beautiful house. And you know our end goal is not just to build the house, but our end goal is to learn how to live properly in that house. We need to know and learn and substantiate everything that God wanted. God didn't just want us to build a basement. God didn't just want us to build buildings forever. He wants us to build a beautiful house, be the master of that house, own it, make it yours, and live with a grateful heart, live with a sense of purpose, live with a goal in mind, and live in knowing that we belong to an awesome, awesome movement and community!
75. So brothers and sisters, I always say that we have been touched by the moon. And you know, Rev. Moon our True Father and Mrs. Moon our True Mother are a beautiful example of that incredible couple that are their best partners, best friends, their best supporters, their best positive reinforcers.
76. So as we go forward and look forward to the next anniversary, let us really think about, not just talking about a culture of heart, but actually building that culture of heart starting with our language, reminding ourselves the power of positive reinforcement and affirmation – as we saw in the magic that took place when Jacob and Esau were finally reunited. It's that power of love. It's that power of proactively wanting positive energy to be shared. It's that positive desire to give someone a clean offering, a clean complement that can really uplift and build and encourage all of us. Because, brothers and sisters, life is tough enough as it is, isn't it? We don't need to make it any tougher on each other.
77. So be proud Unificationists. Be proud thirty-year anniversary brothers and sisters. You are beautiful! You are young at heart! You've done an incredible thing of walking the walk with our True Parents! And now let's do our best to walk the walk with our children so that our children can be that generation of peace, can really claim the next millennium as their own by bringing in the world of peace.
78. God bless! Thank you
Notes:
Genesis, chapter 33
1: And Jacob lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, Esau was coming, and four hundred men with him. So he divided the children among Leah and Rachel and the two maids.
2: And he put the maids with their children in front, then Leah with her children, and Rachel and Joseph last of all.
3: He himself went on before them, bowing himself to the ground seven times, until he came near to his brother.
4: But Esau ran to meet him, and embraced him, and fell on his neck and kissed him, and they wept.
5: And when Esau raised his eyes and saw the women and children, he said, "Who are these with you?" Jacob said, "The children whom God has graciously given your servant."
6: Then the maids drew near, they and their children, and bowed down;
7: Leah likewise and her children drew near and bowed down; and last Joseph and Rachel drew near, and they bowed down.
8: Esau said, "What do you mean by all this company which I met?" Jacob answered, "To find favor in the sight of my lord."
9: But Esau said, "I have enough, my brother; keep what you have for yourself."
10: Jacob said, "No, I pray you, if I have found favor in your sight, then accept my present from my hand; for truly to see your face is like seeing the face of God, with such favor have you received me.
11: Accept, I pray you, my gift that is brought to you, because God has dealt graciously with me, and because I have enough." Thus he urged him, and he took it.
12: Then Esau said, "Let us journey on our way, and I will go before you."
13: But Jacob said to him, "My lord knows that the children are frail, and that the flocks and herds giving suck are a care to me; and if they are overdriven for one day, all the flocks will die.
14: Let my lord pass on before his servant, and I will lead on slowly, according to the pace of the cattle which are before me and according to the pace of the children, until I come to my lord in Se'ir."
15: So Esau said, "Let me leave with you some of the men who are with me." But he said, "What need is there? Let me find favor in the sight of my lord."
16: So Esau returned that day on his way to Se'ir.
17: But Jacob journeyed to Succoth, and built himself a house, and made booths for his cattle; therefore the name of the place is called Succoth.
18: And Jacob came safely to the city of Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan, on his way from Paddan-aram; and he camped before the city.
19: And from the sons of Hamor, Shechem's father, he bought for a hundred pieces of money the piece of land on which he had pitched his tent.
20: There he erected an altar and called it El-El'ohe-Israel.