In Jin Moon
September 11, 2011
How is everyone? I am delighted to see you this Sunday morning. As Dave Hunter mentioned earlier, today is the tenth anniversary of 9/11, and it's a really poignant moment for all of us who experienced and lived through the horrors that unfolded ten years ago. I myself was also in New York City for one of my appointments. I remember somebody calling my name, saying, "Tatiana, look outside the window. What's going on? There's so much smoke."
In a matter of hours we saw a second plane hit the other Twin Tower and watched in horror as this monument that represented the might and strength of New York City and our technological ability to build something so awe-inspiring and tall just disappear in a matter of hours. All New Yorkers, and not just New Yorkers, but all Americans and all the people around the world were shocked and horrified.
New York City has not been the same since, and I think Americans too have not been the same since as we have had to recognize that something like this could take place in one of the greatest superpowers of the world, when we thought all the wars took place elsewhere, but certainly not on our shores. The destruction and the horrifying nature of hatred that we saw encapsulated in what took place on that day changed all of us forever.
Now we are reminded that already ten years have passed since we tasted what a war of religion is really all about. That's how I understand terrorism: It really is a war of religions, and in the face of this war I realize once again how critically important it is that our Heavenly Parent gave us our True Parents at this particular time. Right now, when we have the means to destroy our world a hundred times over, our Heavenly Parent has sent us our True Parents to guide us out of our destructive nature and help us see ourselves as their eternal sons and daughters and to realize the divinity within. True Parents are here to help us realize that we were all born with a certain purpose and that our life is a gift and an opportunity to leave something beautiful behind in the form of a beautiful family with beautiful children we can call our own.
With our True Parents, we come to realize that for the first time in history not only can we understand and experience true love and true life, but also we have the ability and the opportunity to graft onto the heavenly lineage. With True Parents, we have the ability and opportunity to change our lineage from the satanic lineage that resulted from the Fall by engrafting ourselves into the heavenly lineage of God, building ourselves into the one family of God, and cleansing our consciousness to realize that we belong to the same family because we come from the same common parent.
Therefore, all the different barriers and difficulties that arise from racial, cultural, religious, and economic differences need to fall by the wayside to help us realize that we need each other to survive. We need each other to become that greater humanity.
I think that for a lot of people America has always symbolized independence, freedom, and the ability to be courageous in the face of fear, all different types of fear. But when something like 9/11 takes place, we realize that we are all affected – whether we have lost a loved one, a relative, or a friend in the Twin Towers or not. We as Americans, as members of humanity, are all affected.
"Love Is the Most Powerful Force in the Universe"
When something like this takes place, we come to understand the importance of our connectedness. We realize that if we do not work, live, and love together, we are headed toward a certain destruction of our world. So instead of independence, in which we are all thinking about how we can become independent individuals, doing whatever we want, at this time when a new consciousness needs to flood the world, we have to concentrate on interdependence. We need to concentrate on the importance of being connected. We need to work, live, and love together in order to build the unified family of God that resides together in a world of peace, harmony, and love.
When 9/11 happened, here I was in New York City, and my children were going to school in Boston. They were calling, "Mommy, is everything okay? Are you okay? Is New York City okay?" I remember my children being so terrified that they were going to lose their mommy that day. We didn't know if there were going to be any more airplanes crashing into different buildings. We didn't know if it ended that day or if it was going to be the beginning of something continuously horrific for a long time.
I remember listening to the fear in my children's voices. They didn't know what was going on, but the thought of losing their mother was extremely painful for them. As a mother, I also thought, "What if this is my last day on earth? How do I want to live it? How do I want to end my days?"
On 9/11 we were faced with death up close and personal. We saw all those people jumping out of the World Trade Center. They didn't know what else to do: "Do I turn into pot roast waiting for the fires to consume me, or do I jump out of a window?" And we realized, watching these people jump out of the buildings, that this was not a Hollywood movie. This was not a dream. This was real, and these people jumping off were going to die. And those people trapped in those buildings were going to die. And the scores of fire engines and firemen that did not go the other way but went toward the burning buildings, you realized very quickly that many of them were going to lose their lives.
When we're confronted with death, so up close and personal, we start thinking about what is the most important thing in life. Our True Parents have taught us through many decades the important thing called love. My father breathes, eats, sleeps, preaches, and dreams about love every day. When we are confronted with death, everything turns into slow motion, and we ask ourselves, "Why am I here? What do I want to do with the remainder of my life? How do I want to be remembered?"
I remember thinking about something my father said many years ago, in 1972 – on September 11, of all dates. He said, "The position of love is established when you live your life sacrificing yourself for the sake of others. Once you start deciding to live and die and sacrifice yourself for the sake of others, the position of love is established."
I was thinking about this while watching all those people jump out of the building, not knowing what I could do to help them. How could I calm the different people in the office; how could I calm my colleagues? I looked around and saw people not knowing what to do, frantically taking out their cell phones, to talk to their loved ones: grown men, huge grown, burly men just falling to the floor, turning into Niagara Falls, just not knowing what to do. Fear was everywhere.
But I kept on coming back to what my father said, that the position of love is established when you start thinking about sacrificing yourself for the sake of others. I thought, "How odd," because those men who navigated the planes to fly into the World Trade Center thought that they were loving their God. They thought they were loving the world by sacrificing themselves to send a blatant and powerful message to the arrogant superpower of the Western hemisphere. They thought they were doing a God-given act, a God-sanctified and God-anointed act. They were taking the lives of the 2,977 people who were lost on that day, in the name of God.
In the beginning we didn't know what was happening. We didn't know al-Qaeda was involved. In the course of the days and weeks that followed we came to realize what had taken place, but at that instant the people who crashed the planes into the buildings thought that they were doing this in service of God – that by their death they were sacrificing themselves for the sake of God while taking life away from thousands of people.
Our True Parents have taught us over and over again that love is the most powerful force in the universe. That is why we have to be an eternal son or daughter of God in learning how to channel this great power of God through our lives in a constructive, beautiful, and holistic way.
But what we saw on that day was something totally the opposite, something that took place in the name of God but didn't at all channel the divine power of love in a holistic, inspiring, and constructive way. We saw and felt the destructive, horrific, and mind-boggling act of hatred smacking every one of us that day.
In that moment while I was thinking about what my father had said and watching all those people jumping out of the windows, everyone was telling people in the office, "Get out. We need to get out of New York City. We need to leave." But for some reason I did not want to leave. I remember just sitting there, watching and thinking about all the things my father had taught me throughout my life – the importance of love, of living for the sake of others and sacrificing yourself for others. I thought about these precious lessons as I was watching something that was the total antithesis of every one of them.
I remember thinking to myself at that moment, "If this is my last day, I want to die in love. I want to die wishing love upon people who have brought this horrific and stupefyingly ugly event to New York City. I want to somehow find within myself the power to respond in love. And even if I don't make it, I want to know that I'm going to die being grateful for having had the opportunity to have lived. And hopefully by leaving certain messages for my children on the phone, they will know that they are loved, that their lives have profound meaning, and that they are not to be discouraged by seeing this act of hatred." In fact, I was hoping that my children, by experiencing and witnessing what was taking place that day, could be even more inspired to return love for hatred, to live a life of love and bring about the kind of a world that we as human beings all dream about.
In that moment when I felt very much at peace with God, with the message of my father running through my mind and heart, and with the image of my mom – her beautiful smile that has the ability to cleanse your soul, to cleanse all your troubles away – I felt marvelously blessed that I of all people had had a chance to get to know True Parents. I had a powerfully fervent belief that regardless of what happened on that day, the world would be in good hands because True Parents are here, coming as the anointed ones with heavenly fortune.
Parental Love Is God's Love
When I woke up this morning I was reminded once again by a little note that I wrote to myself back then after coming back to Boston and seeing my kids. That little note said to God, "Thank you first and foremost for allowing me to experience the parental heart of God." I wrote this because by being a parent and having children of my own, I realized for the first time in my life when I held my eldest son in my arms that this is how God, our Heavenly Parent, must love me. This unconditional, eternal, unchanging, absolute, and unique love is what God must have felt when he saw me as his child, as her child.
That was the first time I experienced what parental love is all about. When I became a parent, that's when I came to know, "This is how much God loves me. This is how much my parents love me." I understood how much I loved this child, that I would do anything for this child. I remember asking myself, "If I were to explain to my eldest son what parental love is, what love understood in terms of parental love is, how would I explain it?"
I wrote down three little points. I thought if I lived long enough for Preston to have a conversation with me, this is what I would say to him: Parental love is sacrificial love. When we have our child for the first time we realize that we want to give this child everything that we are. We want to give, not because we're going to be rewarded at the end of our lives, with God, our Heavenly Parent giving us a little blue ribbon saying, "You were a fantastic parent. You get an award for being a good parent." That is not the feeling that ran through my mind and body. The only thought I had in my mind was, "I want to give this child everything. I want to give this child everything without thinking of what I'm going to get in return."
Hinduism teaches this principle very clearly. It states that giving without any thought of receiving, or without any thought of gain, is an example of enlightened giving, an example of being an enlightened person. When we are enlightened, living in the light, or when we are inspired, infused with the power of true love, we're not thinking about how to receive; all we're thinking about is our wanting to give.
When we're inspired about something, we want to share it, to give it away – like, for instance, my daughter. Everybody knows she's a fantastic ballroom dancer? When she came back from Harvard having discovered for the first time the thrill of ballroom dancing, she was a woman inspired. The first thing she wanted to do was share. She wanted to give the gift of ballroom dancing to me. She wanted to give everything that she learned.
That's exactly the spirit a parent has when we look at a child. We want to give everything without thinking. Ariana wasn't thinking, "If I teach my mama how to ballroom, how to cha-cha, how to waltz, and how to do the swing, is she going to think I'm a fantastic person? Is my mother going to think I'm a fantastic daughter?" These are not the kind of thoughts that run through our mind when we are inspired, when we are excited about something.
When we are truly inspired by the power of true love, we're not thinking about what we're going to get; we're thinking about what we want to give. That is the magic of parental love. This is unconditional sacrificial love, when we're living for the sake of others but we're not thinking at all that we want to sacrifice and suffer on this road because we're going to get a carrot or a nice piece of cake at the end of our journey.
We want to share. We want to suffer through – maybe together with our family – just because we love them, just because we want to share that inspiration with everybody we love. Nobody is waiting to give us an award. We simply want to be an enlightened and inspired person, living in the light, illuminating the world around us with our love and divinity, hoping that through our giving and sharing we can raise these people, these loved ones, to be better than ourselves. This is what it means to have and practice and live the sacrificial love of a parent.
The Heart of Heung Jin Nim
When I think about this, I think about my younger brother Heung Jin. He is somebody whom I was extraordinarily close to. We did everything together. We talked about all the different things we were going to do, all the different places we were going to explore. We had a plan of how we wanted to live our lives. He and I used to take long drives into the night, and one of our favorite things to do was to leave Saturday, drive up to Canada, and then get back in time for morning pledge on Sunday at 5:00 o'clock.
We would take these long drives because we wanted to talk to each other. We wanted to share what we thought our families would be like and what we thought we would do in the future. One of the things I always felt about him was that somehow he was different. He was always different in that he had such an amazing, giving heart.
Perhaps this was because he grew up under my older brother, Hyo Jin Oppa, who was very strong, very domineering, very demanding, and very physical. So a lot of the younger ones really suffered a lot under my brother, whom we all love. But you know, "Older brothers can be older brothers." There's a reason why the Chinese character for an older brother is composed of a big mouth and two legs. Certainly my older brother was that in the family. He beat my younger brother up quite badly many times.
The one thing that I noticed about Heung Jin is that every time he got beaten up, he never shouted back at his older brother with words like, "I despise you. You walking mouthpiece. I do not like you; get out of my face." He never, ever did that. Never in my 17 years of life together with him before he passed away did I hear him say a negative word about his older brother.
Many times when we were younger, he wouldn't say anything, but he would keep on going back to the older brother, even when he got scolded or beaten. He would always go back to the older brother, maybe taking something to him from the kitchen, something to drink. Heung Jin never complained, criticized, or admonished. He never left the younger brother's position to admonish the older brother. He never did anything like that.
One of the things that I found wonderfully peculiar about Heung Jin occurred when he started going through his adolescence and he actually became taller than my older brother, who had been a walking mouthpiece for many years because he was physically powerful and verbally powerful in terms of noise. But now my second brother was taller than my older brother. Heung Jin was big. Then my older brother started becoming a little gentler and kinder to him. But even when my older brother exploded in those last years, Heung Jin never, ever yelled back.
The peculiar thing that he would do is when my older brother punched him, he would say, "Thank you." When my older brother kicked him, he would say, "Thank you." I remember once something was thrown at him, and it gave him a bloody nose. I quickly got some Kleenex, wiped off his nose, and said, "You need to get out of here, okay, and clean up your face." He said, "No, this is good. Pain lets me know that I'm living." He said, "I am really grateful because having an older brother who gives you a hard time teaches you humility, teaches you humbleness. And I of all people am grateful for having a teacher who teaches me humility and humbleness, so I am forever grateful to my brother."
I remember when he said this to me, I said, "Are you insane? Are you trying to talk to me like Jesus?" This was interesting. But he said, "No, no, I'm really grateful because this is a reminder for me that I need to serve my older brother, and I need to somehow overcome the difficulty and pain that I receive. But if I can return the pain with love, I will become a better person. He is teaching me to become a better person."
I remember walking away from that conversation, thinking, "This kid is really different." He really made me think about a lot of different things. When that appointed hour came and he was taken away from this world, even in the last minute of his life, the two comrades who were in the car with him can testify that the only thing he was thinking about was how to protect those two friends in the car. He was not thinking about himself. Even though most people driving in a car accident like that would take the car and try to veer themselves away from being hit, he did the opposite. He ran his side of the car into the truck that was coming toward him so that his two friends could be saved.
When I think about my younger brother, I think about how he always just had this heart of, "You know what? I love this person. I love my older brother. I'm going to give everything that I am to my older brother, to my family, to my life, to my comrades." Even though he was a very young child, only 17, he was different in that he understood the profundity and gravity of what a parental heart is all about in its desire to give without hoping for anything in return.
He wasn't hoping for people to say, "Oh, you're such a good younger brother." That is not the reason why he said, "Thank you." He was saying thank you sincerely out of his desire to love and to give love to his older brother. Even to his last breath, giving of himself completely so that he could save two of his friends in the car is really a testament of what a beautiful heart Heung Jin had and how he really, truly understood what living a life of sacrificial love was all about.
The Wisdom of King Solomon
One of the other things I realized when I became a parent is that when we look at this child of God, not only do we want to give without receiving anything in return, we simply want to give because we are inspired, we have been moved to give, just because. But I also realized that when we gaze into the eyes of the person whom we want to make happy – even at the cost of our own happiness or our own life, we are willing to die for the sake of that person, to make the other person happy, prosperous, and successful.
One of the most profound stories in the Bible that I like to read from time to time comes from I Kings 3:16-28, which is in a section that tells us about King Solomon's wisdom. I find this story incredibly inspiring. As a child I used to have my nanny read that section to me over and over again because I used to think, "Wow, King Solomon is so wise. How did he know what to do at this appointed time, at that appointed time? But of course when I had children of my own, that story became even more profound and poignant to me. Again I realized what sacrificial love is all about.
This story from I Kings talks about how King Solomon was approached by two prostitutes. These two women had both given birth just recently, and the child of one of them had died. Both of these women came to King Solomon saying, "This is my child. The other one has stolen my child." Here were two women, each of them claiming they were the mother of the one surviving child. Each of them was claiming that the other one is lying, that the other one had taken the living child from the mother and was claiming it for her own.
When King Solomon was confronted with this dilemma, he asked one of his soldiers to bring him a sword. He told the soldier, "Now cut the child in half and give each of the two warring woman a half." Then one of the women said to King Solomon, "Please, please, do not kill the child. Do not split him in half. Just give the child to the other woman." But the second woman said, "Divide him in half and give my half to me."
It was at this time that King Solomon knew who the real mother was and who was not. How did King Solomon know who the real mother was? King Solomon knew who the real mother was because one of the women was expressing sacrificial love. When you are the real mother, you don't care how your child will survive as long as it survives. When you are not the real mother, and you have just lost your child, and you have the gall to steal another person's child, to claim it for yourself, you feel what is called "misery loves company." "My child died, so I want your child to die."
This very simple story clearly portrays what true love and sacrificial parental love are all about. The story also portrays what self-absorbed love is, a love that's wrapped up in only wanting to satisfy its own need.
On the one hand, the woman who was not the real mother stole the child. Her child is dead so she steals a live child from another mother. Then she lies, telling everybody that she is the mother, that the other woman is the liar. Then the false mother not only steals and lies, but she wants to kill because her child has died.
When we look at the real mother, we see the love of a sacrificial parent who realizes she may never see her child again. Maybe the king would give the child to the other woman, thinking she was the mother. The woman knows that maybe she would have to give up her right as the true mother of this child. But the most important thing to her at that moment is her desire to see her child alive. So she is willing to sacrifice her own happiness, her desire to hold that child for herself, and she allows herself to have the courage to let the child go so the child can live.
This is the sacrificial heart of a parent. When we look at our children, we are willing to do whatever we need to do, even if we have to forgo our own happiness and desires, because we want them to live. We want them to be alive. We want them to be inspired, to be beautiful people, to thrive, prosper, and reap the harvest of heavenly fortune and destiny that they are here to accomplish and substantiate in their lifetimes. A true mother's heart wants the child to live to be happy, prosperous, and glorious.
When we look at I Kings 3:16-28, we see how amazingly powerful parental love is. Parental love is the kind of love where you are willing basically to kill oneself, to die for the sake of others, so that your child can hopefully be alive and live to become happy and prosperous.
I remember when I first became a mother and read I Kings again, that section just totally got me. I realized this is what God, our Heavenly Parent, must have been feeling for the last 6,000 biblical years when he gazed at his children as a parent. God must have been wishing and hoping and believing that his children will find their way back home so that God could fully live and reside with his children as one family under God, as a parent in each child's life. Through these reflections I realized once again how much God loves all of us.
The Theme of Sacrificial Love in Cinema
Alien movie
When we think about what might be another aspect of parental love or sacrificial love, we may be reminded of the great sci-fi movie thriller Aliens. I remember that it was all the rage when it first came out. My older brother, Hyo Jin Oppa, loved sci-fi thriller action-packed movies. He decided to take quite a few of us to the theater. The thing about my older brother is that he's Korean, born and raised in Korea, but he spoke like an Italian Mafia boss. That's the way he spoke. When he wanted to take us to a movie, he would say, "Hey, get the car ready. Get your ass over here. We're going to a movie." That is the way he talked. He was very Italian in that sense.
In the family we used to call him the Boss. He used to walk like the boss. He walked like the Godfather. He was very big, an ninth degree black belt, and he knew all the different martial arts. This is a person you don't mess with; he let you know very clearly. So he was going to take us to see Aliens.
We went to the movie theater, and because he's The Boss he was going to buy the tickets. He approached the counter and said to the ticket agent, "Hey." The lady looked up. And he said, "Four Aliens." And the lady just looked at him because basically what he was saying was, "I want four tickets to your movie Aliens," but he didn't realize that the meaning of his words could be misunderstood because we were all Asian. We all looked like illegal aliens, so he seemed basically to be standing at the ticket counter saying, "Four aliens." The lady was looking at us like, "No, duh, yes, I know you're aliens." But because my brother was so big and so in your face and abrupt, he just stood there. I remember going around him and saying, "Can we have four tickets to the movie Aliens?"
When we finally got into the theater, he's like, "In Jin, popcorn." So I went to get some popcorn and there was another blessed child there and Hyo Jin Oppa was like, "Hey, don't forget the nachos." So here we are: I'm getting popcorn, the other blessed child is getting nachos, and then Hyo Jin Oppa sent somebody else for some napkins. So we all sat down in the theater, everything got dark, and we were waiting for this great movie, because we had heard so much about it. Then we were watching the movie. It was fantastic. I'd never seen anything like it, and we were basically on the edge of our seats.
All of us are sitting next to each other. When my brother went to a movie, he liked to occupy a chunk of the seats, so we were all huddled together, watching the movie. As we walked out we were talking about how the movie was fantastic. But what really got us was the willingness of the heroine to fight the monster to save the others. She was not going to run away. She was not going to say, "The monster is really menacing, really scary. You stay behind while I go."
The thing about sacrificial love and a parental heart is that when we are faced with the monsters of life, when we are faced with aliens charging us, a parent instinctively and without urging from anybody instinctively takes responsibility and protects her or his loved ones. It's instinctual. It's not taught or advised upon. It's something that we do because we love someone.
Of course there was Alien 1, Alien 2, and all the different sequels, but the overriding theme is the willingness of this one woman to fight the monster, the evil, the menacing whatever that stands in the path of survival. She shows us the willingness to stand there and fight a valiant fight – not because she has to, not because somebody has her in a ball and chain, demanding that she fight. She's doing it voluntarily. She's doing it because she loves the people that she cares about. She loves her colleagues, her fellow platoon members, her friends, and her family.
We realize that in the realm of sacrificial love there is an instinctive desire to take responsibility and to protect loved ones. There is no shifting of blame, saying, "It is your fault that the alien has come in my path." There is none of that. Instead it's, "The alien is here. What am I going to do? I'm going to take responsibility. I'm going to take control of the situation and save my loved ones, even if I have to sacrifice myself."
The great thing about movies is they show us visually how powerful sacrificial love can be. I saw it in Aliens, and I've seen it many times over in blockbuster movies through the years. I think one of the most moving scenes in Armageddon is the final scene. Bruce Willis is not the greatest actor, but it's a very moving scene when he was finally holding onto the switch that could explode the asteroid that is coming toward earth for an impact that would extinguish all life on earth. He decided to take responsibility – not because somebody told him to, but because he wanted a better life for his daughter. He wanted the one he loved to have a better life, to have a chance to live. He took it upon himself; he blew himself up together with the asteroid and thus saved the world.
When you see that, you realize, "My goodness, unlike the suicide bombers who took 2,977 lives when they navigated the airplanes to crash into the World Trade Center, Bruce Willis is basically saying, 'I am not going to take another life that God put on this earth. If it takes me to be the sacrificial point person at the designated time to save the world, then I'm going to do it out of love. I'm going to do it with a spirit of volunteerism, and I'm going to do it because I wish upon those that I love great happiness and great prosperity.'" Seeing a scene like this, we realize the disparity of these two things, even though the action of blowing yourself up is one and the same – the action is the same, but the heart is totally different.
True Parents: The Personification of Sacrificial Love
Sun Myung Moon and Hak Ja Han, June 10, 2011
When we ponder this astonishing thing called parental love, we realize that the people who represent, encapsulate, embody, and personify parental and sacrificial love are our True Parents. They are the parents who give ceaselessly, endlessly, and unselfishly, without waiting for anything in return. They are the enlightened beings, the enlightened ones practicing enlightened giving. They are giving for the sole purpose of giving, just because – not because they want to receive something at the end of the day.
Our True Parents have lived the life of sacrificial giving, giving of themselves continually, over and over again. Our True Parents are the personification of sacrificial love in the way that they have suffered so much for the sake of others. They have gone through seven deaths and resurrections for all of us.
Our True Father has gone to prison six times for all of us and for the sake of the mission so that he can continue to be around to share the breaking news with the rest of the world that now is the time to graft onto the heavenly lineage, become one family under God, and safeguard our world from hatred, bigotry, and self-destruction. This is what our True Father and True Mother have come to do. So we have with us a beautiful man and a beautiful woman – hallelujah, thank God for our True Mother. We have our True Mother with our True Father every step of the way, not just giving but always wishing upon us great happiness.
One of the things I asked my mother years ago was, "What prevented you from ever saying, 'This is enough, I've had enough,' and then high-tailing it out of there? What made you stay? What made you persevere? What made you go through endless obstacles, endless difficulties, and unspoken suffering to be able to stand in the position of the perfected Eve so that together with True Father you could be the living paradigm of true love for all of us?" I asked her, "What is the reason that you stayed?"
She looked at me and said, "You know, I told myself a long time ago that there's so much suffering, hatred, mistrust, and ugliness in the world that if I can be the person to overcome whatever I need to overcome to indemnify the position of woman so that a woman can reclaim her divine dignity and worth, then I will do it. I will go through it so that my daughters and granddaughters, my children and my future posterity will know that the buck stops here." She determined through her life of faith to achieve the end of human suffering, the end of the abuse and neglect of women. She determined, "The buck stops with me."
When my mother said this to me, I realized once again, "Thank God the buck stopped with her." Because she went through all that untold suffering and difficulty, and overcame the obstacles to continue to stand as the True Mother of humankind, those coming after her can be liberated. The daughters, the wives, and the sisters can be liberated to reclaim our heavenly dignity and worth, and stand and walk together with our brothers and fathers, holding our heads high and knowing that we are eternal daughters of God. So thank God for our True Mother and for our True Parents.
Our True Parents have not only lived their lives dying for the sake of all of us, in order hopefully to build or to give us the opportunity to pursue a better, more fulfilled life and prosperity. They have always taken responsibility as parents of humankind. They have taken on the responsibility of indemnifying and restoring the human Fall. And as they have had to walk that thorny and burning road to accomplish restoration of human and providential history, they have shed untold blood, sweat, and tears along the way.
But as parents, our True Parents never said, "You do it." Even to this day when we spend time with our True Parents, Father says he has to do everything. It's that desire to take responsibility to protect the loved ones so that the loved ones can go on to become great sons and daughters of God. It's the desire to sacrifice what needs to be sacrificed so that others can be better and others can do well.
When we see in our True Parents this living example of sacrificial and parental love, we have to realize how richly blessed we are to have them as our True Parents.
"True Parents Are Our Center"
At this time there's a lot of talk about maybe our True Father is getting too old, maybe he's senile, maybe he's being manipulated by the evil woman. As a family we have had to go through the pain and suffering of one of our brothers who is giving a lot of heartache to the movement. The whole problem with UCI has been a grave heartache for our True Parents and for our Heavenly Parent in that UCI is an organization that was created to support the mission of our movement financially. UCI is supposed to be the organizational entity managing the assets that were nurtured over the years to do providential work.
But UCI has been taken away, stolen, and abused in a sense because it can no longer function in its original purpose of supporting the mission. UCI stood for Unification Church International. It was supposed to be an organization that supports financially all the mission work internationally around the world. But do you realize that the word international has essentially been replaced with individual? It's no longer Unification Church International. It's now essentially Unification Church Individual, and the individual in question has taken this organization away from God, True Parents, and our movement.
We as Unification Church members – Unification Church – have to clearly see that True Parents are our center, and we should not be confused with the letter I. Heavenly Father wants the letter I to represent our international community. But UCI is acting on an individual-motivated, selfish basis, and that's why it is wrong. There is a clear right and a clear wrong, and we as our movement's children have to honor our parents, who have always lived a life of sacrificial, parental love, always encouraging all of us to be the child of God, to be the best that we can be, to fulfill our destiny.
Our True Parents still hold the reins of this movement. They are still the core; they have always been the core. They have always been the center, and they will continue to be the center. In light of what took place on 9/11 and understanding that acts of terrorism are the expression of a war of religion, of religious ideas with one person saying one thing and another saying another, we can realize that at times like this when the siblings are fighting we definitely need the parents. Without our True Parents, there is really no hope of creating one family under God. But as long as we keep our focus on our True Parents, and we are clearly Unification Church – we see clearly who the control tower is in our movement, then we will start to land gloriously on all the landing pads that have been prepared internationally around the world.
We need to understand that our True Parents are not just your average mom and dad. Thank God they are human, but they have been especially anointed and prepared. They have been blessed to lead humanity at this time away from self-destruction to a new, bright millennium of peace, love, and harmony.
So brothers and sisters, let's learn from II Corinthians 13:11, which asks all of us to aim for perfection – to have a clear goal and purpose in mind – to "listen to my appeal," and to live by peace. In so doing, the scripture says, we will experience the Lord of love and peace.
So when the Bible asks us to aim for perfection, perfection doesn't mean everything is hunky-dory and, there are no problems. What it's asking us is for the perfection of heart. We are to aim for the perfection of heart that is unified, united with our Heavenly Parent and our True Parents. And in so doing, we are to listen to what God and our True Parents are telling us.
We are to work together with our True Parents, and learn from them how to love sacrificially and experience parental heart, thereby developing an understanding that this is not something we should do just with our own siblings, our immediate family. We need to learn from our True Parents the heart that can rise above our own families and above all differences and see our brothers and sisters in Nigeria, Afghanistan, and Tokyo, Japan as our own. Only in so doing, through the magic of the Blessing ceremony that helps all of humanity graft onto this heavenly lineage that we can call God's family, do we really become one family, knowing each other across races, cultures, and religions as our common family members.
Brothers and sisters, our True Parents have come at this incredible time with a great gift for all of us. If we do not unite with God's chosen, appointed representative, then we're going to miss the boat. We're going to miss the heavenly fortune. There's one principle that you cannot go against. You cannot go against the principle of love and think you're going to prosper. You cannot claim that you love God and your parents while persecuting and victimizing your parents. If you do what UCI is doing to the family of God, to our movement, and to our True Parents and think you are going to prosper, then you are going to be greatly disappointed.
UCI may have all the money in the world, but money doesn't last forever. If the people there do not have love, if they do not have an understanding of a sacrificial heart and living for the sake of others, they will not prosper. But if UCI can remain focused and united with our True Parents, practicing the philosophy of living for the sake of others and developing the parental, sacrificial heart of love so that we can inspire our children and humanity to become better than all of us, then we can change the world.
Be Inspired in the Light of the Moon
This morning the band sang "Personal Jesus." All of us often are waiting for God to do the dirty work. We want Jesus to save us. We want True Parents to save us. We want God to save us. But the time of the breaking news is when we as the children of God need to come into our own, to step up to the plate and be our own Christ-like personal Jesus, be True Parents-like as their living representative. And instead of asking God to solve all our problems, when we pray to God, let's try telling God, "Let me be the agent of change in my own life." "Let me be the agent of change that I want to see," said Gandhi. "Let me be the change I want to see." "Let it start with me by aiming for perfection," it says in II Corinthians, "by listening to the Lord and living in peace."
Brothers and sisters, if we can keep this in mind, and if we can understand how supremely sacred our True Parents are to humanity and to all of us, and we realize that it's really a gift and blessing for us to be able to live, work, and walk daily with them, then we should live like enlightened beings. We should live a life of enlightened giving. We should be inspired people of the light, people who have been touched by the moon. We know the moon well. We can be people who cast glorious, beautiful light unto the world, people who help the world see the beauty of all the treasures within that are waiting to be revealed in the light of love, the light of the moon.
On this day when we celebrate the tenth anniversary of 9/11, we need to ask ourselves, "What if today is my last day? What do I want to leave behind? Do I want to leave behind a legacy of suffering and complaining constantly about this little bit of rain that is drowning us every day? Or am I going to leave behind the kind of legacy that basically tells our children and ourselves to keep the faith, keep on going, keep on spreading the good news – and even better than the good news, spread the breaking news?" Be that agent of change. Change a family, change a society, change a nation, and change the world. Be the change that you want to see; be an eternal son or daughter of God.
This is a glorious time for all of us. We've seen something horrific, but there is beauty in that people are willing to come together and understand that we cannot just concentrate on the individual any more. We will not survive the time of self-destruction if we are only thinking about ourselves. We have to concentrate on the meaning and profundity of being connected as we are all part of this beautiful tapestry called humanity. Every one of us affects each other.
Let's think in that way and live our lives in that way, understanding the religious consciousness that teaches us how powerful and important love is in our lives. Then we can start changing the world.
So brothers and sisters, please continue to share and spread the breaking news. Please be inspired and enlightened human beings, and thank God every day that we have our True Parents because with our True Parents here, the world will be a beautiful place, if we are there to walk along with them, unite with them, and make it happen. So God bless, and thank you.
Notes:
1 Kings, chapter 3
1: Solomon made a marriage alliance with Pharaoh king of Egypt; he took Pharaoh's daughter, and brought her into the city of David, until he had finished building his own house and the house of the LORD and the wall around Jerusalem.
2: The people were sacrificing at the high places, however, because no house had yet been built for the name of the LORD.
3: Solomon loved the LORD, walking in the statutes of David his father; only, he sacrificed and burnt incense at the high places.
4: And the king went to Gibeon to sacrifice there, for that was the great high place; Solomon used to offer a thousand burnt offerings upon that altar.
5: At Gibeon the LORD appeared to Solomon in a dream by night; and God said, "Ask what I shall give you."
6: And Solomon said, "Thou hast shown great and steadfast love to thy servant David my father, because he walked before thee in faithfulness, in righteousness, and in uprightness of heart toward thee; and thou hast kept for him this great and steadfast love, and hast given him a son to sit on his throne this day.
7: And now, O LORD my God, thou hast made thy servant king in place of David my father, although I am but a little child; I do not know how to go out or come in.
8: And thy servant is in the midst of thy people whom thou hast chosen, a great people, that cannot be numbered or counted for multitude.
9: Give thy servant therefore an understanding mind to govern thy people, that I may discern between good and evil; for who is able to govern this thy great people?"
10: It pleased the Lord that Solomon had asked this.
11: And God said to him, "Because you have asked this, and have not asked for yourself long life or riches or the life of your enemies, but have asked for yourself understanding to discern what is right,
12: behold, I now do according to your word. Behold, I give you a wise and discerning mind, so that none like you has been before you and none like you shall arise after you.
13: I give you also what you have not asked, both riches and honor, so that no other king shall compare with you, all your days.
14: And if you will walk in my ways, keeping my statutes and my commandments, as your father David walked, then I will lengthen your days."
15: And Solomon awoke, and behold, it was a dream. Then he came to Jerusalem, and stood before the ark of the covenant of the LORD, and offered up burnt offerings and peace offerings, and made a feast for all his servants.
16: Then two harlots came to the king, and stood before him.
17: The one woman said, "Oh, my lord, this woman and I dwell in the same house; and I gave birth to a child while she was in the house.
18: Then on the third day after I was delivered, this woman also gave birth; and we were alone; there was no one else with us in the house, only we two were in the house.
19: And this woman's son died in the night, because she lay on it.
20: And she arose at midnight, and took my son from beside me, while your maidservant slept, and laid it in her bosom, and laid her dead son in my bosom.
21: When I rose in the morning to nurse my child, behold, it was dead; but when I looked at it closely in the morning, behold, it was not the child that I had borne."
22: But the other woman said, "No, the living child is mine, and the dead child is yours." The first said, "No, the dead child is yours, and the living child is mine." Thus they spoke before the king.
23: Then the king said, "The one says, `This is my son that is alive, and your son is dead'; and the other says, `No; but your son is dead, and my son is the living one.'"
24: And the king said, "Bring me a sword." So a sword was brought before the king.
25: And the king said, "Divide the living child in two, and give half to the one, and half to the other."
26: Then the woman whose son was alive said to the king, because her heart yearned for her son, "Oh, my lord, give her the living child, and by no means slay it." But the other said, "It shall be neither mine nor yours; divide it."
27: Then the king answered and said, "Give the living child to the first woman, and by no means slay it; she is its mother."
28: And all Israel heard of the judgment which the king had rendered; and they stood in awe of the king, because they perceived that the wisdom of God was in him, to render justice.
2 Corinthians, chapter 13
1: This is the third time I am coming to you. Any charge must be sustained by the evidence of two or three witnesses.
2: I warned those who sinned before and all the others, and I warn them now while absent, as I did when present on my second visit, that if I come again I will not spare them --
3: since you desire proof that Christ is speaking in me. He is not weak in dealing with you, but is powerful in you.
4: For he was crucified in weakness, but lives by the power of God. For we are weak in him, but in dealing with you we shall live with him by the power of God.
5: Examine yourselves, to see whether you are holding to your faith. Test yourselves. Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you? -- unless indeed you fail to meet the test!
6: I hope you will find out that we have not failed.
7: But we pray God that you may not do wrong -- not that we may appear to have met the test, but that you may do what is right, though we may seem to have failed.
8: For we cannot do anything against the truth, but only for the truth.
9: For we are glad when we are weak and you are strong. What we pray for is your improvement.
10: I write this while I am away from you, in order that when I come I may not have to be severe in my use of the authority which the Lord has given me for building up and not for tearing down.
11: Finally, brethren, farewell. Mend your ways, heed my appeal, agree with one another, live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you.
12: Greet one another with a holy kiss.
13: All the saints greet you.
14: The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
Personal Jesus
Reach out and touch faith
Your own personal Jesus
Someone to hear your prayers
Someone who cares
Your own personal Jesus
Someone to hear your prayers
Someone who's thereFeeling unknown
And you're all alone
Flesh and bone
By the telephone
Lift up the receiver
I'll make you a believer
Take second best
Put me to the test
Things on your chest
You need to confessI will deliver
You know I'm a forgiver
Reach out and touch faith
Reach out and touch faithYour own personal Jesus
Someone to hear your prayers
Someone who cares
Your own personal Jesus
Someone to hear your prayers
Someone who's thereFeeling unknown
And you're all alone
Flesh and bone
By the telephone
Lift up the receiver
I'll make you a believer
I will deliver
You know I'm a forgiver
Reach out and touch faith
Your own personal Jesus
Reach out and touch faith