True Parents Fine Art Contest
In Jin Moon
July 7, 2010
This Year's Blessed Culture and Sports Fest is hosting a fine art contest!
We are calling all young artists within the community (Ages 16-35) to direct their creativity, talent, and love for True Parents towards developing a work of art that best illustrates True Father and True Mother or best exemplifies how they have impacted your life.
Fine art may include (but is not limited to) photography, painting, drawing, collage, mosaic, sculpture, graphic design, printmaking and mixed media.
Entries must be submitted by August 1, 2010.
Entries will be awarded prizes, featured in various publications and exhibited in the BCSF Gallery Space.
Winners will be announced during the BC Sports Fest closing ceremony.
Free-Dumb - America Is Truly A Providentially Prepared Country
In Jin Moon
July 4, 2010
Lovin' Life Ministries
Manhattan Center, NY
Good morning, brothers and sisters. Happy Independence Day! I'm delighted to see you once again on this beautiful Sunday morning. I'm sure all of you are looking forward to a great deal of festivities like barbecuing and enjoying time with family, and I wish you my parents' love.
I just spent some wonderful time with our True Parents in Las Vegas before they went back to Korea. Every time I go to greet my parents, there's a sense of extreme exhilaration and also of caution because our True Parents are always trying to empower us to do many, many great things. Yet at the same time we're working against a time limit set against 2013. There's a great deal that our True Parents want to accomplish. Whenever they see my face, it seems to invite them to speak of all the things that need to be done, so I'm a bit cautious about going to see my parents. But they were in great spirits.
I took Ariana with me, and both my father and mother were so delighted to see their granddaughter. When my parents interact with my daughter, it's so natural and loving. I look at it almost as a third party, wishing I could have that kind of relationship, but yet at the same time being so happy that our True Parents can fully enjoy spending time with their grandkids. I feel there's tremendous progress being made as the years go on and as the family grows, now into the fourth generation. There are grandchildren, some of them represented here in the front being part of our service, and that's a beautiful thing.
One of the things that my father emphasizes over and over again is how America is truly a providentially prepared country. It's a beautiful country. When the Pilgrim Fathers and Mothers first came to this country, they came here to exercise their freedom of religion, their freedom to choose to worship God in the manner they saw fit. They braved the weather, the seas, all the dangers and obstacles, and fought hard for their right to live in this country, so they could raise their children in the religion.
When Father looks at America and is thinking about the American brothers and sisters, he has great dreams and great expectations because he knows that America is really a superpower. It has an incredible ability to influence. It wields the special power that, if it is set in the proper position of being a great paradigm of what true love is all about, of what building an ideal family is all about, it can so effectively transform the world through its great example. Whenever Father sees my face, he is so vigorous in urging me to do my job so that America will truly become the great country it can be.
Today is an incredibly important day for this country because the 4th of July is when we celebrate our independence. We have the wonderful document called the Declaration of Independence, and we have our Constitution. These documents guarantee our rights and allow us the privilege of exercising our freedom to choose. When I was thinking about the word "freedom" and recalling my recent trip to Las Vegas -- meeting my parents and watching them interact with my daughter -- it brought back a lot of memories.
When I was a teenager, the word "freedom" meant something totally different from what I think True Parents understand the word to be. I understood it as being able to do whatever I wanted, without any restraint or constraint. Anybody or anything that came in the form of a hindrance or obstacle to whatever I wanted to do became a sore spot for me. I think that's the case for a lot of teenagers going down their road of self-discovery as they come to understand who they are as eternal sons and daughters of God, what great talents and passions God has instilled in them, and what kind of people they want to be.
Many times young people -- myself included -- understood freedom to mean whatever I want. But this great country was not founded on the concept of doing whatever I want. This country was founded with the concept that its people wanted to honor God. The people that came, braving the storms and the seas, came to honor God, to live in his and her embrace. They came to raise great children nurtured and empowered by the understanding of God as their parent, so the children would be inspired to accomplish their true destinies and become great people.
Many times in dealing with my teenage children now, and earlier with my eldest son Preston, the concept of "freedom" has been important. Preston is now starting married life together with his beautiful wife, Krista, and they are learning how to live and breathe and grow with another person. However a few of my children are still in their teenage years, when the word "freedom" means anything goes. I like to remind them that "freedom" sounds like two words. The first is "free" and everybody knows what that means. The children want to be free like a bird, to sail wherever they want to sail and live wherever they want to live. But the second syllable sounds like "dumb."
When you're young, shouting out to your parents, "I want my freedom, freedom to do whatever I please," maybe you can think that God has given you a little hint, implicit in the word. Maybe God is trying to tell us that freedom is really a privilege and an honor, and we have to treat it with reverence and respect. If we don't treat freedom with respect, we are showing that we understand it as meaning something absent any restraint, and anything goes, and that can lead to very, very dumb actions that are not good for us, like freedom to stay out all night. That might not be the smartest thing if you have an exam the next day. That might not be the smartest thing when you need to be at your best. Perhaps you're taking your SATs and your mind has to be as sharp as a razor. But if you're out all night, exercising your desire to be free, in the end what you do is quite dumb in the sense that it's not the smart thing to do.
When we're thinking about the word freedom and declaring to our parents and to anybody that getting in my way -- or our way -- "You had better get out of my way, I want to exercise my freedom," we have to remember where we are. We have to remember that the tradition of this country stands on the principle that God exists and will be a part of our lives; that we are here to honor God.
That is the premise as to why these Pilgrim Fathers and Mothers came to this country and overcame all the obstacles. Half of the Pilgrim Fathers and Mothers perished in the first cold winter of New England, but they still forged on because they had a dream. They wanted to honor God; they wanted to exercise their religious freedom.
We must realize that there must be a proper way to exercise this freedom. So we must ask ourselves, "Is my life predestined? Do I have a choice? Is everything set in stone?" Or "Can I really make a difference? Can I change my life? Can I change my destiny? Can I transform myself, even if I was born under a bad moon, or a bad day?"
If we understand ourselves to be the children of God, that answer would have to be "Yes, I can transform myself." The Divine Principle teaches that God gave us 95 percent of all the things we enjoy. God created the blue skies and the beautiful flowers for us. God created this beautiful mountain, and even though mountains may seem like an obstacle, if we take a step back and look at how beautiful the height and the might of a majestic mountain might be, it's really an awesome gift from God.
God wants us, His children, to be human in making the choice to love him and her. That's what God wants from all of us. Just as when we have children of our own we want them to decide to love us by choosing freely, voluntarily, and in a loving way. We desire this as parents ourselves, and this is what God desires from us, His children.
God, thank goodness, did not turn us into robots, and did not program us as perfect children. God gave us 95 percent, but left for us that 5 percent responsibility to exercise our own free will because he wants us to own up to and be responsible for the decisions we are making.
When we think about the word "freedom," the way God and our True Parents understand that word is not basically that anything goes, as young people might think. "Anything goes" leads to dumb, or not smart, actions or consequences. But God and True Parents are thinking of the word "freedom" as referring to a decision process. It's a choice to make decisions responsibly.
When we are responsible citizens, when we are true citizens of this great country, we will honor this country's constitution. We will honor its set of traditions. Understanding where we come from and the privilege we have been given to live in this country of democracy where we have the right to choose, we can understand that "freedom" means the ability to make responsible decisions.
We must ask ourselves, how do we go about exercising this five percent responsibility, and our ability to make wise decisions? Our True Father, Rev. Sun Myung Moon, in 1978 encouraged us to speak to our mind, our innermost self. He said that if we can have loving or altruistic or wonderful thoughts about the other that will help us in becoming truly one with God. He said, "If we can become one with God, then all the knowledge of the universe will be revealed to us."
Father understands the power of human thought, this inner thinking process. I have often talked about how thinking is a creative process, in that what we think, we become. So if we think that we are bad people, and we're constantly telling ourselves, "I'm unworthy. I'm not good enough. I'm bad," then that's what we become because we train ourselves. We indoctrinate ourselves that we are unworthy or valueless or we're not good enough. The negative thinking creates the negative person. Alternatively we can work on our thought process and understand it as a creative process in knowing that what we think we become. If we start telling ourselves "We are the eternal sons and daughters of God. We have infinite value. We are not just put on this earth as dust in the wind, but we have a purpose and we have a great destiny to fulfill," then this kind of thinking creates a successful, grateful, and beautiful person.
When our True Father is encouraging us to speak to our mind, he is encouraging us to seek that moment of beautiful silence. Many times we go about our day and our business being busy and consumed by the noises of daily living. I myself feel it every day, working here in New York City. There is so much static in the air from so many types of noises. In such circumstances, it's important to speak to our innermost self, to find that moment of beautiful silence when we can commune with the divine, our Heavenly Parent, and commune with the divine within our hearts. We can realize that some of the most beautiful things in life are known by turning down the volume of the world and hearing the beauty of our own heartbeat or the heartbeat of a loved one. We can understand that God lives in all of us, that our hearts beat because we want to love, to honor God, and to exercise our freedom to do the right thing.
Thinking about taking the time to listen to our own heartbeat, or to listen to the heartbeat of a loved one, reminds me that out of all the things I miss about my children, the thing I miss the most is being alone with them when they were little babies. My youngest one is almost 14 years old, but I still remember when he was a little baby. The most beautiful moment with that child was a moment of silence, when I could turn down the volume of the world and my day, and spend that moment just enjoying his presence. I would spend a great deal of time just listening to the heartbeat of my child ticking away, every tick symbolizing life, every tick symbolizing growth, every tick symbolizing all the dreams I had for this child. That's how you find incredible hope.
Many times when we're engulfed in so many busy and complicated things, we forget God in the simple things and in the most beautiful details in our lives. When our True Father is asking us to exercise our freedom to choose responsibly, to do the right thing by first listening to our mind, he is asking us to remember where we come from and how precious life is. He is asking us to listen to the heartbeat in every human being, to realize that we're beating in tune with our parent in heaven, and to appreciate how wonderful and beautiful it is
Whenever I think about this special moment with my child and I'm looking around New York City, I'm also thinking about my children's education. Recently I saw a movie that I'm sure a lot of the teenagers have seen because there was a great deal of effort to show this movie in public schools so something like Columbine would not happen again. This movie was called, "Bang, Bang, You're Dead." It's basically shot like a documentary, following a young boy named Trevor. He's an outsider because everybody knows he has a past; he tried to blow up the football team the year before. He's a dark, gothic figure that the camera follows around. Many times he turns a camera on himself, so you can hear his thoughts. You hear what he wants to say. The camera becomes a vehicle of expression to the whole community and the world of thoughts he cannot otherwise express because his school setting does not allow for his words or his voice.
It's a wonderful snapshot of what takes place in high school in America. There are many cliques and names for the different cliques. There is a great deal of violence. You are constantly asking yourself, why did Trevor do what he tried to do last year? Why did he try to blow up the football team? The teachers and many of the adults want to blame just him or his family, but when you follow him around in the movie, and follow the other kids at school, you realize that what is being done to them might lead them to do what they are thinking about doing; and then you realize the problem is not a singular problem. It's really a community-wide problem.
You see these kids being picked on relentlessly. You see kids being turned upside down and their heads stuck in toilet bowls and flushed over and over again. You see these kids getting dragged into the bathroom and being beaten up. When I saw that, it reminded me of the time when my younger brother was also dragged into the bathroom and was peed on simply because he was a Moonie.
The movie helps you see why there is such rage in these teenage boys and girls, why they have so much anger against their community, why they might want to do harm, why they might want to exercise what they feel is their freedom to do whatever they want to get rid of anything and anyone that gets in their way and makes their life miserable.
When you see this movie you realize how incredibly difficult are the lives of our sons and daughters who attend public schools all across the country. The torment that takes place in the "self" environment of the school is unforgivable. This movie is almost Shakespearean in that there is a play within a play. You're watching a movie, but the movie is all about a play that the drama teacher wants to put on at school, basically a play about a boy named Josh who ends up killing and shooting everybody in his school.
The interesting thing about this drama teacher is that he picks out Trevor, who is seen as a total outcast because he tried to blow up the football team last year. Instead of treating Trevor as something bad, however, the drama teacher wants to help the teenager work through the anger and the rage. The drama teacher asks Trevor to face his demons by playing the lead role in this play called, "Bang, Bang, You're Dead."
You soon realize that Josh is no different from Trevor, in that Josh is like any other teenager pushed to the limit, tormented, persecuted, abused, and therefore ending up doing the thing that he does. The movie ends in a wonderful way, on a high note, in that Trevor, the kid who tried to blow up the football team last year, comes to realize that because he has developed this X factor in his relationship with the drama teacher, that X factor has prevented him from doing the same thing that Josh, the character he's playing, ended up doing.
These two, Josh and Trevor, are very much the same people, but the difference in the consequences of their actions, and why they did the things they did, and why they didn't do what they didn't do points to one thing that the movie calls the X factor. When we ask ourselves what that factor might be, we realize it's that Josh had nobody he could talk to. He didn't have a parent figure telling him, "Regardless of what you're going through in school, you are God's son. You have infinite value. You are meant for greatness." He might have had parents telling him negative things, "You're worthless. What are you doing, you lazy bum?" He might have had teachers who looked at him as a parasite in the classroom.
Josh was constantly bombarded by negative reinforcement, negative thinking imposed on him from all the others, and he began to believe he was this negative creature. His own thinking process, the creative process in his own mind made him do what he did ultimately; he shot everybody in the school play.
Trevor ends up saving another shooting attempt at his own school by a gang of boys who wanted to take revenge because their leader was beaten up in the boys' bathroom, had his head held in the toilet, and was dumped into the trash upside down. Trevor, the ostracized, the outcast boy, ends up saving the whole school because even if his parents and his school do not believe in him, he grew to have this meaningful relationship with the drama teacher. He also grew to love one of his classmates, who believed in him and who made him feel human.
It was this human connection to another person, another person constantly telling him, "You should play the lead role. You're going to be great. You're going to move a lot of people. You're going to heal a lot of people." This constant positive reinforcement in the end became the X factor that saved Trevor's own life and the lives of his classmates at school.
This movie is a gem in the sense that it so poignantly portrays how human thought is a creative process, in that the way we think determines what we become. If we believe we are incredible gifts of a person to this world and that we are to become eternal sons and daughters, that's what we will become. But if we are constantly bombarded with negative words from our parents, teachers, and peers, and we adopt these negative words to be a part of our thought process, we end up creating monsters in ourselves.
The Declaration of Independence professes that citizens of the United States are to live lives honoring certain principles. The Declaration of Independence guarantees the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. If we don't really understand who we are as creative beings put on this earth to exercise our freedom or liberties in a way that makes us beautiful and wonderful, then we can revert back to negative thoughts, or to this hedonistic understanding of the word "freedom," thinking we can do whatever we want, even if those actions might not be the smartest thing to do.
One of the things we can do in preparation to make that wise decision, to exercise our freedom to decide responsibly, is to first speak to our minds, to enjoy that beautiful silence. What else can we do? We need to have a sense of respect. We need to have a sense of reverence for ourselves and for the other people in our lives. If we do not respect ourselves as eternal divine beings, it's very difficult to respect anybody else as a divine eternal being.
When our True Father and True Mother are asking us to have reverence for the life we've been given, to respect the opportunity God gave into our care, what they're asking us to do is to realize what an incredible time we're living in. We're living in the time of the breaking news, when the messiah has come, when our True Parents have come, and when we have an opportunity to graft onto this original olive branch and create beautiful families of our own.
We have to respect our lives. We have to respect ourselves. We have to respect the country that we come from, that we're born into, and that we have the privilege of living in. We Americans are so blessed in that we can exercise and enjoy due process of law; we can exercise our freedom to choose responsibly, and we have been given a choice through the democratic process to take part in the political workings of the American government.
One story that really moves me is about a man who works as a guide in Ludwig von Beethoven's home in Bonn, Germany. He talks about how everyone loves Beethoven's music, and one of his most enjoyed pieces is "Moonlight Sonata." Everybody knows it; everybody's heard it; everybody's enjoyed it. He hears "Moonlight Sonata" being hummed in the halls of Beethoven's home. He sees many groups of students visiting the great master's home to see where Beethoven composed these eternal melodies, and on what instrument he played them and was inspired.
The guide tells the story of how he was so moved by one visitor to the museum who came with a group of students. It was a girl who said she was a pianist herself. She was negotiating with the tour guide to let her play on Beethoven's piano. Of course the piano has been roped off because now Beethoven's piano is worth more than $50 million, but this excited student wanted to lay her fingers on those black and white keys, to play it. At first the guide hesitated, but the girl was insistent and even gave him quite a bit of money. He finally acquiesced and let her go behind the ropes. Then the girl sat at the piano and started playing the "Moonlight Sonata." She was obviously engrossed in the music, in this universal language coming through this instrument. She played beautifully. At the end of her performance her group gave her an ovation and she profusely thanked the tour guide. He thought that obviously this girl made the journey to Bonn to find Beethoven's museum, and wanted to touch the instrument because she loved it so much.
At the same time, the tour guide was also remembering another visitor, who happens to be one of the great pianists of all time, Paderewski. He had once visited Beethoven's house accompanied by an entourage of famous and important people. Everyone who accompanied him on that visit was so much looking forward to hearing Paderewski play on Beethoven's piano.
The tour guide talked about how the great master came and stood before the piano in silence for 10 or 15 minutes, but would not go beyond the roped area where the piano was kept. Some in the entourage urged him, "Mr. Paderewski, please. Beethoven would be so pleased to hear you play. Could you please sit down and play some of Beethoven's pieces?" Mr. Paderewski, remember, was one the greatest pianists of all time; he also later entered political life. At this moment, however, he stood there before Beethoven's piano, in respect of the grand master, and in respect of Beethoven's instrument. He said, "I'm simply not worthy to sit and play on the grand master's piano."
The tour guide realized the difference between a true master and a master in the making, in that a true master has reverence for both the instrument and a great composer. The true master is not so keen on possessing the instrument and creating a history that he or she will remember the rest of their life.
In front of greatness, a true great man and true great woman understand true humility, whereas somebody who is still on the road of discovery has yet to understand what true humility is all about. Imagine one of the greatest pianists of all time honoring the grand master, Beethoven, who came before him, and who has given so much beauty to his fellow man. Imagine this great pianist standing in awe, and out of reverence and respect honoring Beethoven's instrument because that was the source of Beethoven's inspiration. This is a beautiful story of understanding what honor and reverence are all about.
For those of us here who enjoy the democratic process and the chance to be a part of this land of opportunity where our sincere effort and perseverance can make our dreams come true, we are truly lucky to have the chance. We're not living in North Korea, where we would not have a voice -- we could not vote -- where we could not even buy the things we want and we would be so completely controlled that we almost cease to be human.
Because we live in this great and blessed country, we have a responsibility to respect and honor the tradition and country that we come from, and to know that we are incredibly blessed in having been given such great teachers in our True Parents. Just like Paderewski, when we can attain the level where we can truly be the embracer of true love, or the embodiment of true love, then we will be just like Mr. Paderewski when we come before our True Parents. We will understand our own humility, not our own brilliance. We will understand how incredibly blessed we are, and we will understand that we have been given a tremendous gift that we have to use wisely by exercising our decisions responsibly.
When you refer back to Buddhism, Dhammapada 25 teaches us that by sustained effort, earnestness, self control, and hard work we can be the wise men who can create an island that can withstand any floods. That's what Buddhism teaches: Our road to self-discovery is the road of exercising our freedom properly. We do this first by really understanding and listening to that beautiful silence and speaking to our minds about the creative process of our own thinking, and secondly by having a certain reference for the opportunity given to us in this life. Then we realize that what we must do in our lives, once we understand what an incredible blessed opportunity we have before us, is to exercise the discipline that's necessary.
The discipline actually is the key to being free. This is the case for Mr. Paderewski and for all great musicians. Two of my children were practicing very hard, living highly disciplined lives because they wanted to be great musicians, even to be able to perform Rachmaninoff's concerto on the theme of Paganini. It's one of the most difficult pieces for piano. In order to play it freely, naturally, without restraint, what you need is years and years of discipline. When we see the great Olympic athletes competing in Olympic competition, what we're seeing is the end of years and years of discipline, years and years of exercising self control, persistence, and the seriousness of purpose in working hard to accomplish what they want to accomplish.
Describing a dancer's performance as being fluid and ethereal is one of the greatest compliments you can give to a dancer. A dancer aspires to perform in an ethereal, fluid way, so the stage performance is without constraint, seeming to take flight like a bird and to twirl better than a top. That kind of freedom comes from years and years of discipline.
When you see Joe, our guitarist in the band, going crazy on those frets, with those extremely crazy notes everywhere, you know he can play so freely like that because of the endless hours of discipline he put in before. He can only play like that by practicing more than three hours a day, practicing slowly with the metronome. The faster you want to play, the slower you must practice. The more fluid a dancer you want to be, the more disciplined and persistent and hard-working you must be in the studio. The more natural a pianist you want to be when you're performing Rachmaninoff's hardest pieces, the more time you need to spend with the metronome, playing painstakingly slowly, in order to play fast and fluid, like a waterfall.
We realize that discipline is not something we should fight against because, if you really think about it, if every one of us is like a majestic oak tree that God wants to share with the rest of the world, we may reflect that many times the trees in the windy zones of our lives need a little bit of help. Sometimes they need support so they can continue to grow straight. Many times the young oak tree might look at the wires that support it and say, "Where is my freedom? Why can't I do whatever I want?" Those wires and support systems are our parents or teachers, helping and guiding because they know how great we are going to be.
In Romans 5:3-5, the Bible teaches us to rejoice in our suffering. Now don't get me wrong. As the senior pastor of Lovin' Life, I am not here to teach that we are here to suffer. I am here to remind us that we're here to love and to live gratefully. But Romans 5:3-5 says, "We rejoice in our suffering because suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character. And character produces hope." We have endless hope because God is pouring love in each and every one of our hearts.
We may ask ourselves why sometimes our lives are so difficult. Sometimes we feel like there's no light at the end of the tunnel. Why should we go on? Why should we have hope? Because God, our Heavenly Parent, and our True Parents are here to tell us that life is a process, and that suffering is not an end goal of our lives. It's through suffering that we learn how to endure, and it is through exercising endurance that we build great character that understands the meaning of honor, gratitude, and reverence. With that kind of character, you cannot help but be hopeful in understanding who you are, because all of us are divine human beings.
This passage in Romans is saying that if we truly exercise our freedom in the sense that God wants us to exercise it, then the ultimate goal that it leads us to is a sense of gratitude. When we listen to God in the moments of beautiful silence, when we honor our lives in reverence for this opportunity given, when we discipline ourselves knowing that God will use our discipline to make us more and more free and fluid and natural and faster and wiser, then we come to realize that the only thing we need to do is to exercise and practice gratitude and appreciation in our lives.
If we truly understand the meaning of the beauty of each day given to us, we can no longer be indifferent. Many of us may have a problem in our families or difficulties in our careers. Many might have difficulties with our colleagues or friends and we simply don't want to deal with it, to make the effort to love. In a way we decide to be indifferent. We decide to not care. But if we truly understand that we are eternal sons and daughters of God, that God is our eternal Heavenly Parent, and that we are God's sons and daughters, then we have a responsibility to live an altruistic life, living for the sake of others. We have a duty to practice compassion in our lives, to be caring, loving, and supporting, and to work on our internal and external excellence.
Only by being and living this way can we accomplish this world of peace that we are looking for and dreaming about, by building it one family at a time.
Brothers and sisters, as we think about our True Parents and the opportunity we have before us to allow the world to realize what an incredible blessing all of us have in living and breathing with our True Parents, our freedom and our desire to exercise that freedom should embody proper decision-making, being responsible citizens and responsible men and women understanding where we come from.
When I went to Las Vegas with my daughter Ariana, I was using one of the bags I use frequently to travel. It has served me well. We dragged it through the airport. A couple of leaders greeted me. It was all official and serious. We quietly got in the car because we were on our way to greet our True Parents.
When we got to the hotel one of these leaders took my baggage out of the trunk and started to wheel it through the hotel lobby. Just at that moment my luggage decided to exercise its freedom to be heard. It had been beautifully silent at the airport, but when this gentleman started dragging this suitcase, it wanted to be heard and it started making noises that sounded like a broken horn. It's interesting to see how certain uncomfortable noises can take away all layers of pretense and reduce us to giggling children.
Here we are all serious, going up these wide steps, on our way to see our True Parents, but my suitcase decided to exercise its freedom to make noises. It started honking. When we were still outdoors the man kept on pulling it, hoping no one would notice that it was honking erratically, sounding like someone was dying inside. But once we got into the beautiful marble lobby, any sound would be accentuated and well appreciated. He was trying to pull it nonchalantly and not draw attention to himself, but it just kept on making noises. The whole lobby suddenly grew silent and all we heard was my suitcase.
Of course my daughter and I could not help laughing. Even these very stern, serious leaders on their way to see Parents were suddenly reduced to giggles. The suitcase, exercising its freedom to speak maybe was God's way of saying, "Why are you so serious? You are on your way to see True Parents. You should be happy. You should be celebrating. You should be loving life." Even if we didn't start out that way, we certainly ended up laughing and loving life and in good spirits when we finally walked in to greet True Parents.
Brothers and sisters, the greatest gift is the fact that our Heavenly Parent gave us a chance to know each other. What are the chances of you sitting next to the person right now? What are the chances of you being matched to the person seated next to you right now? But through God's grace and mysterious ways, here we are, out of all the millions of people around the world.
Let us exercise our freedom by being a great American citizen, by being great citizens of our worldwide community, by realizing that we have infinite value and we are put here for an incredible destiny.
Brothers and sisters, go out loving life, and have a great week and a great month. Thank you.
Notes:
Romans, chapter 5
1: Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
2: Through him we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in our hope of sharing the glory of God.
3: More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance,
4: and endurance produces character, and character produces hope,
5: and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us.
6: While we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.
7: Why, one will hardly die for a righteous man -- though perhaps for a good man one will dare even to die.
8: But God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.
9: Since, therefore, we are now justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.
10: For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.
11: Not only so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received our reconciliation.
12: Therefore as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned --
13: sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law.
14: Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sins were not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.
15: But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man's trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift in the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many.
16: And the free gift is not like the effect of that one man's sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brings justification.
17: If, because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.
18: Then as one man's trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one man's act of righteousness leads to acquittal and life for all men.
19: For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by one man's obedience many will be made righteous.
20: Law came in, to increase the trespass; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more,
21: so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Rev. Hyung Jin Moon's Visit to Brazil, June 26-28, 2010
In Jin Moon
July 1, 2010
True Parents asked our international president, Rev. Hyung Jin Moon, and his wife, Mrs. Yeon Ah Moon, to visit our brothers and sisters in Brazil this past weekend, from June 26th to 28th. Hyung Jin Nim brought our True Parents' love and clear guidance to all of our leaders and members in Brazil, and his words were broadcast throughout South America.
After the very difficult events which took place in Sao Paolo on May 30th and 31st, True Parents asked Rev. In Jin Moon to immediately go to Brazil (from June 5-8) and comfort the brothers and sisters there on their behalf. In Jin Nim embraced the Brazilian members and leaders from throughout South America, letting them know how much True Parents loved them. Her words brought comfort and clarity, cutting through the confusion and chaos of the week before.
After In Jin Nim's visit, the General Assembly meeting which was convened on June 12th in Sao Paulo ended up reaffirming the leadership of Rev. Simon Ferrabolli. At that meeting the sole agenda point (proposed by members of the Board) was the removal of Rev. Ferrabolli. However, all 70 elders who were present voted unanimously to keep Rev. Ferrabolli in his role as Brazil National President.
This was so comforting to Rev. Simon Ferrabolli, who had endured so much pressure from the board members to resign, being told by them that major law firms from America were coming to ensure that he would be removed. Even his wife and children went through incredible suffering during this time. Of course, the continental director, Rev. Shin, has also been wrongly accused and has been put through hell during this time. These two brothers, however, have consistently stood strong for our True Parents, no matter what.
On Saturday, June 26, a second General Assembly meeting was held in Sao Paolo. Rev. Dong Moo Shin, the South American Continental Director, reported on the results of the meeting. The general assembly, which is the highest decision-making organization in the Brazilian FFWPU, gathered at 9 a.m., based on a motion set forth during the June 12th meeting and in accordance with the articles of association of Brazil FFWPU. Those with a right to vote at the general assembly include the 10 people who founded FFWPU Brazil in the early days, current church leaders and former church leaders. On June 26, 110 people attended the general assembly and there were more than 70 observers watching the proceedings. Moreover, the meeting took place while Rev. Shin, Rev. Heung Tae Kim, Rev. Oyamada and lawyers observed.
Because 90% of the members were not in attendance at 9 a.m. (a quorum of 90% is required), the meeting did not begin until 9:30 a.m., when a quorum was present. The matter at hand was to legally remove the five members of the Brazil FFWPU Board (which was made up of 3 Americans, who are part of the UCI [Unification Church International] Board and who appointed themselves to the FFWPU Board and 2 former presidents of the Brazilian church) through the vote of the general assembly. The meeting took place with lawyers in attendance and there was a video recording made.
The result of the vote was unanimous. All 110 top Brazilian leaders voted to remove the five board members without a single opposing opinion. Thus, the revolt of the Board, which had become a controversy, was dealt with on a legal basis. The national leader, all headquarters leaders, church leaders from around the nation and core members who formerly were leaders, united centering on True Parents to bring a victory that allowed for a new beginning.
The most fundamental cause of this victory was that our True Parents gave a clear standard through their proclamation, their words and their love. Secondly, the great help and support that was offered to Brazil at the most critical time by In Jin Nim and now by our International President, Hyung Jin Nim, truly has made this victory possible. Now the General Assembly will move to amend the articles of association in accordance with the direction of our international headquarters and elect new board members.
Hyung Jin Nim and Yeon Ah Nim, who arrived in Sao Paulo on June 26th in good health and bright spirits, decided to stay in the staff room on the sixth floor of the headquarters building. They bowed to True Parents, prayed and then began their schedule. The international president spoke to the over 200 leaders and members who had participated in the general assembly on the topic of True Parents' value. He especially confessed about his own life of setting conditions in realization of how sinful we are in front of True Parents. He emphasized again and again that all brothers and sisters in the Unification Family must clearly perceive who True Parents are.
Hyung Jin Nim said that there is only one True Parents for eternity and that he himself always stands in an object position in front of True Parents with much to learn. He stressed that we should be grateful for the glory of attending True Parents. He also testified that True Parents miss and love Brazil and South America in general, and encouraged the Brazilian members to strive to live by True Parents' directions and teachings.
Though the Brazil incident was ultimately an attack on True Parents, he emphasized that we won in the end and only True Parents could bring this victory. He testified to True Parents' amazing victory through giving the opportunity for the 120-day special workshop and spoke about his strong conviction to achieve the completion of Cheon Il Guk in 2013.
On the second day of Hyung Jin Nim's visit to Sao Paulo, on Sunday morning, over 300 members gathered in the Small Sanctuary for a 3:00 a.m. devotion and 5:00 a.m. Hoon Dok Hae. Everyone spent this time together with Hyung Jin Nim with a joyful heart. At Hoon Dok Hae, people took turns reading a section of True Father's autobiography, allowing for a time of serious reflection on True Father's providential course and life.
Hundreds gathered from 9:00 a.m. to hear Hyung Jin Nim's message, filling the chapel of the headquarters building to capacity. The sermon, which was translated by national leader, Rev. Ferrabolli, provided such deep and nourishing spiritual food for the members in Brazil. The international president gave a precious speech, in which he seemed to give the core contents of everything he has spoken about in the past and recently.
While Hyung Jin Nim was giving his sermon to all of South America on Sunday morning from Sao Paulo, Rev. In Jin Moon was broadcasting Hyung Jin Nim's "Address to the International Leaders" from Lovin' Life Ministries in the Manhattan Center to all of our churches throughout America. So, simultaneously (Brazil is just one hour ahead of New York), Hyung Jin Nim's message was being heard on the continents of North and South America, representing the complete unity of North and South America, centering on our True Parents.
After Hyung Jin Nim's sermon, Mr. Cypriani (former church president and one of the removed board members) gave a public repentance and apology before all of the Brazilian members on stage. Rev. Ferrabolli, who is truly a compassionate and a passionate man, rushed to his brother and embraced him in love and reconciliation. It was truly beautiful to see for all those members to see these two brothers embrace.
Hyung Jin Nim and Yeon Ah Nim ministered to the brothers and sisters in Brazil, giving such beautiful words and true love, even taking the time to visit families in their homes. A lottery was taken after the service and a humble family who lived in the nearby mountains won the blessing of receiving a personal visit to their home from Hyung Jin Nim and Yeon Ah Nim.
Hyung Jin Nim's couple and their living example of True Parents' love was truly overwhelming for the Brazilian members. All of the brothers and sisters throughout Brazil and South America appreciate our True Parents' love and wisdom in sending Hyung Jin Nim and Yeon Ah Nim to bring the healing love of God and the power of God's Word.
We Are Eternal Sons And Daughters Of God
In Jin Moon
June 20, 2010
Unofficial Notes - Kevin Thompson
1) In Jin Nim began by speaking about the Little Angels performance this past week at the Manhattan Center -- they are true ambassadors for peace, founded by our True Parents in 1962. They came to America to give thanks for what the Americans did to liberate Korea and her father from the N Korean prison camp. It is because of the young men and women who fought against communism and who gave their lives that today Korea has its freedoms and its democratic system. She told her children that their mother would not be here if not for those old veterans who were on stage at the Little Angels performance -- some who can now barely stand without a cane. How indebted we need to be to them and this great country of America that allowed us to have a life, to have a family.
2) In Jin Nim shared about the Korean style of dancing. Japanese dance is very delicate with minimal movement, but Korean dancing is full of movement and leaping and banging on the drums. In Jin Nim thought -- no wonder Korea is so attractive -- Japan and China kept coming to take Korean women. She could see why the Korean woman were attractive -- in the Victorian age in which women did not even show their ankles -- Korean dance had such free and dynamic movement.
3) True Father has said you can tell a lot about a culture by their dance -- Latin America dance is very sensual. Korean dance is passionate and dynamic.
4) Korean women respect their elders and are mindful of tradition -- but they are very passionate and dynamic. In Jin Nim could see why the True Mother of humankind came from Korea. She looks like an elegant wallflower, but underneath there is a volcano. She looks like she does not have a lot to say, but when she says what she wants to say she has a lot to say -- and it is quite profound.
5) The youth who were dragged here by their parents -- must wonder about True Parents -- what is so special about them -- two old oriental people? But it is through True Parents that our youth exist, it is because of True Parents that we have the Blessing -- that which enabled your parents to graft onto the original olive branch and have such wonderful children. It is because of True Parents that we have this opportunity to become a part of one family under God.
6) As a mother, when In Jin Nim looks into her children's eyes -- she has lots of expectation and longings for her children -- to be great people. The parents of our kids are the same -- they want them to be great, to not have to go through what they went through, to have a better life. When they bring our youth to church to honor our HP and our True Parents -- our youth wonder -- what is so important about this?
7) When we come together to celebrate as a community it reminds us of why we are here -- that we are eternal sons and daughters of God. Just as the Little Angels are ambassadors representing Korea, our youth can be ambassadors representing our Heavenly Parent and our True Parents.
8) When In Jin Nim was watching the Little Angels she was reminded of the passage Zachariah 4:6 -- "not by might, nor by power, but by My spirit" The Little Angels have become beautiful ambassadors for peace, not by power or might, but by bringing an expression of love, truth, and beauty.
9) When you, growing up, think about your life -- this time of going through middle school is one of the most difficult. Your body is changing, growing taller, attacked by acne -- you are wondering "Am I beautiful, am I strong or weak, what are my passions, what kind of a person will I be?"
10) Middle school is a time when there is a lot of static in the air. In Jin Nim's older brother always listened to music -- and in the car they would listen to the radio. When they traveled long distances and passed through different counties and states, her brother would frantically try to find a station with clear reception -- then static would start to come and he would quickly try to find another station that was clear, without static.
11) In middle school your life is kind of like that, you're constantly being attacked by the "static" in the air. Static is electrical discharge -- you are trying to be a receptacle getting the "clear music into your system." But there is static -- saying "you need to be cool. You need to hang out with only certain kinds of people."
12) In Jin Nim shared her experience of talking with a friend -- and then being told by the other girls that she should not be with that person because she does not dress right. She can't be seen with her because then she would not be cool. In Jin Nim asked why -- and was told that they were her friends because they were cool. That person was not wearing clothing that was cool.
13) This was a huge static in the air for In Jin Nim. She had to think about what she was going to do. Was being cool so important, or being with this person with whom she had such stimulating conversations? In Jin Nim opted for sitting with the person.
14) Many times In Jin Nim's friends would pressure her to do things -- but she would tell them she can't do that because her parents told her not to do that. But there would be static in the air -- others telling her "be your own person, be an adult, make your own decision, do what I am telling you to do" This is the pressure friends put on each other. For young people trying to figure out who and what they are and what they will become -- friends wield a lot of power. Friends say -- "come on, don't be a baby, don't follow your parents, that's not cool, disobey your parents, rebel -- that's cool."
15) There is this huge pressure, to disobey your parents because they are your parents, but to obey your friends, because they are your friends and they are going to tell you what is cool and what is not cool. Think about it, our friends, in a sense, are doing what our parents do -- telling us to obey them, listen to them and follow them -- the very things we are told not to do with our parents.
16) As we grow older, with the wisdom of hindsight we look back and realize that our friends become like our god, our peer group becomes like our god, and we end up obeying and listening to them, doing what they encourage us to do. Really the cool thing to do in life, then and always, is to be your own person, to be who you really are. And who you are is eternal sons and daughters of God, our Heavenly Parent -- and this Heavenly Parent gave us this wonderful life, this opportunity to practice living for the sake of others. Living for the sake of others starts with understanding God as our Heavenly Parent and our physical parents as God on earth. In a way, when we love our parents we are loving God up in heaven. What we hope for is to have conversations with, be embraced and hugged by our Heavenly Parent. But the wonderful thing about having parents is that through them we can have that conversation, we can be embraced and hugged and loved and nurtured by our parents if we allow them to. To allow our parents to love us is the coolest thing -- because then you are not allowing the static in the air to influence you.
17) In Jin Nim and her son talk almost like boy friend and girl friend. They say "hello my love" to one another over the phone. When Krista heard this -- she must have wondered who is this love he is talking to? That love is his mother. In Jin Nim loves him, adores him like a celebrity -- like god. Her children are like gods to her -- through them she experiences God every day.
18) We can articulate this love within the family. Many times True Father and True Mother would hold hands while walking and True Father would lean over and kiss True Mother because she sings so lovely -- for their generation, in the Asian community, this was unheard of. True Father loves In Jin Nim's mother and he shows us how to love a wife, and that is a beautiful thing.
19) In our community, the parents expect a lot from the children, but the children also expect a lot from their parents. The parents want their children to be perfect, problem free, almost like robots -- go to elementary school, get all As, have passion, be great in art, go onto the best universities, never fight with siblings, always respect parents, clean the room, put the vacuum away for the mother, do the dishes, take out the trash, get a job, and work hard. This is what we expect from our children. We don't expect our children to have emotional issues, to experience bumps on the road to self discovery, to fall and scrape their knees physically and spiritually. There are a whole lot of expectations going on from both sides.
20) In Jin Nim then shared in depth about the movie "Little Miss Sunshine." It is about a dysfunctional family. The mother is trying her best, very busy, to get everything done. The father is a motivational speaker -- with his PowerPoint presentation and his 9 point motivational speech. Like him, we have our Divine Principle points that we always present to our children, not always being sensitive to our children's needs. His intention is good -- wanting to do well and to support his family. Everyone is busy, but no one is in tune to the needs of the children. The son is going through his Niche period -- making impact by never speaking, wearing Gothic, dark clothing. He is like adolescents who go through this period in which everything is black and white. The little girl, wins a beauty contest -- and the family decides to go together to the finals of the beauty competition. The journey to this contest is full of challenges -- the van has problems and there are many funny episodes. As you watch the film you begin to bond with the family -- they're weird, but have pockets of resemblance to our own lives. At the contest -- all the girls are thin and glamorous, but our girl is different. Her act was choreographed by her grandfather (who died along their journey). Instead of a pretty dress she wears a man's suit. She is unsure of herself, but regains her confidence when she makes eye contact with her family in the audience. To everyone's shock and surprise the dance her grandfather taught her is a strip-tease dance. The audience and judges are horrified. But this is what she was taught and she is going to do it properly. Her father, who is all about being proper -- gets on stage and eventually with all the family makes a fool of himself -- dancing with her.
21) There is a common denominator -- that they are a family -- and they are not going to let their child go through this alone -- they are going to go through it together. It is humorous - but for the family -- in that moment they discover how much they need and love each other. In one scene the boy, in his anger explodes into cursing his parents and runs off. The mother follows him, tries to talk to him but has no success. Then the little girl goes and sits next to him and lays her head on his shoulder -- he did not need words or to be taught or educated, what he, and all adolescent kids are asking for, is the healing touch of a parent, of a loved one. The touch of his sister -- melted away all his anger, more than any words could. This scene demonstrated how parents struggle to reach their teenage children, we assault them with a barrage of words, not always well chosen, not "I love you, I need you," but a huge Niagara Falls amount of what we want to convey and we wonder why nothing goes in.
22) This movie portrays a message to parents -- that words are incredibly important, vehicles of emotion, but many times we put our words in overdrive and nothing can go in. When we have "over-driven" our kids, sometimes the most effective way to reach out is a simple touch, or walking up behind them and giving them a hug without saying anything -- or just holding their hands to let them know we are there -- we are going to love them and be there for them no matter what. And just as we ourselves, when we were young -- trying to get the static out or our lives so that we can hear that clear music -- we need to give our children the space to do the same.
23) The most important message we can give our children -- it does not matter how many states you go through, how much static you encounter -- your parents will always be there for you, will never go away. As a family, even if we go in different directions and do different things, we are always there for you.
24) As children go through their growth period they may not realize how beautiful and great they are, like a butterfly that one day will fly. They might be so unsure, unconfident in themselves, their bodies are going through changes -- in strange ways they do not understand and they may feel confused, but if they maintain a channel with God and True Parents they will help them to be that great person. They have to be patient with themselves, there is no need to be an adult when your are 12 or 13. Enjoy, being 12, 13, 14, 15 , 16 -- that time will never come again. You have a life a head of you to do all you want to do -- you don't have to have it all now. There is beauty in waiting for something wonderful.
25) Part of the reason your family brought you here is for the Il Shim ceremony which is part of your preparation for Blessing. Blessing is so beautiful -- in that there is nothing more romantic. Who is going to love you as a daughter or a son of God, not as a body part, not just wanting to be with you because you are cool, but because you have something to offer? That person is making a commitment to God and humanity and you, because they realize how incredibly valuable you and we are. You are like the rough cut diamonds that need time to be made into a beautiful ring, set in a ring symbolizing eternity. There is something beautiful about something eternal and the word "forever."
26) Those who are master daters -- coming out of high school - they can never have a meaningful relationships, to be a great husband or wife, because they have been trained to be great daters. They have not been trained to be great parents -- and we wonder why the world has so many problems.
27) The Il Shim ceremony is preparation for a wonderful gift you will have in the future -- the Blessing from God. Having this permission and blessing from God, to love someone eternally, is a beautiful romantic thing.
28) As we move forward as a community, to the future generations to come -- we need to be vigilant about celebrating what we believe in and do what we are talking about. So don't come to church to just hear In Jin Nim speak. You know what you need to do. In Jin Nim is not hear to speak, but to remind us of how precious and awesome we are, that we are God's eternal sons and daughters and that we possess infinite value. The greatest gift we can give to each other is the gift of love -- and how wonderful if we can save this love for someone special. This is what your parents are encouraging you to do. They have lived and experienced a little bit more than you. They have gone through a lot of heartaches and they want you to have a life that is better, more beautiful and meaningful.
29) Love your parents, give them do respect. It is through them, their sacrifice, their finding True Parents that you are who you are. We must live our lives in honor of them. And parents, be a great backbone and support system, and please give your children a little room to grow, to explore, to ask questions, while they have you to guide them. And do not be too hard on them, because life is not that easy for kids. We dealt with our difficulties, but now, (even more) it is pretty tough out there for our kids -- perhaps we can listen more and practice more the healing art of touching. And as we articulate how much we care, and guide them through difficult periods in life, perhaps the movie "Little Miss Sunshine" can remind us that sometimes a lot more can be said by our gestures and actions. If we can keep these things in mind -- and allow each of us, young and old to find ourselves as special people, we can become a really awesome movement.
30) We are incredibly lucky to have our True Parents here. As our True Parents continue onward, trying to bring this one family under God, our movement is going through a lot of transitional phases and difficulties and points of confusion, but the most important thing we need to realize is the importance and centrality of our True Parents, and of how our True Parents have passed on the baton to the youngest son of the family, Hyung Jin Nim, as the spiritual head of the movement.
31) We need to understand that our True Parents are not being taken over by a younger True Parents, Hyung Jin Nim's couple. We need to understand that the concept of True Parents is eternal, just like the concept of God is eternal. It is the job of the children of the True Family to live our lives in honor of True Parents -- and become parents of our own, but there is one and only one True Parents.
32) We need to understand very clearly -- that when True Parents talk about creating one family under God, it will not be accomplished by any of the service organizations that exist in our church. It will not be done by CARP, Women's Federation, UPF, GPF, or ACLC, because these are all service organizations that seek to practice living for the sake of others -- but we will not save the world through service alone. The way our True Parents are going to save the world is through the process and gift of the Holy Blessing. Only our True Parents have the right and privilege and honor of administrating the Holy Blessing and that is why for the first time in our lives we can have True Love, True Life, and True Lineage. That is why our True Parents are incredibly important -- and that is why we are not just a service movement.
33) The sacrament of marriage belongs to the church. A lot of people are saying we don't need a church, all we need is a service organization. We don't need anything, we don't need tradition -- but our tradition is a heavenly tradition, the tradition of True Parents -- in that here we are to substantiate true love, true life, and true lineage. It's the lineage thing that was missing when Jesus was crucified 2,000 years ago. It is the lineage that True Parents have come to share with the rest of the world -- and it is through the lineage that we become one family under God. We don't become one family through service, but through marriage. Krista became a member of In Jin Nim's family, not just because she was a volunteer, but through marriage. The beauty of the Holy Blessing, and the reason the international Blessing is such an integral part of the process -- is because that is how we become one family under God. It is all the diverse cultures and religions -- through the digestive power of love -- that allows the world to exist as one family. That is why we need our True Parents. As much, and as important as it is to develop our own relationship with God in heaven, it is only the original olive branch that allows us the opportunity to substantiate true lineage. That is why we cannot do without our True Parents. That is why True Parents anointed the younger son -- to continue to make this True Holy Blessing available to the world. It has to be someone from a religious background, someone from the church, who represents the church, the tradition, who is going to administer the Blessing continuously even when our True Parents are not here. That is the wisdom -- why True Father has chosen the younger son as the center of the family and the spiritual head. He comes with seven years of spiritual dedication and the foundation of being the kind of minister, the representative who is going to usher in the new millennium of peace. His administration, his character is not one of might or power, but one of spirit, that speaks about truth, love, and beauty. That is what we need in order to have a peaceful world.
34) We need to understand that our True Parents will guide us until their last breath -- and guide us even more effectively from the other world. Through their representative, who is the youngest son of the family, we will come to substantiate the true world of peace we are talking about.
35) Do not be confused. Be clear that as we continue to do great work, ACLC with ministers, UPF and GPF through service, and CARP does great work on campuses -- becoming ambassadors for what our True Parents really are about -- living for the sake of others. Lets not be confused as to why our True Parents, being a part of our church, and being a Unificationist is probably the coolest thing around -- because for the first time in history we have a chance, the breaking news, that we can make flesh and experience what it is like to have a wonderful family that God wanted all along.
36) Be patient -- give room to grow, look forward to the day that you will become that beautiful butterfly, but in the mean time lets all work on ourselves -- and instead of being a community that picks on what we are doing wrong -- be a community that looks around and compliments each other's strengths and we talk about how wonderful it is to have the other in our lives -- because there is nothing greater than having won the lottery of being able to live at the same time as our True Parents
37) Do not be afraid or confused. The future is in great hands. We need to know that we have an awesome future, we need to be proud Unificationist and we need to know why -- because we are part of a movement and tradition that is really cool.
38) God Bless and have a wonderful Sunday.
Rev. Kevin Thompson
Bay Area Family Church
Notes:
Zechariah, chapter 4
1: And the angel who talked with me came again, and waked me, like a man that is wakened out of his sleep.
2: And he said to me, "What do you see?" I said, "I see, and behold, a lampstand all of gold, with a bowl on the top of it, and seven lamps on it, with seven lips on each of the lamps which are on the top of it.
3: And there are two olive trees by it, one on the right of the bowl and the other on its left."
4: And I said to the angel who talked with me, "What are these, my lord?"
5: Then the angel who talked with me answered me, "Do you not know what these are?" I said, "No, my lord."
6: Then he said to me, "This is the word of the LORD to Zerub'babel: Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the LORD of hosts.
7: What are you, O great mountain? Before Zerub'babel you shall become a plain; and he shall bring forward the top stone amid shouts of `Grace, grace to it!'"
8: Moreover the word of the LORD came to me, saying,
9: "The hands of Zerub'babel have laid the foundation of this house; his hands shall also complete it. Then you will know that the LORD of hosts has sent me to you.
10: For whoever has despised the day of small things shall rejoice, and shall see the plummet in the hand of Zerub'babel. "These seven are the eyes of the LORD, which range through the whole earth."
11: Then I said to him, "What are these two olive trees on the right and the left of the lampstand?"
12: And a second time I said to him, "What are these two branches of the olive trees, which are beside the two golden pipes from which the oil is poured out?"
13: He said to me, "Do you not know what these are?" I said, "No, my lord."
14: Then he said, "These are the two anointed who stand by the Lord of the whole earth."
Walking Down Our Road To Self-Discovery
In Jin Moon
June 20, 2010
Lovin' Life Ministries
On the morning of June 20, 2010, Lovin' Life Ministries Senior Pastor Rev. In Jin Moon spoke to congregants, which included participants of the Il-Shim Ceremony to take place that day, about the static that we can be hit with while walking down our road to self-discovery. After sharing about her own experiences in middle school, as well as a review of the movie: Little Miss Sunshine, it was expressed that the truly "cool" thing to do in life is to be your own person. Also, throughout this journey, the most important message parents can give to their children is to let them know it doesn't matter how much static they might encounter, "We, your father and mother and family, will always be there for you."
Good morning, brothers and sisters. How is everyone this Sunday? It's so good to see you again.
I see that there are lots of young faces here. I sense a little bit from the atmosphere that maybe quite a few of you were not too thrilled about waking up early and coming into the city, but I'm very happy that you came.
Here at the Manhattan Center we recently held a very beautiful and important event celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Korean War. We had the Little Angels with us. The Little Angels are truly great ambassadors for the country of Korea. Ever since our True Parents founded the Little Angels in 1962 and they started their first tour in 1965, they have really graced the world stage, b”
Good morning, brothers and sisters. How is everyone this Sunday? It's so good to see you again.
I see that there are lots of young faces here. I sense a little bit from the atmosphere that maybe quite a few of you were not too thrilled about waking up early and coming into the city, but I'm very happy that you came.
Here at the Manhattan Center we recently held a very beautiful and important event celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Korean War. We had the Little Angels with us. The Little Angels are truly great ambassadors for the country of Korea. Ever since our True Parents founded the Little Angels in 1962 and they started their first tour in 1965, they have really graced the world stage, b”
Good morning, brothers and sisters. How is everyone this Sunday? It's so good to see you again.
I see that there are lots of young faces here. I sense a little bit from the atmosphere that maybe quite a few of you were not too thrilled about waking up early and coming into the city, but I'm very happy that you came.
Here at the Manhattan Center we recently held a very beautiful and important event celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Korean War. We had the Little Angels with us. The Little Angels are truly great ambassadors for the country of Korea. Ever since our True Parents founded the Little Angels in 1962 and they started their first tour in 1965, they have really graced the world stage, b”
Good morning, brothers and sisters. How is everyone this Sunday? It's so good to see you again.
I see that there are lots of young faces here. I sense a little bit from the atmosphere that maybe quite a few of you were not too thrilled about waking up early and coming into the city, but I'm very happy that you came.
Here at the Manhattan Center we recently held a very beautiful and important event celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Korean War. We had the Little Angels with us. The Little Angels are truly great ambassadors for the country of Korea. Ever since our True Parents founded the Little Angels in 1962 and they started their first tour in 1965, they have really graced the world stage, bringing the beauty of Korea and artistry of song and dance to many dignitaries in many countries all around the world.
They are children ranging in age from 9 to 15, and you sometimes have to wonder: These are not professional dancers in the sense that that's all they do. They go to school, they work hard, and they will go to the best universities. But in the meantime they pursue their passion, which is song and dance. Through their artistry, they have a chance to represent their country of Korea on the world stage.
They are here in America as part of a thank-you tour to the 16 countries that sent troops as the Allied Forces that helped liberate our True Father from Hungnam prison many years ago. It was these Allied Forces that allowed Korea to be the kind of country that it is today, enjoying prosperity, democracy, and freedom. It's really because these young men and women gave up their lives fighting for freedom and democracy, fighting against communism.
I was commenting to my kids, "Mommy would not be here had it not been for those old men you see being honored on stage. These old veterans who need help to come on stage to receive their award of gratitude -- many of them with canes, some of them who can barely stand -- these men allowed me to exist because they saved my father." How indebted we need to be to this great country of America that allowed us the opportunity to have a life, an opportunity to raise a family and experience what building an ideal family is all about.
As I was watching the Little Angels perform, I came to realize once again how beautiful the Korean culture is. Korean dance is very different from, for instance, Japanese dance, in which the movements are almost minimal and very delicate. In Korean dance, the women are leaping and banging on the drums. I was thinking to myself, no wonder Korea was so attractive to all the surrounding countries. Japan and China kept invading Korea to take Korean women.
While watching, I was thinking how exciting this kind of dance must have been in the Victorian age, when people were excited to see a woman's ankles, and here are Korean women dancing up a storm (you can certainly see their ankles!) and in bright colors, with movements that are free and dynamic.
Father has often said that you can tell a lot about a particular culture when you watch its dances. South American dances, salsa, tango, are a very sensual type of dance. Korean dances are very passionate, dynamic, and action-oriented. This image of the Asian woman being a very coy, docile being gets thrown offstage when you see these beautiful, dynamic dances that represent the culture of Korea.
Yes, Korean women respect our elders, and yes, we are very mindful of our tradition. But we are very passionate people, and we're very dynamic people. I can see why the True Mother of humankind came from the country of Korea. When I think about my mother, she looks like an elegant wallflower, but beneath that elegance runs a volcano. She's quite a passionate woman. A lot of people think she doesn't have much to say, but when she says what she wants to say, she has quite a bit to say. The things that she says are quite profound. One can always garner so much wisdom from the little that she does share with the family.
Here we have our True parents with us, living and breathing with us. I think a lot of Second Generation, young ones in the audience who were dragged by their parents to come this morning, must be wondering, "What's all the excitement about True Parents? They're just two Asian people. One is well into his 90s, and they look like a beautiful, happy couple, but what's so special about them?"
What's so special about them is that through them you exist. It's through them that we, the Second Generation, exist. And it's through our True Parents that we have the opportunity to become a part of one family under God. It is through the holy blessing, the gift that they bring to the world, that allows your parents to graft onto the original olive branch, our True Parents, and to have wonderful, beautiful children like yourselves.
As a mother myself, when I gaze into my children's eyes, I have a lot of longings and expectations. I want them to be great people. And your parents are no different. When they look at you, they want you to be great people. They don't want you to have to go through what they did. I certainly don't want my children to go through what I've gone through. I want them to have a better life, and I'm sure your parents want you to have a better life.
So when they wake you up early Sunday morning (and I encourage all of you to take part in coming together as a community in honor of our Heavenly Parent), some of you must be wondering what's so important. What's important about this is that when we come together like this as a community and celebrate the beauty of our community in each other, it reminds us why we're here. It reminds us that we are eternal sons and daughters of God, and it reminds us, just as the Little Angels are beautiful ambassadors to the world on behalf of Korea, that we have a chance to be beautiful ambassadors to the world on behalf of our Heavenly Parent and our True Parents, who are with us today.
While watching the Little Angels I was reminded of a passage in the Bible, Zechariah 4:6, "Not by might nor by power but by my spirit." These beautiful children of Korea are becoming wonderful ambassadors of love and peace, not by might, not by power, but by bringing an expression of love, an expression of truth and beauty. That's what made their performance so profound.
For those of you taking part in the Il Shim graduation ceremony later on, this age is probably the most difficult time in your life in that while you're in middle school, a lot is changing in your life. You're not just going from elementary school and preparing for high school, but your bodies are changing. You're growing taller, being annoyed by acne, wondering whether you are attractive or strong, wondering what you are good at and what kind of a person you will be. Middle school is exactly that: You're in the middle of difficult time when there's a lot of static in the air.
I had an older brother who lived and breathed music. Wherever we were, he had to have something in his ears. When he was in the room, some music needed to be playing. In the car, he always had something on, the radio or his own tapes. When we would travel from East Garden to Gloucester or Provincetown, where Father spent a great deal of time in the summers, each time we went through different states my brother would be frantically trying to find a radio station, trying to get rid of the static on the radio to find a clear channel to listen to. Just as we'd near the border, the static would come back, and he would frantically look for another radio station to find that clear channel.
When you're in middle school, your life is like that. You're constantly being attacked by the static in the air. What is static? It's basically an electrical discharge in the atmosphere. What we're trying to do as receivers is get clear music into our system. But there's so much static, saying, "Look, you need to be cool. You need to hang out with only a certain type of people."
I remember being in middle school. I had a wonderful friend who didn't fit the mold of the people I would usually hang out with. One day one of my friends from the group said, "In Jin, you should not sit with that person at lunch." I said, "Why?" "Because that person doesn't look right." I said, "What do you mean, this person doesn't look right?" "That person doesn't dress right." I replied, "How does her dressing have anything to do with whether I can sit with her at lunch or not?" My friends said, "You can't be seen with that person because then you won't be cool."
I thought, "Why would I want to be cool?" This friend said to me, "We're friends because we're cool. You should not sit with that person because she is not cool." I said, "She's not cool just because of the clothes she wears?" She said, "Yes. You should not sit with that person." I remember in middle school I really had to think about this. Why can't you sit with the person you want to sit with? When you're having a stimulating conversation with someone, you want to sit with that person. But here was a group of my friends saying I could not sit with that person because then I would not be cool.
For me, that was huge bunch of static in the air. It took me a second or two to figure out what I wanted to do: whether being cool was so important, or wanting to be with that person to have a stimulating conversation was more important. Of course I opted to sit with the person because I enjoy a good conversation. But for that moment in time, there was static.
I don't know how many other times at school my friends would pressure me to do this or that. I would give them a simple answer, "I can't do that because my parents said I can't do that." There was a lot of static in the air, saying, "In Jin, be your own person. Be an adult. Make your own decisions. Do what I'm telling you to do. Make your own decisions. Don't listen to your parents. Listen to me."
This is the kind of pressure that friends put on each other. For young people who are trying to figure out who they are, or what they are, or the kind of people they want to be, friends wield a lot of power during that time. Your friends are saying, "Don't be a baby. Be an adult. Don't do what your parents always tell you. That's not cool. Disobey your parents. That's cool. Rebel." There's a lot of pressure to disobey your parents, or simply not follow your parents just because they're your parents, and to obey your friends because they're your friends and they're going to tell you what's cool and what's not.
If we really think about it, we don't want to obey our parents because that's not cool. We want to rebel against our parents. What our friends are telling us to do is to do exactly what our parents are asking us to do: Our friends are saying, "Obey me. Listen to me. Follow me," the very thing we don't want to do when we're looking at our parents.
With the wisdom of hindsight as we grow older, when we look back at our lives we realize how foolish those moments were and how seemingly important our friends were. Our friends become like God. Our friends take the place of our parents. Our peer group becomes like our God, and we end up obeying them. We end up doing things they encourage us to do, when truly the really cool thing to do in life, then and always, is to be your own person, to be who you are. The coolest thing in life is to be who you are. Who you are is eternal sons and daughters of God who share a common parent, our Heavenly Parent.
This Heavenly Parent gave us a wonderful life, an opportunity to practice living for the sake of others. And living for the sake of others really starts by understanding God as our Parent, our eternal Parent, and understanding our physical parents as God on earth. When we love our parents, we are loving God in heaven. What we aspire to with our Heavenly Parent is that we hope to have conversations with our Heavenly Parent; we hope to be embraced by our Heavenly Parent; we hope to be hugged by our Heavenly Parent.
But the wonderful thing about having parents in our lives is that we can have that physical conversation with our parents, and we can be embraced physically by our parents. We can be hugged, loved, and nurtured by our parents if we allow them to, if we realize that allowing our parents to love us is probably the coolest thing because when you allow your parents to love you, you're not letting the static in the environment tell you otherwise.
With my eldest son, we talk to each other as if we were boyfriend and girlfriend. I say, "Hello, my love," and over the phone he says, "Hello, my love." I know for a fact that when Krista was first getting to know Preston, and every time he answered the phone, "Hello, my love," she did a double-take, wondering, "Who is this 'love'? I thought I was his love." But that love is his mother, and I love my son more than just as my son. I adore him almost the same way young people love celebrities, who are like God to them. My children are like God to me in that I experience God through them each and every day.
Father and Mother hold hands when they walk down the street. In their generation, it's unheard of for a man and woman to hold hands walking down the street. It's unheard of in the Asian community of my father's generation to lean over and kiss my mother because she sings so beautifully. But he does. He loves my mother, and he shows us how to love a wife. That's such a beautiful thing.
I feel that often in our communities the children expect a lot from the parents, but the parents expect a lot from their children, too. The parents want their children to be perfect. They want their children to be problem free. They want their children almost to be robots -- go to elementary school, get straight As, have a wonderful passion, be great in artistry, go on to the best universities, never fight with their siblings, always be respectful toward the parents, always clean up their room, put the vacuum away, do the dishes, take out the garbage, get a job, and work hard. This is what we expect from our children.
We don't expect our children to have emotional issues. We don't expect our children to experience some bumps on the road to self-discovery. We don't want our children to fall down and skin their knees spiritually or physically. There's a whole lot of expectation on both sides.
Whenever I think about the family, a beautiful gem of a movie comes to mind called Little Miss Sunshine. It's an indie type of movie, in that it's not a blockbuster or Terminator-type of action-packed movie. But it paints the picture of what a lot of families in the world are like. It starts off with a woman going to visit her brother in the hospital who is just recovering from a suicide attempt. It starts on this somber note, and slowly it unfolds to reveal what kind of family this woman has.
You realize the mother trying her best to raise her family: very busy about the home and about the things that she needs to be scheduling, taking the children to the dentist, and so on. You learn that the father is a motivational speaker. When I saw the father figure, I thought about our blessed children. Here is a father so good at presenting his PowerPoint, with his nine points that he gives all the time. Many of the blessed children are raised in a family like this, each father with his nine points, teaching about the Divine Principle. Many times we lectured our kids. We taught our kids via PowerPoint, and we were so busy showing the children our presentation of our knowledge that maybe we didn't really listen to what they were going through, or what they are capable of learning, or what they are capable of being taught.
In the movie, these are all good people in the sense that they're trying their best at life. You can see the father trying to hone his craft because he wants to be a success and be able to support his family. He's very hard at work, and his intention is good. But as the picture unfolds and you see where the kids are, you realize it's a highly dysfunctional family. Both the father and mother are very busy, but nobody is really in tune with what the children's needs are.
When they gather for a family dinner, a grandfather is there almost like comic relief. The parents are busy, and the son is busy in the process of discovering Nietzsche, so he has determined he is not going to speak. He sits there, not saying anything. He goes through the day not saying anything. That's how he makes his presence felt, by taking away the power of speech. The power of speech is important in the relationship between a parent and a child. So what does this child do? Simply takes it away, and in that way controls his environment because that environment is not amenable to what he needs in his life at that moment.
The son is very much a Gothic figure, dressed in black. His hair is black, and his pale face is juxtaposed against this, making you wonder where the colors are in his soul. He's very extreme, very black and white. That's what a lot of adolescents are when they're going through this difficult time. They're very black and white, and they have yet to discover the other colors of the rainbow or the wisdom that comes later in life from knowing there are many shades of gray in life to enjoy.
The daughter is a beautiful, effervescent girl in the midst of this family. The family suddenly gets excited because she gets word that she has become a finalist in a beauty contest for little girls. The family goes back and forth about the details of how they'll get there. The father has schedules, and the mother is busy, so who's going to take the child? In the end they all decide to go as a family to support this child.
It's a tale about the journey that this family takes because the daughter is a finalist in this competition. And you see how the family grows together, overcoming the obstacles in their path. One of their obstacles happens to be the van that they're in. The van has troubles, so there are some hysterics involved. It won't start without a running jump-start; everybody has to push the car and then jump in once it gets started. Or the car's horn breaks, so you have this van with a dysfunctional family rolling down the highway, honking at everybody at the most inopportune moments.
We in the audience are watching this family and laughing. I had to peel myself off the floor. The audience develops a certain bond with this family because although they're so weird and so dysfunctional, and yet, very weirdly, like us many times, we can see pockets of what we are like in these people.
They finally arrive at the beauty competition. All these little girls are dressed up like Barbie. They're programmed and taught to sing like an adult, to dance like an adult, to act gracefully. But the daughter is anything but the typical beauty pageant type. She's not thin, not what you would call glamorous, but beautiful in her own way. She's very different.
The other contestants are dressed up in these frou-frou frocks, and she comes out wearing a man's suit. Even in that regard she's very different. But as dysfunctional as her family is, just the fact that she has her whole family there with her -- though she's the only one wearing a tie and a suit, and the other girls are wearing dresses, and she feels unsure -- when she gazes out into the audience and sees her parents, then she's confident once again.
She regains her composure, and after the other girls do their numbers, she goes out and does her dance. Her number was choreographed by her grandfather, who passed away during this trip. When the music starts and she begins dancing, you realize that the choreography the grandfather prepared for her to perform at the pageant is a strip-tease dance. The music begins, the girl comes out, and she so confidently starts taking off her tie, whirling her jacket before she flings it into the air. While the other girls before her were doing very proper dances, she comes out and starts reaching like an animal, like this, over the audience.
The audience is absolutely shocked, and the judges are horrified, looking at each other as if to say, "Who is going to get this girl off the stage?" No one knows what to do, and she keeps on going because this is the dance that her grandfather taught her and she is going to deliver it properly. She's going, going, going, grabbing for the judges, for the audience, and everyone is aghast. Finally her family realizes what's going on. The father, who is so into the proper way of doing things, realizes that his daughter is in an awkward moment, gets up on stage, makes a total fool of himself, and starts dancing along with her. The other members of the family, including the suicidal uncle, get up on stage. All the members of her family end up on stage, making total fools of themselves. It's a common denominator of, "We are a family and we're going to stick together. As weird as these contestants might think we are, we're not going to let our child do this alone. We're going to do it together."
The next scene is the whole family sitting at the police station; the competition organizers are seen through the glass door, talking animatedly, pointing at them. The family just sits there in a somber way. The pageant organizer comes out and says, "You are forbidden to ever enter a beauty competition in this state." And the family is totally fine with that. Then off they go.
At that moment, of course, it's funny to think that a young child intends to perform some strip-tease choreography at a beauty pageant competition for little girls. But the family rallied around her, not letting her fall flat on her face, and made fools of themselves. They made it a family event. In that moment, this dysfunctional family actually becomes functional because then they realize how much they mean to each other, how much they love each other.
Toward the end of the movie the advocate of the new-founded Nietzsche religion goes through a process. During the journey home, the family gets into a bit of a brawl, and he finally erupts, running out of the van, shouting obscenities to his parents. What does the mother do? She wants to reach out to this boy, so she follows him to where he's sitting by the side of the road, refusing to get back in the van. She tries to talk to him, but nothing is going in. Again, here is a boy who has given up on words. But out of his anger explodes a waterfall of negative words toward his parents. But his parents come back, trying to comfort him and redirect him with words, and nothing is going in.
The mother, becoming despondent and realizing she cannot reach this boy, slowly walks back to the car. After some time, the little sister, little Miss Sunshine, slowly walks over to her brother. She doesn't say a thing but sits next to him, leans into him, and puts her head on his shoulder. That simple act of touch (again, the healing power of the human touch) is what this adolescent boy needed. He did not need words. He did not need to be taught. He did not need to be educated or redirected.
Often what a child or adolescent is asking for when they rebel is that simple power of the healing touch of a parent or a loved one. When her head touched his shoulder, that simple gesture totally melted all his anger, all his frustration, all the walls that he built up around himself. You see him slowly turn his head toward her, "listening" to that gesture much, much more powerfully than to any words. And he slowly picks her up and carries her back to the family van.
That simple visual imagery is profound. Many times we parents are so frustrated, so overcome with grief because we just do not know how to reach our teenage children. We assault them with a barrage of words: maybe not well-chosen words like "I love you; I want you; I need you in my life." Often we give them a Niagara Falls of what we want to convey, and we wonder why nothing goes in.
In a poignant way this movie sends a message to parents that words are incredibly important. They are vehicles of emotion, but often we put our words in overdrive and therefore nothing goes in. When we find ourselves having overdriven over our children, then the most effective way of reaching out is that simple touch, walking up behind them and giving them a big hug without saying anything. Or holding their hand just to let them know that we're there and we're going to love them, no matter what. We're going to be there for them, no matter what. Just as we ourselves, when we were young, went through a period of driving through different states, constantly fidgeting with the radio, trying to get the static out of our lives so we can hear that pure, clear music, let's give our children the space so they can do the same.
The most important message we can give to our children is to let them know it doesn't matter how many states they drive through, or how much static they might encounter on that drive. "We, your father and mother and family, will always be there for you. We will never go away. Once we are put together as a family, we will always be a family. We may go in different directions, we may do different things, but we will always be there for you."
As you go through your growth period, the only thing that your parents would like to ask you to realize about yourselves is: "You may not realize how beautiful and great you are. You may not realize that you're an incredible butterfly that will take flight one day. You might be so unsure of ourselves, so insecure, so unconfident because your bodies are growing in strange ways that you do not understand and lots of changes are taking place that make you feel confused."
But if we can maintain a clear channel to God and our True Parents, they will help us be that great person. We have to be patient with ourselves. There's no need to be an adult when you are 12 or 13. Enjoy being 12 and 13. The time will never come again. Enjoy being 14, 15, or 16. You have your whole life ahead of you to do everything you want to do. You don't need it now. You don't need it immediately. There is beauty in waiting for something wonderful.
Part of the reason your family dragged you here this morning is because the beauty of the Il Shim ceremony is that it celebrates the preparation for the blessing. The blessing is so beautiful in that there's nothing more romantic than to dream about finding that eternal partner whom you will love and who's going to love you as a daughter or a son of God, not as a body part, not just wanting to be with you because you're cool. That person is making a commitment to God, humanity, and you because he or she realizes how incredibly valuable you are.
You all are like the rough-cut diamonds of rare beauty that need time to be made into a brilliant gem that is set in a beautiful ring that symbolizes eternity. There is something beautiful about something eternal and the word forever. The other people who become master daters by the time they graduate from high school can never really have a meaningful relationship because they've been trained their whole life to become great daters but not a great husband or a great wife. They have not been trained to be great parents. And people wonder why the world has so many problems!
The Il Shim ceremony is a preparation for a wonderful gift that you will have in the future, called the blessing. Having this permission from God to love someone eternally is a beautiful thing. It's a romantic thing as we move forward as a community, looking forward to the Third and Fourth Generations to come.
One of the things that we need to be vigilant about is not just teaching or professing to the world the virtues of our community but really celebrating everything we believe in and doing what we're talking about. Don't come to church just to hear me speak. You know exactly what you need to do. I'm not here to teach. I am simply here to remind all of you how precious and how awesome each and every one of you are. I am here to remind you that you are the eternal sons and daughters of God, that you have infinite and precious value.
The greatest gift you can give to each other is the gift of love. How wonderful would it be to save this love for somebody special? That's the only thing your parents are encouraging you to do. They've lived a little bit more than you; they've experienced a little bit more than you. They've probably gone through a lot of heartache and they want you to have a life that's better, that's more beautiful and meaningful.
So love your parents. Give your parents their due respect because it's through them that you are who you are. You are blessed children because of them, because of their sacrifice, because they found True Parents. Live your lives and honor them.
Also, the parents, please give your children a little room to grow. Please be a great support system, but at the same time give them a little room to grow. Give them a little room to explore and to ask questions while they have you guiding them every step of the way. Don't be so hard on them because life is not that easy for kids. We had our difficulties, but for their generation, it's pretty tough out there. Perhaps we can listen. Perhaps we can practice the healing art of touch more. As we articulate how much we love and care about them and as we try our best to guide them through difficult moments in our lives, perhaps the movie Little Miss Sunshine can remind us that sometimes a lot more is said by our gestures and actions.
If we can keep these things in mind and allow each one of us, young and old, to find ourselves to be those special people, I think we can be a really awesome movement. We need to know that we are incredibly lucky to have our True Parents here. As our True Parents continue onward in trying to bring one family under God, our movement is going through a lot of transitional phases and difficulties, maybe with some points of confusion. But the most important thing we need to realize is the importance and centrality of our True Parents, especially how they have passed the baton to the youngest son of the family, Hyung Jin, as the spiritual head of the movement.
We need to understand that our True Parents are not being replaced by another or a younger true parents, Hyung Jin's couple. We need to understand that the concept of True Parents is eternal, just like the concept of God is eternal. It is the job of the children, those of us in the True Family, to live our lives in honor of our True Parents so that we can become parents of our own. But there is one and only one True Parents. We need to understand very clearly that when Father talks about creating this one family under God, it will not be accomplished by any of the service organizations that exist in our church. It will not be done by CARP, by the Women's Federation, by Universal Peace Federation or Global Peace Festival. It will not be done by American Clergy Leadership Conference. All these organizations want to practice living for the sake of others, and they are service organizations. But we will not save the world through service alone.
The way our True Parents are going to save the world is through the process and the gift of the holy blessing. Only our True Parents have that right, the privilege, and the honor of administering the holy blessing, and that is why, for the first time in our lives, we can have true love, true life, and true lineage. That's why our True Parents are incredibly important. That's why we are not just a movement. The sacrament of marriage is something that belongs to a church.
A lot of people are saying, "We don't need the church. All we need is a service organization. We don't need tradition." But our tradition is a heavenly tradition, and our tradition is one of True Parents in that here we are to substantiate true love, true life, and true lineage. Lineage is what was missing when Jesus was crucified 2,000 years ago. And it is lineage that our True Parents have come to share with the rest of the world. It is through the lineage that we become one family under God. We become one family not by just doing good works. We become one family through marriage, brothers and sisters. Krista became a member of my family not just because she was doing good works for Lovin' Life Ministry as a volunteer. She became a part of my family through marriage.
The beauty of the holy blessing, and the reason why international blessings are such an integral part of the peace-building process, is because that's how we become one family under God. It encompasses all the diverse cultures, all the different religions, all the different traditions. It is through marriage and through the power and the digestive process of love that allows the world to exist as one family. That is why we need our True Parents.
As important as it is to develop our own individual relationship with God in heaven, it is only the original olive branch that allows us to have the opportunity to substantiate true lineage. That's why we cannot do without True Parents. That's why our True Parents, when they anointed the youngest son to continue making the true holy blessing available to the world, chose someone from a religious background. It has to be somebody who represents the church, who represents the tradition, who is going to administer the holy blessing continually, even if our True Parents are not here.
That is the wisdom in why our True Father has chosen the youngest son as the center of the family and as the spiritual head. He comes with seven years of spiritual dedication and a foundation in being the kind of minister that is going to usher in a new millennium of peace. His character is not one of might or power, but it's one of the spirit. It's one that talks, expresses, and shares about truth, love, and beauty, and that's what we need in order to have a peaceful world.
Brothers and sisters, we need to understand that our True Parents will guide us until their last breath and will guide us even more effectively in the other world. And through their representative, who is the youngest son of the family, we will come to substantiate this true world of peace that we're talking about.
So do not be confused. Let us be clear that as we continue to do great work, and as ACLC continues to do great work with the ministers, and as UPF and GPF continue to do great work through service, and as CARP continues to do great work by becoming ambassadors for our True Parents and by providing service, really living for the sake of others on campus, let us not be confused about why our True Parents and why our Unification Church and why being a Unificationist are probably the coolest things around. For the first time in history we have the breaking news in our True Parents, and we have a chance to experience in the flesh what it's like to have the wonderful family that God wanted all along.
So be patient and give yourself room to grow. Look forward to that beautiful day when you will become a beautiful butterfly. But in the meantime, let's all work on ourselves. Instead of being a community that focuses on what we're doing wrong, how wonderful would it be if we become a community where we complement each other's strengths and where we talk about how wonderful it is to have the other in our lives? There is nothing greater than having w
In Jin Moon
June 20, 2010
Lovin' Life Ministries
On the morning of June 20, 2010, Lovin' Life Ministries Senior Pastor Rev. In Jin Moon spoke to congregants, which included participants of the Il-Shim Ceremony to take place that day, about the static that we can be hit with while walking down our road to self-discovery. After sharing about her own experiences in middle school, as well as a review of the movie: Little Miss Sunshine, it was expressed that the truly "cool" thing to do in life is to be your own person. Also, throughout this journey, the most important message parents can give to their children is to let them know it doesn't matter how much static they might encounter, "We, your father and mother and family, will always be there for you."
Good morning, brothers and sisters. How is everyone this Sunday? It's so good to see you again.
I see that there are lots of young faces here. I sense a little bit from the atmosphere that maybe quite a few of you were not too thrilled about waking up early and coming into the city, but I'm very happy that you came.
Here at the Manhattan Center we recently held a very beautiful and important event celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Korean War. We had the Little Angels with us. The Little Angels are truly great ambassadors for the country of Korea. Ever since our True Parents founded the Little Angels in 1962 and they started their first tour in 1965, they have really graced the world stage, bringing the beauty of Korea and artistry of song and dance to many dignitaries in many countries all around the world.
They are children ranging in age from 9 to 15, and you sometimes have to wonder: These are not professional dancers in the sense that that's all they do. They go to school, they work hard, and they will go to the best universities. But in the meantime they pursue their passion, which is song and dance. Through their artistry, they have a chance to represent their country of Korea on the world stage.
They are here in America as part of a thank-you tour to the 16 countries that sent troops as the Allied Forces that helped liberate our True Father from Hungnam prison many years ago. It was these Allied Forces that allowed Korea to be the kind of country that it is today, enjoying prosperity, democracy, and freedom. It's really because these young men and women gave up their lives fighting for freedom and democracy, fighting against communism.
I was commenting to my kids, "Mommy would not be here had it not been for those old men you see being honored on stage. These old veterans who need help to come on stage to receive their award of gratitude -- many of them with canes, some of them who can barely stand -- these men allowed me to exist because they saved my father." How indebted we need to be to this great country of America that allowed us the opportunity to have a life, an opportunity to raise a family and experience what building an ideal family is all about.
As I was watching the Little Angels perform, I came to realize once again how beautiful the Korean culture is. Korean dance is very different from, for instance, Japanese dance, in which the movements are almost minimal and very delicate. In Korean dance, the women are leaping and banging on the drums. I was thinking to myself, no wonder Korea was so attractive to all the surrounding countries. Japan and China kept invading Korea to take Korean women.
While watching, I was thinking how exciting this kind of dance must have been in the Victorian age, when people were excited to see a woman's ankles, and here are Korean women dancing up a storm (you can certainly see their ankles!) and in bright colors, with movements that are free and dynamic.
Father has often said that you can tell a lot about a particular culture when you watch its dances. South American dances, salsa, tango, are a very sensual type of dance. Korean dances are very passionate, dynamic, and action-oriented. This image of the Asian woman being a very coy, docile being gets thrown offstage when you see these beautiful, dynamic dances that represent the culture of Korea.
Yes, Korean women respect our elders, and yes, we are very mindful of our tradition. But we are very passionate people, and we're very dynamic people. I can see why the True Mother of humankind came from the country of Korea. When I think about my mother, she looks like an elegant wallflower, but beneath that elegance runs a volcano. She's quite a passionate woman. A lot of people think she doesn't have much to say, but when she says what she wants to say, she has quite a bit to say. The things that she says are quite profound. One can always garner so much wisdom from the little that she does share with the family.
Here we have our True parents with us, living and breathing with us. I think a lot of Second Generation, young ones in the audience who were dragged by their parents to come this morning, must be wondering, "What's all the excitement about True Parents? They're just two Asian people. One is well into his 90s, and they look like a beautiful, happy couple, but what's so special about them?"
What's so special about them is that through them you exist. It's through them that we, the Second Generation, exist. And it's through our True Parents that we have the opportunity to become a part of one family under God. It is through the holy blessing, the gift that they bring to the world, that allows your parents to graft onto the original olive branch, our True Parents, and to have wonderful, beautiful children like yourselves.
As a mother myself, when I gaze into my children's eyes, I have a lot of longings and expectations. I want them to be great people. And your parents are no different. When they look at you, they want you to be great people. They don't want you to have to go through what they did. I certainly don't want my children to go through what I've gone through. I want them to have a better life, and I'm sure your parents want you to have a better life.
So when they wake you up early Sunday morning (and I encourage all of you to take part in coming together as a community in honor of our Heavenly Parent), some of you must be wondering what's so important. What's important about this is that when we come together like this as a community and celebrate the beauty of our community in each other, it reminds us why we're here. It reminds us that we are eternal sons and daughters of God, and it reminds us, just as the Little Angels are beautiful ambassadors to the world on behalf of Korea, that we have a chance to be beautiful ambassadors to the world on behalf of our Heavenly Parent and our True Parents, who are with us today.
While watching the Little Angels I was reminded of a passage in the Bible, Zechariah 4:6, "Not by might nor by power but by my spirit." These beautiful children of Korea are becoming wonderful ambassadors of love and peace, not by might, not by power, but by bringing an expression of love, an expression of truth and beauty. That's what made their performance so profound.
For those of you taking part in the Il Shim graduation ceremony later on, this age is probably the most difficult time in your life in that while you're in middle school, a lot is changing in your life. You're not just going from elementary school and preparing for high school, but your bodies are changing. You're growing taller, being annoyed by acne, wondering whether you are attractive or strong, wondering what you are good at and what kind of a person you will be. Middle school is exactly that: You're in the middle of difficult time when there's a lot of static in the air.
I had an older brother who lived and breathed music. Wherever we were, he had to have something in his ears. When he was in the room, some music needed to be playing. In the car, he always had something on, the radio or his own tapes. When we would travel from East Garden to Gloucester or Provincetown, where Father spent a great deal of time in the summers, each time we went through different states my brother would be frantically trying to find a radio station, trying to get rid of the static on the radio to find a clear channel to listen to. Just as we'd near the border, the static would come back, and he would frantically look for another radio station to find that clear channel.
When you're in middle school, your life is like that. You're constantly being attacked by the static in the air. What is static? It's basically an electrical discharge in the atmosphere. What we're trying to do as receivers is get clear music into our system. But there's so much static, saying, "Look, you need to be cool. You need to hang out with only a certain type of people."
I remember being in middle school. I had a wonderful friend who didn't fit the mold of the people I would usually hang out with. One day one of my friends from the group said, "In Jin, you should not sit with that person at lunch." I said, "Why?" "Because that person doesn't look right." I said, "What do you mean, this person doesn't look right?" "That person doesn't dress right." I replied, "How does her dressing have anything to do with whether I can sit with her at lunch or not?" My friends said, "You can't be seen with that person because then you won't be cool."
I thought, "Why would I want to be cool?" This friend said to me, "We're friends because we're cool. You should not sit with that person because she is not cool." I said, "She's not cool just because of the clothes she wears?" She said, "Yes. You should not sit with that person." I remember in middle school I really had to think about this. Why can't you sit with the person you want to sit with? When you're having a stimulating conversation with someone, you want to sit with that person. But here was a group of my friends saying I could not sit with that person because then I would not be cool.
For me, that was huge bunch of static in the air. It took me a second or two to figure out what I wanted to do: whether being cool was so important, or wanting to be with that person to have a stimulating conversation was more important. Of course I opted to sit with the person because I enjoy a good conversation. But for that moment in time, there was static.
I don't know how many other times at school my friends would pressure me to do this or that. I would give them a simple answer, "I can't do that because my parents said I can't do that." There was a lot of static in the air, saying, "In Jin, be your own person. Be an adult. Make your own decisions. Do what I'm telling you to do. Make your own decisions. Don't listen to your parents. Listen to me."
This is the kind of pressure that friends put on each other. For young people who are trying to figure out who they are, or what they are, or the kind of people they want to be, friends wield a lot of power during that time. Your friends are saying, "Don't be a baby. Be an adult. Don't do what your parents always tell you. That's not cool. Disobey your parents. That's cool. Rebel." There's a lot of pressure to disobey your parents, or simply not follow your parents just because they're your parents, and to obey your friends because they're your friends and they're going to tell you what's cool and what's not.
If we really think about it, we don't want to obey our parents because that's not cool. We want to rebel against our parents. What our friends are telling us to do is to do exactly what our parents are asking us to do: Our friends are saying, "Obey me. Listen to me. Follow me," the very thing we don't want to do when we're looking at our parents.
With the wisdom of hindsight as we grow older, when we look back at our lives we realize how foolish those moments were and how seemingly important our friends were. Our friends become like God. Our friends take the place of our parents. Our peer group becomes like our God, and we end up obeying them. We end up doing things they encourage us to do, when truly the really cool thing to do in life, then and always, is to be your own person, to be who you are. The coolest thing in life is to be who you are. Who you are is eternal sons and daughters of God who share a common parent, our Heavenly Parent.
This Heavenly Parent gave us a wonderful life, an opportunity to practice living for the sake of others. And living for the sake of others really starts by understanding God as our Parent, our eternal Parent, and understanding our physical parents as God on earth. When we love our parents, we are loving God in heaven. What we aspire to with our Heavenly Parent is that we hope to have conversations with our Heavenly Parent; we hope to be embraced by our Heavenly Parent; we hope to be hugged by our Heavenly Parent.
But the wonderful thing about having parents in our lives is that we can have that physical conversation with our parents, and we can be embraced physically by our parents. We can be hugged, loved, and nurtured by our parents if we allow them to, if we realize that allowing our parents to love us is probably the coolest thing because when you allow your parents to love you, you're not letting the static in the environment tell you otherwise.
With my eldest son, we talk to each other as if we were boyfriend and girlfriend. I say, "Hello, my love," and over the phone he says, "Hello, my love." I know for a fact that when Krista was first getting to know Preston, and every time he answered the phone, "Hello, my love," she did a double-take, wondering, "Who is this 'love'? I thought I was his love." But that love is his mother, and I love my son more than just as my son. I adore him almost the same way young people love celebrities, who are like God to them. My children are like God to me in that I experience God through them each and every day.
Father and Mother hold hands when they walk down the street. In their generation, it's unheard of for a man and woman to hold hands walking down the street. It's unheard of in the Asian community of my father's generation to lean over and kiss my mother because she sings so beautifully. But he does. He loves my mother, and he shows us how to love a wife. That's such a beautiful thing.
I feel that often in our communities the children expect a lot from the parents, but the parents expect a lot from their children, too. The parents want their children to be perfect. They want their children to be problem free. They want their children almost to be robots -- go to elementary school, get straight As, have a wonderful passion, be great in artistry, go on to the best universities, never fight with their siblings, always be respectful toward the parents, always clean up their room, put the vacuum away, do the dishes, take out the garbage, get a job, and work hard. This is what we expect from our children.
We don't expect our children to have emotional issues. We don't expect our children to experience some bumps on the road to self-discovery. We don't want our children to fall down and skin their knees spiritually or physically. There's a whole lot of expectation on both sides.
Whenever I think about the family, a beautiful gem of a movie comes to mind called Little Miss Sunshine. It's an indie type of movie, in that it's not a blockbuster or Terminator-type of action-packed movie. But it paints the picture of what a lot of families in the world are like. It starts off with a woman going to visit her brother in the hospital who is just recovering from a suicide attempt. It starts on this somber note, and slowly it unfolds to reveal what kind of family this woman has.
You realize the mother trying her best to raise her family: very busy about the home and about the things that she needs to be scheduling, taking the children to the dentist, and so on. You learn that the father is a motivational speaker. When I saw the father figure, I thought about our blessed children. Here is a father so good at presenting his PowerPoint, with his nine points that he gives all the time. Many of the blessed children are raised in a family like this, each father with his nine points, teaching about the Divine Principle. Many times we lectured our kids. We taught our kids via PowerPoint, and we were so busy showing the children our presentation of our knowledge that maybe we didn't really listen to what they were going through, or what they are capable of learning, or what they are capable of being taught.
In the movie, these are all good people in the sense that they're trying their best at life. You can see the father trying to hone his craft because he wants to be a success and be able to support his family. He's very hard at work, and his intention is good. But as the picture unfolds and you see where the kids are, you realize it's a highly dysfunctional family. Both the father and mother are very busy, but nobody is really in tune with what the children's needs are.
When they gather for a family dinner, a grandfather is there almost like comic relief. The parents are busy, and the son is busy in the process of discovering Nietzsche, so he has determined he is not going to speak. He sits there, not saying anything. He goes through the day not saying anything. That's how he makes his presence felt, by taking away the power of speech. The power of speech is important in the relationship between a parent and a child. So what does this child do? Simply takes it away, and in that way controls his environment because that environment is not amenable to what he needs in his life at that moment.
The son is very much a Gothic figure, dressed in black. His hair is black, and his pale face is juxtaposed against this, making you wonder where the colors are in his soul. He's very extreme, very black and white. That's what a lot of adolescents are when they're going through this difficult time. They're very black and white, and they have yet to discover the other colors of the rainbow or the wisdom that comes later in life from knowing there are many shades of gray in life to enjoy.
The daughter is a beautiful, effervescent girl in the midst of this family. The family suddenly gets excited because she gets word that she has become a finalist in a beauty contest for little girls. The family goes back and forth about the details of how they'll get there. The father has schedules, and the mother is busy, so who's going to take the child? In the end they all decide to go as a family to support this child.
It's a tale about the journey that this family takes because the daughter is a finalist in this competition. And you see how the family grows together, overcoming the obstacles in their path. One of their obstacles happens to be the van that they're in. The van has troubles, so there are some hysterics involved. It won't start without a running jump-start; everybody has to push the car and then jump in once it gets started. Or the car's horn breaks, so you have this van with a dysfunctional family rolling down the highway, honking at everybody at the most inopportune moments.
We in the audience are watching this family and laughing. I had to peel myself off the floor. The audience develops a certain bond with this family because although they're so weird and so dysfunctional, and yet, very weirdly, like us many times, we can see pockets of what we are like in these people.
They finally arrive at the beauty competition. All these little girls are dressed up like Barbie. They're programmed and taught to sing like an adult, to dance like an adult, to act gracefully. But the daughter is anything but the typical beauty pageant type. She's not thin, not what you would call glamorous, but beautiful in her own way. She's very different.
The other contestants are dressed up in these frou-frou frocks, and she comes out wearing a man's suit. Even in that regard she's very different. But as dysfunctional as her family is, just the fact that she has her whole family there with her -- though she's the only one wearing a tie and a suit, and the other girls are wearing dresses, and she feels unsure -- when she gazes out into the audience and sees her parents, then she's confident once again.
She regains her composure, and after the other girls do their numbers, she goes out and does her dance. Her number was choreographed by her grandfather, who passed away during this trip. When the music starts and she begins dancing, you realize that the choreography the grandfather prepared for her to perform at the pageant is a strip-tease dance. The music begins, the girl comes out, and she so confidently starts taking off her tie, whirling her jacket before she flings it into the air. While the other girls before her were doing very proper dances, she comes out and starts reaching like an animal, like this, over the audience.
The audience is absolutely shocked, and the judges are horrified, looking at each other as if to say, "Who is going to get this girl off the stage?" No one knows what to do, and she keeps on going because this is the dance that her grandfather taught her and she is going to deliver it properly. She's going, going, going, grabbing for the judges, for the audience, and everyone is aghast. Finally her family realizes what's going on. The father, who is so into the proper way of doing things, realizes that his daughter is in an awkward moment, gets up on stage, makes a total fool of himself, and starts dancing along with her. The other members of the family, including the suicidal uncle, get up on stage. All the members of her family end up on stage, making total fools of themselves. It's a common denominator of, "We are a family and we're going to stick together. As weird as these contestants might think we are, we're not going to let our child do this alone. We're going to do it together."
The next scene is the whole family sitting at the police station; the competition organizers are seen through the glass door, talking animatedly, pointing at them. The family just sits there in a somber way. The pageant organizer comes out and says, "You are forbidden to ever enter a beauty competition in this state." And the family is totally fine with that. Then off they go.
At that moment, of course, it's funny to think that a young child intends to perform some strip-tease choreography at a beauty pageant competition for little girls. But the family rallied around her, not letting her fall flat on her face, and made fools of themselves. They made it a family event. In that moment, this dysfunctional family actually becomes functional because then they realize how much they mean to each other, how much they love each other.
Toward the end of the movie the advocate of the new-founded Nietzsche religion goes through a process. During the journey home, the family gets into a bit of a brawl, and he finally erupts, running out of the van, shouting obscenities to his parents. What does the mother do? She wants to reach out to this boy, so she follows him to where he's sitting by the side of the road, refusing to get back in the van. She tries to talk to him, but nothing is going in. Again, here is a boy who has given up on words. But out of his anger explodes a waterfall of negative words toward his parents. But his parents come back, trying to comfort him and redirect him with words, and nothing is going in.
The mother, becoming despondent and realizing she cannot reach this boy, slowly walks back to the car. After some time, the little sister, little Miss Sunshine, slowly walks over to her brother. She doesn't say a thing but sits next to him, leans into him, and puts her head on his shoulder. That simple act of touch (again, the healing power of the human touch) is what this adolescent boy needed. He did not need words. He did not need to be taught. He did not need to be educated or redirected.
Often what a child or adolescent is asking for when they rebel is that simple power of the healing touch of a parent or a loved one. When her head touched his shoulder, that simple gesture totally melted all his anger, all his frustration, all the walls that he built up around himself. You see him slowly turn his head toward her, "listening" to that gesture much, much more powerfully than to any words. And he slowly picks her up and carries her back to the family van.
That simple visual imagery is profound. Many times we parents are so frustrated, so overcome with grief because we just do not know how to reach our teenage children. We assault them with a barrage of words: maybe not well-chosen words like "I love you; I want you; I need you in my life." Often we give them a Niagara Falls of what we want to convey, and we wonder why nothing goes in.
In a poignant way this movie sends a message to parents that words are incredibly important. They are vehicles of emotion, but often we put our words in overdrive and therefore nothing goes in. When we find ourselves having overdriven over our children, then the most effective way of reaching out is that simple touch, walking up behind them and giving them a big hug without saying anything. Or holding their hand just to let them know that we're there and we're going to love them, no matter what. We're going to be there for them, no matter what. Just as we ourselves, when we were young, went through a period of driving through different states, constantly fidgeting with the radio, trying to get the static out of our lives so we can hear that pure, clear music, let's give our children the space so they can do the same.
The most important message we can give to our children is to let them know it doesn't matter how many states they drive through, or how much static they might encounter on that drive. "We, your father and mother and family, will always be there for you. We will never go away. Once we are put together as a family, we will always be a family. We may go in different directions, we may do different things, but we will always be there for you."
As you go through your growth period, the only thing that your parents would like to ask you to realize about yourselves is: "You may not realize how beautiful and great you are. You may not realize that you're an incredible butterfly that will take flight one day. You might be so unsure of ourselves, so insecure, so unconfident because your bodies are growing in strange ways that you do not understand and lots of changes are taking place that make you feel confused."
But if we can maintain a clear channel to God and our True Parents, they will help us be that great person. We have to be patient with ourselves. There's no need to be an adult when you are 12 or 13. Enjoy being 12 and 13. The time will never come again. Enjoy being 14, 15, or 16. You have your whole life ahead of you to do everything you want to do. You don't need it now. You don't need it immediately. There is beauty in waiting for something wonderful.
Part of the reason your family dragged you here this morning is because the beauty of the Il Shim ceremony is that it celebrates the preparation for the blessing. The blessing is so beautiful in that there's nothing more romantic than to dream about finding that eternal partner whom you will love and who's going to love you as a daughter or a son of God, not as a body part, not just wanting to be with you because you're cool. That person is making a commitment to God, humanity, and you because he or she realizes how incredibly valuable you are.
You all are like the rough-cut diamonds of rare beauty that need time to be made into a brilliant gem that is set in a beautiful ring that symbolizes eternity. There is something beautiful about something eternal and the word forever. The other people who become master daters by the time they graduate from high school can never really have a meaningful relationship because they've been trained their whole life to become great daters but not a great husband or a great wife. They have not been trained to be great parents. And people wonder why the world has so many problems!
The Il Shim ceremony is a preparation for a wonderful gift that you will have in the future, called the blessing. Having this permission from God to love someone eternally is a beautiful thing. It's a romantic thing as we move forward as a community, looking forward to the Third and Fourth Generations to come.
One of the things that we need to be vigilant about is not just teaching or professing to the world the virtues of our community but really celebrating everything we believe in and doing what we're talking about. Don't come to church just to hear me speak. You know exactly what you need to do. I'm not here to teach. I am simply here to remind all of you how precious and how awesome each and every one of you are. I am here to remind you that you are the eternal sons and daughters of God, that you have infinite and precious value.
The greatest gift you can give to each other is the gift of love. How wonderful would it be to save this love for somebody special? That's the only thing your parents are encouraging you to do. They've lived a little bit more than you; they've experienced a little bit more than you. They've probably gone through a lot of heartache and they want you to have a life that's better, that's more beautiful and meaningful.
So love your parents. Give your parents their due respect because it's through them that you are who you are. You are blessed children because of them, because of their sacrifice, because they found True Parents. Live your lives and honor them.
Also, the parents, please give your children a little room to grow. Please be a great support system, but at the same time give them a little room to grow. Give them a little room to explore and to ask questions while they have you guiding them every step of the way. Don't be so hard on them because life is not that easy for kids. We had our difficulties, but for their generation, it's pretty tough out there. Perhaps we can listen. Perhaps we can practice the healing art of touch more. As we articulate how much we love and care about them and as we try our best to guide them through difficult moments in our lives, perhaps the movie Little Miss Sunshine can remind us that sometimes a lot more is said by our gestures and actions.
If we can keep these things in mind and allow each one of us, young and old, to find ourselves to be those special people, I think we can be a really awesome movement. We need to know that we are incredibly lucky to have our True Parents here. As our True Parents continue onward in trying to bring one family under God, our movement is going through a lot of transitional phases and difficulties, maybe with some points of confusion. But the most important thing we need to realize is the importance and centrality of our True Parents, especially how they have passed the baton to the youngest son of the family, Hyung Jin, as the spiritual head of the movement.
We need to understand that our True Parents are not being replaced by another or a younger true parents, Hyung Jin's couple. We need to understand that the concept of True Parents is eternal, just like the concept of God is eternal. It is the job of the children, those of us in the True Family, to live our lives in honor of our True Parents so that we can become parents of our own. But there is one and only one True Parents. We need to understand very clearly that when Father talks about creating this one family under God, it will not be accomplished by any of the service organizations that exist in our church. It will not be done by CARP, by the Women's Federation, by Universal Peace Federation or Global Peace Festival. It will not be done by American Clergy Leadership Conference. All these organizations want to practice living for the sake of others, and they are service organizations. But we will not save the world through service alone.
The way our True Parents are going to save the world is through the process and the gift of the holy blessing. Only our True Parents have that right, the privilege, and the honor of administering the holy blessing, and that is why, for the first time in our lives, we can have true love, true life, and true lineage. That's why our True Parents are incredibly important. That's why we are not just a movement. The sacrament of marriage is something that belongs to a church.
A lot of people are saying, "We don't need the church. All we need is a service organization. We don't need tradition." But our tradition is a heavenly tradition, and our tradition is one of True Parents in that here we are to substantiate true love, true life, and true lineage. Lineage is what was missing when Jesus was crucified 2,000 years ago. And it is lineage that our True Parents have come to share with the rest of the world. It is through the lineage that we become one family under God. We become one family not by just doing good works. We become one family through marriage, brothers and sisters. Krista became a member of my family not just because she was doing good works for Lovin' Life Ministry as a volunteer. She became a part of my family through marriage.
The beauty of the holy blessing, and the reason why international blessings are such an integral part of the peace-building process, is because that's how we become one family under God. It encompasses all the diverse cultures, all the different religions, all the different traditions. It is through marriage and through the power and the digestive process of love that allows the world to exist as one family. That is why we need our True Parents.
As important as it is to develop our own individual relationship with God in heaven, it is only the original olive branch that allows us to have the opportunity to substantiate true lineage. That's why we cannot do without True Parents. That's why our True Parents, when they anointed the youngest son to continue making the true holy blessing available to the world, chose someone from a religious background. It has to be somebody who represents the church, who represents the tradition, who is going to administer the holy blessing continually, even if our True Parents are not here.
That is the wisdom in why our True Father has chosen the youngest son as the center of the family and as the spiritual head. He comes with seven years of spiritual dedication and a foundation in being the kind of minister that is going to usher in a new millennium of peace. His character is not one of might or power, but it's one of the spirit. It's one that talks, expresses, and shares about truth, love, and beauty, and that's what we need in order to have a peaceful world.
Brothers and sisters, we need to understand that our True Parents will guide us until their last breath and will guide us even more effectively in the other world. And through their representative, who is the youngest son of the family, we will come to substantiate this true world of peace that we're talking about.
So do not be confused. Let us be clear that as we continue to do great work, and as ACLC continues to do great work with the ministers, and as UPF and GPF continue to do great work through service, and as CARP continues to do great work by becoming ambassadors for our True Parents and by providing service, really living for the sake of others on campus, let us not be confused about why our True Parents and why our Unification Church and why being a Unificationist are probably the coolest things around. For the first time in history we have the breaking news in our True Parents, and we have a chance to experience in the flesh what it's like to have the wonderful family that God wanted all along.
So be patient and give yourself room to grow. Look forward to that beautiful day when you will become a beautiful butterfly. But in the meantime, let's all work on ourselves. Instead of being a community that focuses on what we're doing wrong, how wonderful would it be if we become a community where we complement each other's strengths and where we talk about how wonderful it is to have the other in our lives? There is nothing greater than having won the lottery of living at the same time as our True Parents, brothers and sisters. So do not be afraid. Do not be confused. The future is in great hands. The young people who are sitting here, we need to know that we have an awesome future, we need to be proud Unificationists, and we need to know why -- because we are part of this movement and of a tradition that is something really cool.
So God bless, and have a wonderful Sunday.
Notes:
Zechariah, chapter 4
1: And the angel who talked with me came again, and waked me, like a man that is wakened out of his sleep.
2: And he said to me, "What do you see?" I said, "I see, and behold, a lampstand all of gold, with a bowl on the top of it, and seven lamps on it, with seven lips on each of the lamps which are on the top of it.
3: And there are two olive trees by it, one on the right of the bowl and the other on its left."
4: And I said to the angel who talked with me, "What are these, my lord?"
5: Then the angel who talked with me answered me, "Do you not know what these are?" I said, "No, my lord."
6: Then he said to me, "This is the word of the LORD to Zerub'babel: Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the LORD of hosts.
7: What are you, O great mountain? Before Zerub'babel you shall become a plain; and he shall bring forward the top stone amid shouts of `Grace, grace to it!'"
8: Moreover the word of the LORD came to me, saying,
9: "The hands of Zerub'babel have laid the foundation of this house; his hands shall also complete it. Then you will know that the LORD of hosts has sent me to you.
10: For whoever has despised the day of small things shall rejoice, and shall see the plummet in the hand of Zerub'babel. "These seven are the eyes of the LORD, which range through the whole earth."
11: Then I said to him, "What are these two olive trees on the right and the left of the lampstand?"
12: And a second time I said to him, "What are these two branches of the olive trees, which are beside the two golden pipes from which the oil is poured out?"
13: He said to me, "Do you not know what these are?" I said, "No, my lord."
14: Then he said, "These are the two anointed who stand by the Lord of the whole earth." won the lottery of living at the same time as our True Parents, brothers and sisters. So do not be afraid. Do not be confused. The future is in great hands. The young people who are sitting here, we need to know that we have an awesome future, we need to be proud Unificationists, and we need to know why -- because we are part of this movement and of a tradition that is something really cool.
So God bless, and have a wonderful Sunday.
Notes:
Zechariah, chapter 4
1: And the angel who talked with me came again, and waked me, like a man that is wakened out of his sleep.
2: And he said to me, "What do you see?" I said, "I see, and behold, a lampstand all of gold, with a bowl on the top of it, and seven lamps on it, with seven lips on each of the lamps which are on the top of it.
3: And there are two olive trees by it, one on the right of the bowl and the other on its left."
4: And I said to the angel who talked with me, "What are these, my lord?"
5: Then the angel who talked with me answered me, "Do you not know what these are?" I said, "No, my lord."
6: Then he said to me, "This is the word of the LORD to Zerub'babel: Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the LORD of hosts.
7: What are you, O great mountain? Before Zerub'babel you shall become a plain; and he shall bring forward the top stone amid shouts of `Grace, grace to it!'"
8: Moreover the word of the LORD came to me, saying,
9: "The hands of Zerub'babel have laid the foundation of this house; his hands shall also complete it. Then you will know that the LORD of hosts has sent me to you.
10: For whoever has despised the day of small things shall rejoice, and shall see the plummet in the hand of Zerub'babel. "These seven are the eyes of the LORD, which range through the whole earth."
11: Then I said to him, "What are these two olive trees on the right and the left of the lampstand?"
12: And a second time I said to him, "What are these two branches of the olive trees, which are beside the two golden pipes from which the oil is poured out?"
13: He said to me, "Do you not know what these are?" I said, "No, my lord."
14: Then he said, "These are the two anointed who stand by the Lord of the whole earth."
Brazil, The Proclamations and Importance of True Parents
In Jin Moon
June 12, 2010
On June 12, 2010, Rev. In Jin Moon gave a powerful sermon at the Spring Fest, held in Barrytown, New York on the occasion of the 48th Day of All True Things. Having just returned from Brazil, Rev. In Jin Moon spoke on how to turn obstacles into victories. She explains the ultimate importance of our True Parents as the ones who will create One Family Under God through the precious Blessing and the ability for humankind to graft onto God's lineage. She also explains the Proclamation written by True Parents on June 5, 2010 and True Mother's heart of love toward her son, Hyun Jin Moon, after events taken place in Brazil.
Happy Day of All Things, brothers and sisters. To prepare for our performance every Sunday, we make a song list a week in advance. As you can tell, one of the songs was Weather With You: Take the weather wherever you go. I was joking with Mr. Jim Gavin, I guess next time before Day of All Things, we'd better check twice about our song list! Really, today is a celebration of Day of All Things, so how can we not let the rain be a part of the celebration if it wants to join us?
I've always said that for those of you who have some experience fishing and spending time on the ocean, it's the violent storms and the rainy days that you remember more than the beautiful, sunny days on the sea. Perhaps this rain is Heavenly Parent's way of letting us know that the time spent here on the beautiful grounds of Unification Theological Seminary (UTS), which Father purchased more than three decades ago, is a day worthy of remembrance. I'm very happy to see all of you out here.
I just got back from Brazil. There have been quite a few things taking place in South America, so my parents quickly called me and said, You need to go down there and take care of the members. Let them know that we really love them, we are praying for them, and we are thinking about them. So in the position of someone representing North America, I thought it was a great opportunity to go down there with a heart of service, a heart of attendance, and a heart of caring and compassion, to let the South American brothers and sisters know that the two hemispheres, the Northern and Southern, need to work in cooperation with each other.
I think a lot of Brazilian brothers and sisters felt lonely, but this was God's mysterious way of letting the Brazilian members, along with the South American brothers and sisters, know how much they mean to our True Parents and to our movement, to let them know that they are not alone. When there is a call for our True Parents, they respond immediately and with love.
Even though some of the things that took place were incredibly unfortunate, sometimes God puts unfortunate events in our path to allow us to see them as an opportunity and to use them to make something wonderful out of them. It gave me an excuse to spend a couple of days with the Brazilian brothers and sisters. They are really heartistic, and I could tell that they love True Parents so much. At the same time, it was a wonderful opportunity to stand in the united front of the Americas, if you will, and allow ourselves the opportunity to commit ourselves to our Heavenly Parents and our True Parents once again.
I know that there is a lot of confusion in the air. We have transitional problems. When a new church sets out, it has its first group of core members, but as they start having children, you usually have to go through a digesting process. We, too, will settle into an era when we can exist in society as part of a huge community. Even though some difficulties arise, they give us an opportunity to take them and turn them around into little victories.
Despite the shocking situation of two Sundays ago, I think the Brazilian members could come to ask themselves the essential questions Why are we here? Why do we believe the things we believe? What made us join this movement to begin with? Second Generation, if you ask your parents these questions, they will always say, It's because of True Parents. It's because I met the messiah, who came to change the world, who came to lead us into a peaceful world.
Even though our True Parents are in Korea, they were constantly in communication with me during my trip to Brazil, asking, How are the members? How are the leaders? How are people responding to the love, which is our love, that you are bringing to them? I must say that the members were so beautiful. Their heart of attendance to our True Parents was absolute and really a great example for our movement.
Our whole movement was watching Brazil. I told the members there that, the first syllable, bra, in the name Brazil in many languages means the arm. Brazil has in a sense become the cradle of something great. Instead of it becoming a cradle of revolutions like those in history that have degenerated into violence, aggression, and intimidation, Brazil has a great opportunity to be a cradle of love, a revolution of heart.
I shared with the Brazilian brothers and sisters that we are a new movement, and we have a chance to do something right. We don't have to degenerate into what all the major religions have gone through. We don't have to go through a period of bloodbaths, infighting, fear, intimidation, and violence. There is no room for violence in our movement. True Parents came to love humanity. True Parents did not come to teach humanity how to fight, how to be hostile to each other. We can do that all on our own, can't we? Our True Parents' message is one of hope, of love, of empowerment.
If the Brazilian brothers and sisters can be reawakened to the inspired message of what our Heavenly Parent and our True Parents have brought us through the teachings of the Divine Principle, then there is no need to resort to violence. As somebody who has five children of my own, I'm looking toward the future and asking myself, "After our True Parents, what kind of leadership is going to lead our movement and the world into this millennium? Is that leadership going to be characterized by inspiring fear in people? Is that the way we're going to lead humanity into the coming millennium? Is the new leadership going to use violence as a means to an end?"
Anyone who has studied history has seen it over and over again. We have read about the horrors perpetrated by the SS guards under Adolf Hitler. We have read about the Red Guards under Mao Tse-tung. You take an enthusiastic, idealistic group of young people and introduce violence, and it becomes the kind of revolution that we do not want to see again. What we stand for in our movement is a revolution of love, a revolution of heart. There is no room for violence.
If Brazil can be that cradle of heart and love, of compassion and caring, think about what Brazil can do for the rest of South America. If the rest of South America can unite and inherit this true love of God, the spirit of our True Parents, and the teachings of our True Parents, then those of us here in North America are going to see quite a competition. I told the South Americans, Please work hard so you can help the North Americans work harder. So what are we going to do about it, brothers and sisters? Are we going to lose to the Southern hemisphere? Or are we going to work harder and be that much greater?
I think we need to understand clearly on this Day of All Things why our True Parents are important and why it has to be only our True Parents who are going to usher in the new millennium. I have spoken many times about our True Parents being the alpha and the omega, the perfected Adam and Eve who stand in the position of True Parents, the original olive branch onto which we can be engrafted to receive the blessing and for the first time in history substantiate true love, true life, and true lineage. For the first time in history we have a chance at building an ideal family.
When Father goes around the world, many people have called him a great leader of peace. But you know what? Our True Father is much more than that. He is not just a man of peace. He is a man of God, first and foremost. The movement that this incredible man created is not just a peace organization. It is a church. It is a place of worship. It is a sacred and holy sanctuary where we can receive the blessing from our Heavenly Parent through our True Parents -- only through our True Parents -- and thereby partake of something called true lineage.
Because we've been under the banner of the Family Federation for the last decade or so, I think we have lost our identity as a movement and as a church. We have become so engrossed in the sea of interfaith - which is very important - that we have forgotten who we are.
In this great work of service, by wanting to unite the various religions, some of us have forgotten to teach our children who they are, that they are proud Unificationists who belong to an awesome movement called the Unification Church. This identity is something that has been lacking in our worldwide movement for many years. Without a proper identity, the youth of our movement do not know who they are. Without understanding that they are proud Unificationists, they do not have a confident face to present to the world.
It is our job as parents to instill this confidence and faith in our children: that they are special. Not that they are better, but they are special in that God has prepared them, has hand-picked them and hand-crafted them to do great things.
While we continue to work to unite the world's people and bring them to God, the way we create one family is not through a service organization. It's not just through an act of service that somebody becomes a part of a family. Krista became a part of my family, became my daughter-in- law, through marriage. Different people from diverse cultures, backgrounds, and religions become part of our family through marriage. The greatest gift that our True Parents bring to the world is the Holy Blessing. It's the Holy Blessing that allows every man and woman sooner or later to become part of this one family under God.
That is why our True Parents are important; that is why our True Parents are necessary for the salvation of the world. Our True Parents are an integral part of the process that brings the whole world under the banner of One Family Under God. This is something that UPF, GPF, ACLC, CARP, or the Women's Federation cannot do alone. All these organizations are like the fingers of the two hands that belong to our True Parents and our Heavenly Parent. All these organizations are great organizations. They provide a great service to the world and to the community, but they alone cannot bring this world into one family under God. It is only through our True Parents and only the power of the blessing that allow this world to come together as one family under God.
Our True Father is incredibly wise. He can look into each of your faces and understand your character like no one else can. He understands your strengths and weaknesses. He understands the strengths and weaknesses of his children. He can look into the faces of his children and know what kind of people they are going to be.
When our True Father decided that the spiritual head and the inheritor of True Parents would be the youngest son, my father made a wise decision. Why did he pick the youngest son? Because somebody who stands in the position of a leader in the future must be able to inherit and exercise this power of the blessing. This person must be a reverend of a church. This person must have some kind of background in a life of faith, in the study of religion. This person must characterize what love and compassion are all about. This person must be an optimistic person who is always thinking of endless possibility, not always trying to take but always trying to serve. This is the kind of person that Hyung Jin Moon is. This is the kind of a person that our True Father has chosen as our new leader.
What took place in Brazil was highly unfortunate, but for the first time it allowed True Father to write down and proclaim to our community and the world who the spiritual inheritor is and who the next leader is going to be after our True Father. This moment of clarity is very important for us. In the sea of the Internet, where people can post and say whatever they want about anybody, it's been like a war taking place. A lot of Brazilian brothers and sisters didn't know what to believe anymore. But this opportunity allowed our True Parents to make plain who the center must be.
As we move forward under the leadership of Hyung Jin, we will see a leadership of love, we will see a leadership of compassion, and we will see a leadership of hope. As long as we can unite our hearts and minds together with our True Parents in understanding that there is wisdom behind every choice that our True Father makes, then our movement is poised for greatness.
Soon the Family Federation website will make that proclamation available so that all of you can see the video in its entirety, and it will be transcribed and translated so you will hear and understand every word. So do not be confused or discouraged by edited versions of these proclamations. When you see the whole proclamation, with none of the sentences deleted, none of the sentences edited out, you will realize that this is an incredible moment of Father and Mother working together.
One of the things that really inspired me about watching the proclamation video is the heart of our True Mother. When Father made the declaration that Hyung Jin is the spiritual heir and is going to be the center of our church and said that anybody standing against that will be seen as a heretic, there is a part in the video when our True Mother says, Father, that's too strong. The word heretic is too strong. Maybe I should just keep the proclamation quietly to myself. And Father says, No, you must proclaim it to the world. It must be shared with everybody.
If you understand what our True Mother was doing, you can see that despite what has gone on in Brazil, the heart of a mother is the desire to leave some room for her child to be redeemed. Her heart was, "Father, maybe heretic is too strong of a word. Maybe I can just keep this to myself." Even in the crisis moment of what was taking place in Brazil, True Mother was still exercising a heart of love and of embrace. On the Internet she has been called a manipulator, the one seizing power and manipulating True Father, but people who see that proclamation video in its entirety must bow their heads and say, I am truly so sorry, True Mother. What a great woman of God you are, and how lucky we are to have you as our True Mother.
Brothers and sisters, in our True Parents we are so blessed. The only thing we need to do is to absolutely unite with them in our hearts and minds, and fulfill our destiny of becoming the eternal sons and daughters that our Heavenly Parent would like us to be.
For any country that needs our assistance, North America is coming. For anybody who calls for our True Parents in a moment of crisis, North America will be there. And I'm hoping that you can also be there with all the brothers and sisters who are struggling to find themselves, to come to our True Parents again in the midst of so much confusion. So stay connected.
Let us try to enjoy this wonderful day. Even as the rain comes, we have many great activities to get us going for the remainder of the day. So God bless, and Happy Day of All True Things. Thank you.
Reflection on the visit of In Jin Nim and staff of the American Church to Brazil, from the 5th to 8th of June, 2010
Neudir Simão Ferabolli
June 10, 2010
A living example of what being a true daughter of the True Family means!
We received In Jin Nim and her staff at the airport with flowers, and went directly to the hotel. Even at the airport, In Jin Nim wondered if everything was OK with me, if I was hurt somewhere.
At the hotel, after the greetings, Rev. Shin gave a brief report and I was asked to say something. Actually, I did not want to be tied up in the past, but look at the wonderful future that In Jin Nim certainly will bring to our church. I could feel from the first moment that her visit would be a blessing.
On Sunday, the message of Hoon Dok Hae was something that deeply moved all members present, when she gave a very detailed explanation of the meaning of the names of all true sons from True Family. She artfully described the characteristics of each brother and sister in her family, and showed that all the names of True Children's have a providential meaning and purpose given by True Parents. Even choosing the name of the children was a step towards restoration of humanity and all things. In the end, In Jin Nim emphasized how wonderful our beloved True Parents are and that it is our responsibility as children to always honor them with our proper attitude.
Already during the Hoon Dok Hae it was clear that our movement is based on true love, whose core "is to live for the sake of others" and this should be the basis of all our actions. She also said that FFWPU has a legacy left by the True Parents, which is the culture of peace, brotherhood and truth. Violence, psychological pressure or seizing power by force are not part of this culture.
As In Jin Nim was coming to perform the Seunghwa Ceremony on behalf of True Parents -- inheriting a legacy of peace -- the headquarters staff members and volunteers worked day and night to prepare everything, while all members were being mobilized for the event. We are sorry that due to shortage of time we couldn't have more VIPs to be honored at the ceremony.
When the ceremony started around 10:00 pm, the temple was quite crowded by members, with over a thousand people present. First there was the official launching of True Father's autobiography. In Jin Nim personally delivered it into the hands of 12 Brazilian representatives.
The MC was Pastor Carlos (one of the Vice-Presidents of the church in Brazil). The opening was performed by the choir of the Unification Church of St. Paul. Rev. Shin made an opening prayer and Dr. Thomas Walsh, President of UPF International, explained the Legacy of Peace and the meaning of the Ascension. Taj Hamad presided over the offering of flowers to honor people at the Seunghwa ceremony. Dr. Correa, Ambassador of Peace, gave some words of reflection and Rev. Christian offered a prayer.
The Lovin' Life band made three exciting presentations. Especially during the second song I saw many members crying. I could not hold myself and I shed tears, too. In fact, for me this was the second time because also in Las Vegas I was very moved by their presentation. The three band members were able to melt the heart of the audience through their songs.
The video presentation was about the legacy of peace, and then In Jin Nim introduced True Parents. Any parent in the world would be happy with an introduction done with such mastery and heart. In Jin Nim really honored the True Parents by every word uttered, and the members went delirious when she asked for a warm round of applause for True Parents, after she ended her speech for Pres. Simão to read the words of True Father.
Flowers were offered to the True Parents, through their daughter In Jin Nim, after Simão had read the speech. Then Rev. Josh Cotter explained some videos on the Manhattan Center, on the Lovin' Life Ministry and on the encouragement that In Jin Nim is giving to the arts.
After that the arrival of two more members of the U.S. delegation was announced, namely Rev. Michael Jenkins and Bishop Stallings Jr., who immediately came to the stage and gave their short but exciting messages of support to True Parents and the providence of Brazil.
Then In Jin Nim returned to the scene, this time to personally greet each member. She took a picture with them and even signed Father's autobiography book. This session lasted over an hour and In Jin Nim gave her heart, love, smile and understanding to many Brazilian members.
After lunch In Jin Nim met with three elder brothers, Mauriciu, Caesar and Waldir. As two of them were counselors (of the Superior Council), In Jin Nim after long hours of conversation demanded from both of them a public apology for their actions during the previous week. And they agreed. So on the morning of June 7, at Hoon Dok Hae, Mr. Mauriciu Baldini publicly apologized for his mistake. He said that there was a lack of understanding about the real situation of Hyun Jin Nim's family.
In the Hoon Dok Hae of 7th, In Jin Nim again focused on the importance of educating the children. She explained about how much it is necessary to discover the potential of each child and to encourage them to strive for excellence in developing their talents, which will give them more confidence in the tough life's decisions. She emphasized that she likes to see the musical and artistic education as means to individual discipline.
After breakfast, there was a meeting with Brazilian leaders and national leaders of several Latin American countries, as well as with members or leaders of other sectors of our movement. In Jin Nim was very categorical in saying that in the past she adopted the policy of silence about the attitudes and activities of her brother, Hyun Jin Nim, but now there was no reason for this silence to continue, since he (Hyun Jin Nim) himself had created an event with international repercussions. As the meeting was opened to leaders, many points were clarified regarding the situation of Hyun Jin Nim. At the same time, there have been several reports that were made by leaders of the American staff, by the continental director Rev. Shin, by the national leader of Paraguay, the son of the National Messiah of Paraguay and by me. I think leaders and members were enlightened and things became more clear.
Throughout the time of the meeting, In Jin Nim heard reports and demonstrations, and on several occasions she interrupted to clarify or add something, always with a heart to show the truth, protect and defend the True Parents and blessed families.
On this day lunch was at the barbecue restaurant and in the afternoon the meeting continued with Rev. Shin and with leaders and members of the American Staff. There were several reports, including Jim Gavin showing the testimonies collected from people attending the Sunday sermon.
Then in the evening In Jin Nim and the staff went to the Church of Santo Amaro, where they were welcomed with flowers by Pastor Inowan and his wife, in front of a big number of members.
Pastor Inowan showed a report of activities, and then there was a dinner with pizza and other delicacies prepared by the church of Santo Amaro.
At the beginning of the meeting, Josh Cotter presented the projects that In Jin Nim has been implementing in the U.S.. Then, the Lovin' Life band gave their musical presentation that the members loved so much. In Jin Nim spoke for nearly two hours, again describing the value of the True Family and the importance of caring for our children. Everything was translated by Pastor Inowan's sister, Mrs. Jun.
After the sermon In Jin Nim repeated with members of Santo Amaro what she had done at the headquarters on Sunday, during the Lovin' Life Ministry. She urged all members to come to talk to her and to take pictures with her. She really shared time with the members. She paid attention to each member up to the last one who had approached her, and the members felt much gratitude and were inspired. She has a heart so loving and maternal. In fact, she was truly a big mom in those precious moments.
We left Santo Amaro and arrived at the hotel after 23:00 pm. Rev. Shin suggested that In Jin Nim do Hoon Dok Hae in the hotel because they were all very tired, and she agreed.
The next day we went to the neighborhood of Liberdade. The church there has a gift shop and I saw In Jin Nim choosing a gift for the wives of each member of staff. She really cared and was so concerned about the members. I witnessed it all the time, remembering one situation in Santo Amaro, where I saw her asking if the singer of the band, Ilhwa, had eaten something.
After shopping, we went to a Korean restaurant, where once again I witnessed how she cared and expressed her concern for the members. In Jin Nim was very happy, had many good laughs and left very contented. I felt that we were with the True Parents, and that really was a family under God.
In Jin Nim was so active. After the restaurant we immediately went to the airport and we arrived there earlier than her scheduled time and she immediately checked-in and said goodbye to all.
We lived a dream for three days with the true daughter of the True Family. I do not want to wake up to the reality. But life is not just made by dreams ...
I am writing this report with the same sincerity with which I wrote the report about Hyun Jin Nim coming. However, I must say that there is a profound difference between the two: At first I was in hell, and this, I feel, is heaven.
We know who owns these two places (hell and heaven). Everything that happened during the visit of In Jin Nim left a deep impression within me, the belief in the importance of the True Family and even more in the importance of the True Parents, absolute, immutable, eternal and irreplaceable.
We pray that the true love of True Parents can always reach the blessed central families through their beloved children!
The visit of In Jin Nim was a blessing! The church in Brazil is eternally grateful for the concern and love of True Parents, by sending their beloved daughter and American staff to support and inspire us. Our determination to serve God and True Parents and to protect their legacy has been strengthened.
May all glory be returned to God and True Parents!
Aju!
Reported by: Mr. Neudir Simão Ferabolli
FFWPU, Brazil's National Leader