Sermon Notes May 8, 2011

In Jin Moon
Notes: Andrew Compton

1) In Jin Nim wished everyone a Happy Mother's Day. She brought greetings from True Parents who are now on the European tour. She was privileged to accompany them to Norway, and Rome. They say all roads lead to Rome. Having True Parents there was a great honor and celebration for all the brothers and sisters and dignitaries who helped to celebrate our True Parents.

2) In Jin Nim realized how incredibly blessed the American movement is, because the European brothers and sisters do not get a chance to see our True Parents as much as we do.

3) Everywhere True Parents went, the members were so excited. They were in tears. To have them in their home country was an incredible blessing. You could see it in their faces. Many of them were literally shaking. You can see how much they miss them over the years, but still are firm in their belief and continue to walk the road together with our True Parents. To have them at this time in their country -- you could see visibly their excitement and their hearts of gratitude -- to experience such a blessed day.

4) True Parents started the European tour in Korea and then went on to Spain. In Jin Nim met up with them in Rome. There, Father gave his heart out to everyone in the audience. At Hoon Dok Hae in the morning Father talked a lot about how Rome was the center of the world. Rome had a great responsibility, but because Rome could not unite with and have the knowledge of the true son of God that came 2000 years ago, in the form of Jesus Christ, a lot of the blessing that our Heavenly Parent wanted to share with Rome was lost. Father talked a lot about how the word Rome, in Korean is "Roma." To Father's ear "Roma" sounds like rolling and "Ma" sounds like Satan. So the Italian members, looked at father and said "you're calling us the city of rolling Satan?"

5) What Father was trying to convey is that Rome was meant for greatness, but when it is not centered on God and does not realize who our True Parents are, it is a city that is rolling around in the satanic understanding of what our life is meant to be. So, as True Parents were leaving, when the Italian members rushed up to In Jin Nim and asked her "how are we to understand Roma, meaning "rolling Satan?"" She answered, "Roma can be heard as rolling Satan only because it is not united with God and True Parents but if you take the Korean pronunciation, Roma, and you reverse it -- it becomes Amor." So, what our True Parents are saying is -- reverse this satanic understanding of our lives and graft back on to an understanding of our life in relation to our Heavenly Parent and True Parents -- so you can be the city of love, amora.

6) Then the Italian brothers and sisters got excited -- they determined from now until True Parents come back they will be the city of "amor" -- and not only will they be known for Italian food (In Jin Nim named several Italian dishes), but they will be known for amor. In Jin Nim told them "wonderful, wonderful!"

7) True Parents gave their farewells to the Italian members and went on to Norway. At the UPF event in Norway Father poured out his heart once again. Those who accompanied True Parents learned something new on their trip to Norway -- and that was, our Father heard from one of the dignitaries who gave the congratulatory remarks -- he was the person in charge of the World War II veterans in Norway, and those who fought in Korea. This was a very distinguished, very tall, Norwegian gentleman, obviously from a military background. He began his message by saying, "I love the Korean people." He went on to give a testimony and speech, congratulating our True Father. It was quite inspiring, because here was someone who actually fought in the war. He symbolized the Allied forces that helped to liberate our True Father when he was incarcerated in the North Korean concentration camp in Hungnam.

8) As In Jin Nim's father sat in his cell waiting for his scheduled execution the next day, he heard the planes and allied forces rushing in to liberate him and his cell mates. In Jin Nim's Father, his heart of gratitude has always been filled for those who fought in the Korean War. Just as much as he pledged to himself, when he came to America to love this country and raise up great men and women of God from this country, because this country saved his life -- and just as he felt toward America he also felt that way towards the Norwegian representatives who fought in the Korean War.

Trygve Lie

9) One point of information that was shared was that the UN general secretary at that time was a Norwegian [Trygve Lie ]. And it was a Norwegian who fought to have the Allied forces go to Korea and bring about the liberation of Korea. This gentleman who spoke was also a true advocate and founder of the human rights declaration that we still use today to fight the abuse that is taking place with the faith breaking issue in Japan. For our True Parents to be in this country that represents the Nobel Peace Prize -- it was quite significant. In Jin Nim is hoping that one of these days, Norwegians and the country of Norway can wake up to the great work, the great humanitarian and peace work, but not just peace work -- but as the True Parents of mankind -- how much our True Father and our True Mother really worked to bring about peace and harmony all around the world -- and award them the Nobel Peace Prize in the future.

10) It was quite interesting, because during the three Hoon Dok Haes that were held in Norway -- True Father talked a lot about Norway. And Norway -- "nor-ae" means a song in Korean. So when True Father was doing Hoon Dok Hae in Norway -- after asking that his speech be read, he immediately launched into a song-fest. This put True Mother into great spirits because she did not need to send little notes asking Father to conserve his energy, to rest a little bit -- "you're missing breakfast, … you're missing lunch, … you're missing dinner." So, at least in Norway they did not have marathon Hoon Dok Haes. This made True Mother very very happy. In Jin Nim bid them farewell as they journeyed on to Greece and Turkey -- she will meet up with them again in London.

11) When In Jin Nim was in Norway the members told her that it had been 40 some years since True Parents had last been there and many of our members had never seen True Parents. It was an incredibly emotional visit for a lot of the European members. Again In Jin Nim felt how blessed America is because we get to see our True Parents almost every month in Las Vegas. We get to spend beautiful times with them. Wherever Father goes our beautiful True Mother is always there with him, really taking care of him, loving him.

12) When In Jin Nim watches them really work together in their active life of ministry -- many times Father is the one speaking, but then many times our True Mother is the one speaking. It is such a beautiful interplay of a man and a woman working together without any boundaries, without any limit -- without any, "you are a woman and you cannot do this, you are a man and cannot do this." There is very much a sense that they are a team, and they love each other, they enjoy each other's company, and to see them work together, day in and day out is truly an inspiration for In Jin Nim.

13) But perhaps because In Jin Nim is a woman she is always looking at the example of our True Mother with great interest and fascination. The Messiah comes to find his bride. He comes to find a woman to love, to find a woman with whom he can stand together as the True Parents thereby breaking all the barriers and all the past understandings of how a man and a woman can treat each other. In a way, our True Mother is the secret ingredient that make True Parents what it is.

14) In Jin Nim jokingly said to her father, "You are the greatest father, greatest teacher, greatest prophet, but you know you can't be True Parents without True Mother!" And he answered, "That's right, that's right -- no matter how great I might be, or people may think I am, I cannot be True Parents without True Mother."

15) To see, the understanding of the Holy Spirit materialized in a physical form, in the physical form of our True Mother -- for In Jin Nim as a student of religion, is an incredibly exciting thing. She has studied the history of religion and she has seen how religion has treated woman over the years. Because we only had the example of male prophets, and Jesus the Son of God -- nobody knew what to do with the daughter of God. Nobody knew what to do with women in the context of a religious life, or in the context of the church. Should we allow woman to worship together with men? Do we allow woman a voice in the congregation? Do we allow them a voice in the pulpit? Is it wrong for woman to be a leader? Should she only be a mother? What is the role of woman? This has been the great puzzle for thousands and thousands of years. Woman were relegated as second-class citizens. They were seen as the great temptress who led Adam astray and caused the fall of man. Woman were blamed for so many things. If a man was tempted it was the woman's problem.

16) Where is the responsibility of the man? Why is it that in the stoning of a woman for adultery, only the woman is stoned to death? What about the man? Obviously in the case of adultery it takes two people, doesn't it? But why has it always been the women who were stoned to death? Why were women always the ones to be blamed? It is because we did not have the example of our True Parents and we did not have the example of a woman who could truly stand in the position as the perfected Eve, with dignity, worth, and pride in knowing that she is a divine daughter of God. And so, from In Jin Nim, a student of religions' vantage point -- it is a most remarkable thing that we have this woman in our lives.

17) The message that our True Parents bring is truly a fulfillment of what Christianity has been waiting for. In Christianity we had a beautiful example and model and understanding of Christian piety, because we love Jesus as the son of God. But with our True Parents we now have an understanding of the Holy Spirit manifested in this physical form of the true woman, and understanding that she is the secret ingredient that makes True Parents what it is. In a way, through our True Parents women can reclaim their divine dignity and worth as the daughter that was meant to be when God first created Eve.

18) Just as In Jin Nim's father's birth was prophesied and talked about, and there were even special birds that signaled his birth a couple of days before -- likewise when her mother was born there were a great number of revelations. Her grandmother loved to share with her all the providential significance surrounding her mother's life.

19) One of the stories her grandmother told her -- in Korea at that time, in North Korea, there were many groups who were preparing for the coming of the Messiah. God was sending revelation upon revelation to the prepared Christians of North Korea -- saying that the Messiah would come to Korea. Therefore, these groups must make way in preparation for the Messiah.

20) At that time there was even a group that created and prepared clothing for the Messiah -- for each of the seasons of the year. When In Jin Nim's mother was eight years old her grandmother took her mother to visit one of these churches. And one of the great teachers, a woman who many saw as a prophet, when she saw her mother at the age of eight she walked up to her and said to In Jin Nim's grandmother, "the child you have before you is to be the bride of the Messiah, the Lord of the second Advent. Do not think of yourself as her mother, you are but a nurse. So please prepare and please take care of her well." And this woman touched In Jin Nim's mother's forehead and gave a prayer.

Brigitte Bardot

21) Even at that young age, people who were open to understand the Providence and to receiving revelations -- they clearly knew our True Mother was born to be an exceptional woman. As she went on through the years she became an excellent student in junior high school and high school -- In Jin Nim's mother always thought, and shared with her that she was meant for something great. She told In Jin Nim that when she was a high school student she was very fascinated by this great medium called, movies. She thought how incredibly powerful, these people, that she had never seen before, these people from Hollywood -- and she said at that time that she was quite taken by Brigitte Bardot. Brigitte Bardot was her idol. And In Jin Nim asked her mother, "why Brigitte Bardot?" And she answered that she saw her in the movie "War and Peace" and the Revolutionary spirit, the spirit of wanting to change the world, "I could not keep my eyes off of her." And In Jin Nim answered, "yes, but she is also known as a great sex symbol." Her mother laughed and then answered, "No, in that role she was magnificent!" She inspired her mother, and her mother thought to herself "How can I use this medium to reach the people that I have yet to meet?"

22) She was a very good student and would have gone on to one of the best colleges in Korea, but she was taken by this medium -- and she thought to herself perhaps she should become an actress -- "and maybe by becoming an actress I can reach a lot of people." While she was saying these things to herself, our Heavenly Parent plucked her out of her high school to become the bride of our True Father -- and off she went on the road to becoming True Mother, whom In Jin Nim came to love and admire over the years.

23) She was so taken with this desire to change the world. In a way, that is what she has done with her life. And now she is in her 70s, but single-handedly, and together with our True Father she has changed the world, and she has certainly changed In Jin Nim's life. In Jin Nim would not be here without her mother.

24) She has been instrumental in paving the way for the acceptance of women in the area of religion and faith. And she has brought about many, many great strides in allowing men and women, both, to experience the dignity of women that we have not seen for many, many years.

25) In In Jin Nim's True Mother, In Jin Nim finds so many inspirations and so much wisdom -- in that many, many times when she found herself in difficult situations, or things that she needs to work out, she invariably turns back to the wisdom nuggets that her mother shared with her over the years. One of the single most important things that her mother shared was, "In Jin, we are not here for ourselves. We are here to do something really wonderful. In a way, we are here to change the world, to make it better than when we found. But as proud woman we need to do it with a sense of dignity, with a sense of worth, knowing that we are divine creatures -- and so as woman, don't fall prey to thinking that because we have such a far way to go, that somehow we have to deny our femininity -- to become more aggressive, to become more passionate."

26) She always stressed to In Jin Nim -- keeping and maintaining your femininity while being strong inside and thereby manifesting this incredible light, of warmth, care and nurture. She always asked her to be strong, and absolutely ambitious for God on the inside and maintain the feminine. Celebrate the feminine -- through your loving gestures and care and compassion.

27) One of the things she stressed to In Jin Nim over and over is the need to practice what In Jin Nim calls simple elegance. She said, "We women have incredible powers, but many times we overcompensate because for centuries we have been denied the right to power, knowledge, and wealth."

28) She has stressed to In Jin Nim -- be comfortable in your skin, be grateful for who you are -- this allows you to be a woman of simple elegance. We emphasize simplicity -- the things that are simple, foundational, things we cannot do without. Such as, the most important thing in a person's life, no matter how great or small you might be, is the understanding that we live for the sake of others. This is our core value. And we love our families. We are here to build healthy ideal families by dealing with all the issues that arise along the road of building an ideal family. And we are here because, we are here to raise people to be better than ourselves -- to raise our children to be better than ourselves so that we can leave something wonderful behind, so that we can keep this continuity of love, and of greatness, and of prosperity all throughout the generations. In a way she asked In Jin Nim to concentrate on the simple things -- which is the importance of family.

29) In Jin Nim was tickled pink by one of the STFers who wrote her a long e-mail. She was thanking her for Lovin Life, the worship on Sunday, and how much she has gained from her experience on STF. And one of the incredible experiences that she had came from a talk she had with In Jin Nim's daughter Ariana. Because they are similar in age -- she saw her as a fellow patriot, fellow traveler on this journey of life. Because Ariana had accomplished a lot in her young life, she wanted to know what Ariana's goal in life is. She asked Ariana, "You're graduating from Harvard, you've won all the gold medals in ballroom dancing competition, you won the highest awards as a concert pianist -- what would you like to do in life, what is your goal in life?" This girl thought that she was so accomplished as a young woman -- perhaps she would say that she would go on to a career in law and so on and so on, but instead she turned to this young lady and told her that her goal in life was to have a family. When she heard Ariana say that she realized, "yes, that is the goal of life."

30) In a way, this is what Jesus came to do 2000 years ago, but his mission was cut short because he had to die on the cross. Our True Parents also wanted to have a family -- and they are inviting all of us to do the same. And that is the true beauty in simple living. Because, no matter how complicated and ambitious we might be -- thinking about lots of different things, or as mothers our heads are stretched out to here, because there is so much to do … but the most important thing is the relationship that we have within the family. If we don't have that then no matter what we become, we will never feel satisfied or fulfilled as a son and daughter of God.

31) When In Jin Nim's mother emphasized simple living, she was asking In Jin Nim to concentrate on the things that are of the utmost importance, the simple building blocks of our lives. And those simple building blocks are the relationships that we have with our Heavenly Parent, with our True Parents, as the paradigm of true love that we learn from them, that we can aspire to be like. And, to really appreciate things and gain wisdom from the different relationships that we have in our own family -- dealing with our children, dealing with our spouse, dealing with our siblings, and so on.

32) In Jin Nim's mother was reminding her that the important and simple building block is the family -- no matter how complicated life might get, she was urging her to concentrate on building relationships within that family.

33) When In Jin Nim's mother used the word simple elegance, or the word elegance -- what her mother meant by that -- when In Jin Nim took calculus in college her professor told her that the goal of all great mathematicians is to find the elegant solution to a problem. Mathematical solutions cover three or four blackboards, but what all great mathematicians want to do is to arrive at an elegant solution, an elegant answer that encapsulates everything that the three or four blackboards want to say, but said in something that is profound -- as a simple formula.

34) And so, when In Jin Nim's mother spoke of elegant living, what she was saying was, take all the complexities and formulate a working solution that works simply and elegantly.

35) And so in In Jin Nim's daily life as a mother of five children -- she has had a research laboratory to test out her mother's theories and her desire for her to be a woman of simple elegance. And while she continues, even to this day, to probe her for a simple elegant life -- In Jin Nim's mother will tickle her on the side of her ribs and ask her, "do you remember the three things your mother told you about, from time to time? Did you remember to pray?" And In Jin Nim said. "Yes mother" "Did you submit to God, did you let things pass?" And then she responded, "Yes mother." "And do you remember to smile?" And she said, "yes." So whenever she sees her and asks her about how her simple elegant living is going she is always testing her about these three points.

36) For In Jin Nim's mother this is a simple and elegant formula that has proven the test of time and has worked for her throughout her life as True Mother. This is the woman who has overcome insurmountable odds, a woman who has experienced the greatest sadness and the greatest elation and jubilation -- the woman who has experienced the greatest hardships and still carries all her burdens beautifully and in a simple elegant way.

37) When her mother is asking her to pray, to surrender, and to smile -- a couple of things come to mind. Something every teenage girl or boy goes through -- when they become aware of who they are, the body starts changing -- 11, 12, 13 -- then we realize we are no longer girls, we are turning into woman and we are no longer boys, we are turning into men. There is a great deal of excitement in the air and feelings of ambivalence.

38) In Jin Nim was no different from other kids her age -- she was so eager to experience the world. Having been raised in a strict and religious upbringing -- in which she was given a list of all the things she could not do, and did not have a list along with that of the list she could do. As a child you want to test out the limits. You want to see how far you can go -- and In Jin Nim is sure that she has given her mother a lot of sleepless nights.

39) Throughout her adolescence there is one instance that comes to In Jin Nim's mind. It reminds her why prayer is so important. She was about 15 or 16 years old and all her friends wanted to go partying and dancing. There was a new hot club in New York City and her friends had a plan -- In Jin Nim was going to jump over her fence and walk down Taxter Road to in front of the deli. There, there would be a car with all her friends waiting for her to take her to NY City where they would have a blast. For In Jin Nim it took a great deal of courage to just contemplate participating in this affair. How was she going to get out of her house? She was raised in a house with security everywhere, security cameras everywhere, big 'thugs" everywhere. The front door is guarded by a pole that has to be lifted up. So, there was no way for her friends to come in and quickly pick her up.

40) In Jin Nim was thinking, "I'm going to be a woman, I need to find myself. I don't like being told what to do. I'm going to go and have a good time." All day long her heart was pounding. All day long she was wondering, "Can others see what I am planning to do, can someone sniff me out?" There was a great deal of excitement -- but she was set on going out and having a blast with her friends. When it came time, after dinner, she went up to her room and packed her clothes that she would wear in the club in her knapsack, because she could surely not wear them (in her home). She had to look like she was going somewhere appropriate. She stashed her clothes and tried to walk out of her house as if something ordinary was about to take place. She was asked where she was going with a knapsack -- "I'm just going out to take in the night air. To walk around the property. I might be inspired to take out my sketchbook and sketch some trees in the dark of night." She couldn't remember what she said exactly -- but then she had to walk down the very steep hill. She had to first greet her mother goodnight. She told her she was going out. Her mother asked "where are you going with a knapsack?" … "I'm just carrying things around." Looking back, her mother must have known, but she was very elegant, smiled and said, "oh really."

41) In Jin Nim walked down the hill, and when she was asked where she was going she told them she was just going down the hill to visit Peter Kim and his wife who lived in the guardhouse. In front of the Kim's house was the guard booth. There she had to duck into the woods, reach the fence and jump over it. She did so -- she made it over the fence and started walking towards Taxter Road. She had a feeling of grand achievement. She got out without the security catching her. Then she started to run and she found her friends waiting for her. They went to a club in NY which was run by the aunt of one of her friends. It was a great experience and she had so much fun (she hates to say it). But then when she got home, her friends dropped her off and she had to make her way back and walk all the way through the woods without being detected and make it to her room. Somehow she managed to do that.

42) When she got into her room and closed the door -- there was a sense of, "Wow, what an incredible night, I was courageous, I did it -- I was so proud of myself." But then she turned to the mantle and she saw a picture of her father and mother -- and she asked herself "Did I just try to pull one over on my mother?" A feeling of guilt came over her. She did something that her parents did not want her to do.

43) The next morning when she greeted her mother, her mother asked her, "How was your walk?" She told her, "It was a nice walk." She told her good, "Have a good day at school."

44) At school her friends pushed her to do it again. In Jin Nim was not sure if she could do it again, but they encouraged her. This time something extra special was happening at the club -- there was going to be a famous singer and they really wanted her to go. In Jin Nim thought to herself, "mmm, do I do this again? The first time I didn't get into trouble -- maybe we can do it again." In Jin Nim thought she was being so smart. The same T-shirt and jeans, same knapsack -- her mother must have been catching on. When she came back it was quite late, two or three in the morning, and when she entered her room and flicked on the light -- she saw her mom sitting on the floor, in the dark praying the entire time. And she asked her "how was your walk? It was a long walk wasn't it?"

45) In Jin Nim was so shocked, her mother there in the pitch black waiting for her, she was sure she would be spanked, that she was in big trouble. But her mother told In Jin Nim to sit and she quietly took her hand in her hand, and said, "you know In Jin Nim you don't have to prove anything. If you are confident in who you are as God's daughter you don't have to prove anything, just be yourself. You don't have to prove that you can be rebellious. Anybody can be rebellious. You may think it's a courageous thing to do, but anybody and everybody does it. So why don't you think of doing something different, something unique, something that is you instead of trying to be rebellious, which everybody does -- and therefore you are no different from the rest. If you want to be average that is fine, but if you want to be extraordinary, which I believe you were meant to be, then try to be different. Yes, you can do what everyone else is doing, but where is that going to lead you? But if you decide to have a purposeful life and work towards that end you can become [magnificent]."

46) And so she held In Jin Nim's hand (and In Jin Nim thought she was going to spank her really badly) but she said, "Let's pray. I will pray for us and then you are going to pray. You are going to pray to God and report everything that is in your heart and everything that you did. We are going to hear it together, we are going to pray together and share in the moment."

47) That was the most difficult prayer of In Jin Nim's life. She got caught, her mother knew she had done something iffy. She had been waiting up until two in the morning -- but she had not yell at her, did not throw things at her, did not spank her -- and this made it worse. If she had spanked her then In Jin Nim could have told her how much she hated her for having spanked her. But she couldn't do that. There was an incredible sense, "How the heck can I do this to my mother again?" And that was the wisdom of our True Mother. This was simple elegance in a nutshell.

48) In Jin Nim, as a mother, has been put in situations with five kids when she wants to scream (like the Home Alone boy), that is how she feels many times. You don't know what to do and you would like to take a baseball stick and call your children, "come here child I'm going to spank you now!" But, when she remembered what her mother did with her simple elegance in a calm collected manner, maintaining her femininity -- and when she maintains her femininity it is really scary -- and in a calm composed voice, asked her, invited her, to pray to God and report everything that she did -- that was incredibly more powerful than 21 hits on her buttocks.

49) In Jin Nim learned from her mother that life puts you in crazy situations and sometimes we are the child, but when we grow up we are the parents -- and life puts you in all different scenarios and environments, but the great thing about keeping her mother in her head, with the importance of prayer, the importance of surrendering to God, and the importance of smiling -- that was the lesson she taught her that day. After her mother had prayed -- sharing how much she loved her, how she is an extraordinary person in the making, how she was born as a divine person, how she was meant to be a great woman of God -- her mother put all these possibilities before In Jin Nim in her prayer and she said to God, please help this child, not to just be average, but to let her know that she was born to be extraordinary. That really got to In Jin Nim. And then her mother asked her to surrender to God -- tell everything to God (and he saw everything anyway) but this was In Jin Nim's chance to articulate everything to God and in a way come clean, respecting God as her parent.

50) For In Jin Nim this reporting, or surrendering to God, was an incredibly cathartic experience for her. Because her mother did not hit or physically abused her, but at the same time made her think through it, made her articulate through what she did -- and why she should not perhaps do this again, because she has a goal, a purpose in life. It's good to rebel, and it could be fun, but she was encouraging her that her life was meant to be something greater than just having fun night after night at some nightclub in New York City.

51) It was a really powerful moment, a powerful experience, and she could not stop crying. Afterwards her mother said, "Come here." And she held In Jin Nim in the tightest and warmest embrace that she had had in a long time. And she said, "Now we are going to (?), you have come back safely, and with gratitude, all the wonderful things that mommy and daughter will experience together. This is, in a way, a symbol of being so grateful that God has placed you in my life and that you have been given to me as my daughter."

52) That was one of the beautiful moments that In Jin Nim remembers from time to time. Her mother is an incredibly powerful woman. She is so powerful without saying a word. The power and gravitas comes from within. You will never see In Jin Nim's mother pray hysterically, with tears and snot flying everywhere. In Jin Nim grew up on the second floor of the Chang Padang Church and went to sleep in unison prayer and woke up to unison prayer. Those Korean woman, they are hot tamales. They seem subservient and innocuous, but put the power of faith in them and they will scream out, "Heavenly Father, hallelujah!, The Lord is here! We have to change the world!" They almost become masculine in their prayers. When In Jin Nim was little their prayers used to freak her out. Members were chanting and screaming hysterically -- as a child she could not understand why people would behave like that. And then she would wake up in the morning to the same thing and she would think, "Thank God for school. I don't have to deal with this until I come back."

53) But In Jin Nim's mother never prayed like that. She was always so secure and confident in her own skin. Even when people belittled her for being a woman. In the culture of masculinity and male dominance -- many people in the Korean society did not understand how important our True Mother was. They understood the importance of our True Father, but when she started out her married life no one really knew what to do with her. Many times she was castigated and relegated as second-class. It is kudos to her that throughout the years, in our movement that woman have been given this opportunity to reclaim their dignity and the sense of themselves as divine human beings. Without our True Mother, In Jin Nim would not be standing here.

54) Regardless of how much difficulty this woman went through In Jin Nim never saw her lose it. She never saw her screaming at God. One time she asked her, why she did not pray like that. She said to her, "You are before God. If God were seated before you, is that the way you would talk to him in conversation. You are talking to God. Would you talk to God screaming at the top of your voice? God hears you."

55) Many times In Jin Nim saw her mother praying silently and at that moment she experienced how profound it is that here is a woman so confident in herself and so situated -- knowing who she is, understanding that she is before God, having a conversation -- being able to report to God as a daughter would report to her father, and maintaining this respect for relationship -- revealing her heart. And in that silence she spoke more powerfully to In Jin Nim than any group of woman screaming at the top of their lungs in hysterics.

56) That is when In Jin Nim realized, when she began to record her own music, the importance of silence in music. Sometimes the silence is more profound than the actual playing of notes. Every time she experiences this she is reminded of her mother.

57) On this beautiful Mother's Day In Jin Nim wants to encourage all woman and all daughters of God to really pursue this life of elegant living. And just as every mathematician tries to take their 3, 4, or 5 blackboards worth of mathematical formulas down to an elegant formula -- In Jin Nim believes that through the course of her mother's life she has given us a formula that works, a simple elegant formula. And that is -- to pray, and to know when to surrender to God. In a way, mothers sometimes have a problem of not being able to let go of their children, not realizing that we become their worst impediment to become a successful human being. We have to work together with God, just as we try our best, we have to be willing to surrender at times to God, and say, "God, this time, this moment is in your hands. I will unite 100% in your hands, I will let it pass..(?)" and always to begin each day with a smile knowing that we live a life of gratitude -- that we have been given this opportunity to really serve God. Not just in our heads or in our understanding, but with our lives.

58) And that is what Lovin' Life is all about. It's about celebrating God. It's about celebrating the breaking news of our True Parents. It's about celebrating the opportunity we have before us in being allowed to manifest our own ideal families onto the world.

59) And it is really about celebrating each other, and that together, if all of us live and practice this philosophy of living for the sake of others, "I live for you, you live for me, all of us working together." Then the world that we are waiting for, the world of peace and harmony, it is not just some fluffy marshmallow spread on bread, it can actually be made into a reality. Just as a great bite into a succulent peanut butter sandwich, that delight of biting into a succulent peanut butter sandwich -- is lost if you don't have the jelly. Or biting into a succulent eggs Benedict in the morning and realizing that the ham is missing. We have before us a man and a woman. So not only do you have the poached eggs you also get the ham, and not only do you have peanut butter -- you do have the jelly. So we have a total package in our True Parents. And it is our True Mother that is the secret ingredient that makes True Father great as the True Parents of mankind.

60) "Brothers and sisters, honor our Heavenly Parents, our Heavenly Father and Mother up in heaven, honor our True Parents. And all of us should honor our parents. And all the husbands, you know who you are, should honor your wife. Because without her, it doesn't matter how great you are, it doesn't matter how smart or how sexy or how capable you are -- you are not going to have a family without your beautiful wife. So this is a day when we can honor and celebrate the feminine. This is a day when we can truly feel the importance of what Mother's Day is all about -- because through our True Mother we can reclaim the dignity of a woman. And through our True Mother the position of mother can be understood as something divine."

61) "Brothers and sisters we are the luckiest people in the history of the Providence, to have our True Parents with us. So please have a glorious Mother's Day and thank you!" 

2011 Annual Peace King Cup Fishing Tournament on the Hudson River

In Jin Moon
April 28, 2011

To: All District, State and Church Pastors, all Blessed Central Families
From: Reverend In Jin Moon and Dr. Chang Shik Yang
Date: April 28, 2011
Re: 2011 Annual Peace King Cup Fishing Tournament on the Hudson River

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

We are honored to announce the 2011 Annual Peace King Cup Fishing Tournament on the Hudson River commemorating True Parents' 52nd Holy Wedding Anniversary. It will be held on Saturday, May 7 from the Half Moon Bay Marina in New York. This providential and international tournament was established by our True Parents in April 2000 on the Hudson River and in August 2000 in Kodiak, Alaska. This year marks the eleventh consecutive year.

Everyone is invited to participate! The tournament gives participants the opportunity to connect directly with True Parents' deep love for fishing and the ocean providence. It takes place in the exact waters where they invested countless hours of devotion for the sake of restoring America and saving all of humankind.

A beautiful Tournament Booklet is being prepared for this event. Please consider placing your congratulations message or advertisement in the booklet by using the attached form.

The tournament schedule and other details are described below. We hope that you can join us and bring great joy to Heavenly Father and True Parents though the success of this historic event!

Day 1 Schedule

Saturday, May 7 -- Fishing Tournament

7:00 AM register, 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM fishing, Half Moon Bay Marina, Croton-on-Hudson, NY 10520

5:00 PM weigh-in closes, Half Moon Bay Marina

Day 2 Schedule

Sunday, May 8 -- Lovin' Life Worship Service at Manhattan Center

10:00 AM LLM worship service

Awards ceremony and presentation right after the service

Cost

$120 per person (includes bait)

$100 extra if need rod and reel -- please order in advance!

$40 for guests or members fishing on their own boat or from the shore.

Prizes

1st Prize: $3000 / Medal and Trophy

2nd Prize: $2000 / Medal and Trophy

3rd Prize: $1000 / Medal and Trophy

Things To Prepare

Fishing rod and reel, tackle.

Personal medications, waterproof outerwear-raingear and boots, sunglasses, hat, sunscreen, gloves, lunch box, water bottle.

Fishing License

Participants will not be required to obtain a fishing license -- the New York law was changed.

Location

www.halfmoonbaymarina.com/directions.asp

Registration

Each participant is asked to fill in the attached Boat Owner Registration Form and Registration Form - send it by noon of May 3rd to Mr. Terry McMahon by e-mail or by fax.

For Program advertising use the Program Ad Contract.

Checks should be payable to HSA-UWC and mailed to: Financial Office, Suite 3027, 481 8th Avenue, NY, NY 10001.

Payment may also be through the attached Credit Card Form or during registration the day of the tournament.

Inquiries

Mr. Terry McMahon

HSA-UWC NJ

78 DeMott Avenue, Clifton, NJ 07011

Reverend In Jin Moon
President and CEO
HSA-UWC USA

Dr. Chang Shik Yang
Continental Director
HSA-UWC USA

Tournament Rules

1. Only striped bass 25 inches and over in length are eligible for prize. Guests should not keep fish less than 25 inches. Only one fish per person may be entered. Prizes will be reduced by half if eligible fish is under 36 inches.

2. All participants must comply with US Coast Guard, New York State DEC, local laws and regulations and IGFA rules.

3. All occupants on boats must be registered, Guests and Boat owners.

4. Any fish caught, or judged to be caught, in an unsporting manner per IGFA rules will be disqualified. No snagged, gaffed or frozen fish may be eligible.

5. Weigh-in at dock from 4:00 -- 5:00 PM, May 7. No fish accepted after 5:00 PM. Fish will be measured by length only. In the event of a tie, the fish shall be judged by weight. Fish must be caught in the Hudson River that day between 8:00 AM and 5:00 PM within 20 miles of the dock. Any fish not properly tagged with an official registration ribbon will not be eligible for prize.

6. Guests may only keep fish for the purpose of the tournament. No fish of any species shall be in any way cut or cleaned on the boat.

7. The headquarters captain has sole authority on the boat during the tournament. Any fish caught by an headquarters captain must be thrown back.

8. Communications for this tournament shall be on VHF Channel 72.

9. Applicants under the age of 18 must be accompanied and registered by a parent.

10. Tournament will be held regardless of the weather conditions.

11. No fishing license is required for this tournament. 

Sermon Notes, April 24, 2011

In Jin Moon

In Jin Moon with family and friends in Oslo Norway, May 2011

1) In Jin Nim greeted everyone "Happy Easter!" She just got back from Las Vegas after spending time with our True Parents (True Parents) there -- they send us their greetings. She is delighted to be able to spend the third Easter of Lovin' Life Ministries with us.

2) It's been an interesting ride with many meaningful and profound experiences along the way. She was reminded this morning that -- one of the things she misses in being a home-schooling granola crunching mom, before she was asked to come and work at HSA -- was making and painting beautiful Easter eggs in preparation for the treasure hunt that they would have at their home. She remembers spending a good deal of time with her children painting all the eggs with vibrant colors, checking to see who had the most beautiful egg. They had pictures of Faberge eggs to inspire them -- gorgeous eggs that were intricately and elaborately designed. You could actually open them up. To the delight of her kids, many times inside of those eggs that they had, they had little figurines -- a ballerina or a sailing ship that would go around as you turned the screw on the bottom of the egg. She remembers spending endless hours watching these figurines twirl inside of the eggs.

3) This made In Jin Nim think about her father and one of her first trips to Philadelphia together with True Parents. They took her older sister, Ye Jin Nim, and her to visit the Liberty Bell. She remembers going on this tour talking about the Philadelphia convention and the Liberty Bell and all that they symbolized for America. She remembers holding her mother's hand as they took this tour. The tour was engaging, she saw many historical artifacts, but her mind was on the souvenir shop that they would pass through on the way out. She remembers, she could not wait to get her hands on a souvenir.

4) One of the souvenirs her parents picked out for her was a beautiful sailing boat incased inside a tiny little bottle. It had a sailing ship inside of it. When her father bought it for her he said, "In Jin, now you have come to this great God prepared country of America and you'll experience lots of different things -- adventures, joys, heart ache -- in a way, you will be riding on this ship, this journey, for some time." He reminded her to always keep her eyes on the North Star and to let her sails fill with God's love, God's grace, and with true love -- and sail brilliantly, run brilliantly, go where people do not dare to go, be brave to explore and experience.

5) When her father gave her this little ship inside this little bottle -- for her it was the most precious gift because she and her father had spent many summers together on the boat. The boat symbolized her love for her father -- but it was encased in this brilliant bottle -- it was a promise of everything that would open up in her life, the promise of the potential of what her life could become.

6) Just as the ship symbolized her future and all the potential that she would hope to reap and harvest in her life of faith in this great country of America -- she knows that the Easter egg for many symbolizes life and all the potential that life has to afford to one person or another.

7) When In Jin Nim thinks about what the meaning of Easter is, and she thinks -- here we are, truly celebrating the symbol of the Christian faith which is the resurrection of Jesus Christ. In one sense, you cannot have resurrection without the death of Jesus Christ. We realize when we think back that this day is a day when life and death, and joys and sorrows, and potentials and something cut short, are intertwined in this meaningful day when we really need to ponder what it means for us. What does Easter mean for us?

8) When In Jin Nim prayed about starting this Lovin Life Ministries a couple of years ago -- she wanted a name for the ministry that symbolizes what we are all about, the meaning of our life, or what we need to substantiate, to accomplish. In her prayers the name Lovin Life came to her. For her it meant quite a few different things.

9) In Jin Nim has often wondered in the course of Lovin Life's unfolding over the last two years -- whether different brothers and sisters would get it -- get what the meaning of Love and Life is all about. And, she was so elated, that before celebrating the third Easter together with the congregation as a family -- she received an e-mail from an African-American brother who she has known for quite some time. He said, "Today I was reading True Family Gateway to Heaven -- and I came across chapter 3, a chapter on what our course, centered on love, should be like." True Father starts this chapter with the question, what comes first, love or life?. And he goes on to answer by saying that love comes first and then comes life. Therefore, the second should humbly surrender to the first. Meaning, life should humbly surrender to love, because love is the reason why we came to be.

10) True Father goes on in the chapter to explain that we exist because of God's desire to love. We did not choose to be born and we certainly did not choose our parents, and our parents certainly did not choose us, but we exist because of God's desire to love. We exist because of God's love.

11) In a way, True Father outlines very clearly for us that the highest aspirations of any eternal son or daughter of God is to do a couple of things. He says that it is the highest aspiration of a person to be born in love, to be raised in love, to live by love, and to leave love behind.

12) If we are to understand what we need to do -- that is our mission statement in a nutshell. We are to be born in love, raised in love, live by love, and we are to leave love behind. This was God's intention when he first created Adam and Eve, but because of the Fall Adam and Eve fell away from God. They never had a chance to be raised in love or live by love or to leave love behind, because they never had a chance to get the blessing to be married and to have a family of their own.

13) We had to wait 2000 years (from Abraham) for Jesus, the Son of Man to arrive. If you really think about it, it's quite incredible, Jesus Christ, the son of God -- what was his primary mission? A lot of people, Christians, think that Jesus came to set the Christian model, to set an understanding of the Trinity, to establish the 12 disciples who would spread the good news all around the world. But the primary reason for Jesus' coming was not to do these things. His primary reason for coming was to become the True Parents of humankind, to establish this position where he could stand as the perfected Adam together with his perfected Eve. If we really think about it Jesus' primary mission was to love a woman. He comes to find a bride, to find that beautiful wife. He comes to love a woman that is to be his wife with whom he can stand together as the True Parents of mankind.

14) If that is not an incredibly romantic thing, In Jin Nim does not know what is. Jesus comes to love. He comes to find this beautiful wife. He comes to raise a beautiful family. He comes to raise beautiful children that will be the symbol of his love and that will continue his love throughout all the generations -- helping to graft this whole world to God's true lineage.

15) But, because the Israelites could not unite with him -- and because the providential figure John the Baptist could not fulfill his responsibility in being that Elijah-like figure making straight the way of the Lord, Jesus went the way of crucifixion and he died an incredibly lonely death. Not only were his disciples not there to really fight for his life, but all of his people who were meant to glorify him as a son of God and as the True Parents, to help save them and graft them into God's true lineage -- were not there for Jesus Christ.

16) And so Jesus left unfulfilled -- with his story cut short. And therefore the history of Christianity has been one of incredible suffering, pain, and longing and incessant wanting -- because Jesus never got to finish the complete movie, or complete the picture of what he was supposed to be.

17) As he [hung] there, nailed to the cross, dying from his lungs being pressed against his chest bone cavity, he must have felt like watching a beautiful sailboat arrive far away in the distance without him being on it. He must have felt there is a beautiful sailing boat that symbolized his life's potential -- all the glorious things that he came to do, the journey that he would take in finding that beautiful wife, in being the True Parents of mankind, in establishing and substantiating an ideal family and raising beautiful children that he could call his own. All of that must have seemed like a sailboat drifting far off into the distance.

18) The heart of Jesus Christ must have been incredibly heavy, incredibly painful. And so, that heart has traveled with the history of religion for many, many years. And instead of realizing that Jesus really came to love life, that he came to love and he came to live his life, and he came to establish God's lineage on this earth -- instead of those things, he must have wept with a grief stricken heart watching this potential of what he should have been, his mission, drifting slowly away off into the distance -- realizing that he must come again.

19) Had Jesus been able to sail gloriously as the Son of God and have that opportunity to find that beautiful wife and stand as the True Parents of mankind -- Jesus Christ would have done the very thing that our True Parents are so famous for. They would have been blessed in holy matrimony and then they would have started to bless other brothers and sisters, encouraging them with the good news -- to experience not just true love and true life, but to actually substantially be a part of God's lineage. Jesus would have done what our True Parents are doing now. And, instead of an unfulfilled picture, instead of understanding Jesus in relation to God as one of the three God heads of the Trinity in which the feminine is not represented, and the only thing that symbolizes the feminine is the Holy Spirit, because Jesus never had the chance to take on a bride. Had Jesus married and been blessed and stood as the True Parents of mankind, the Trinity would have been complete as the four position foundation.

20) The suffering and lonely existence was a paradigm of Christian piety for so many years -- in a way, if you love Jesus you could not marry. All the nuns and all the priests of the world that gave up the very thing that all of us were born to partake of were denied them. They denied themselves. But it Jesus had had the opportunity to have his bride, then all the nuns and priests would have had families of their own. They would have realized that the fulfillment, the culmination, the highest aspiration in life is to experience this thing called an ideal family in the form of the Four Position Foundation -- with God at the top and man and woman on both sides horizontally -- truly honoring and loving and revering and appreciating each other. Not man being better and woman being less. Not man being superior and woman being inferior. But, man and woman as dignified sons and daughters of God, would have come together in matrimony and they would have had the chance to have beautiful children thereby creating this diamond like Four Position Foundation. In that way the picture would have been complete.

21) But because Jesus did not have that opportunity we had to wait 2000 more years before we could welcome our True Father -- when Father witnessed and experienced Jesus Christ on the lonely hills of North Korea when he was 16 years old -- and Jesus asked him, "Dear child please, please fulfill my mission."

22) At that time our True Father was a devout Christian. He would pray endless amounts of hours wanting to understand the heart of God, the meaning of what his life was, and how he could be a true, pious Christian. But on that Easter Sunday morning Jesus called upon this young boy and asked him to take on the mission of fulfilling what Jesus could not do. Father, from that moment on, took it to heart and realized that his first and most important mission is to find this beautiful wife -- to find this woman who can stand in the position as this victorious Eve, the perfect Eve with whom he can together stand in the position of True Parents and with the blessing of God's grace start to ask all the people all around the world to come together and graft onto this lineage of God and thereby become one family.

23) Our True Father comes to love and our True Mother comes to love. Can you imagine, look at all the ills of our world, the things that we deal with. If you go back and look at what caused all these, for example criminals, to become the kind of people that they have become -- many come from broken homes, many come from homes where they were physically, sexually, and emotionally, and verbally abused. Many of them were not born in the best situations. They were not raised in love. Many of them were neglected, ignored, abused -- they were not raised in love.

24) When you look at these criminals who suffer the consequences of their actions, sitting on death row or in prisons all around the country, you realize that they did not live by love. They did not understand the beauty of living for the sake of others. They did not understand the beauty of living by practicing true love in their lives -- thinking about others before themselves, because they were not born or raised in a proper way. They did not know how to live in a proper way. Many of these people do not know how to leave love behind -- and instead of leaving something precious that will grow into something incredible -- eternal sons and daughters of God, many of them continue the cycle of welcoming kids into the world who are not in the best of situations or environment for the child to be raised in -- and so on and so forth.

25) A lot of the ills of society came because we were not able to establish what we call an ideal family. We were not able to understand what a true husband and wife relationship is all about, what a true relationship between the parent and child should be like, or what the true relationship amongst siblings should be like. We did not understand these things because we did not have a model or paradigm of true love that we could look up to, that we could aspire to.

26) But the great thing about our True Parents is that we have that in the form of our True Father and True Mother. These two people are truly the Alpha and the Omega, they represent the masculine and feminine, the beauty of the masculine and the feminine, and we see them together as a loving couple who have gone through incredible odds, who have suffered through incredible trials and tribulations and yet still continue to love and to give and to encourage all of us to do the same. It is a most miraculous thing.

27) To think that we of all people in history have been afforded this opportunity to really experience them in the flesh, not experience them through stories or books or videos, but to experience them in the flesh. That is like having a taste of what it would have been like to experience Jesus Christ 2000 years ago. What would we do if Jesus Christ started walking down the aisle and sat next to us? What would we do if his supposed bride walked down the aisle with him and sat down beside us? What would we do if they started talking about all that we were meant to be, about all the personal destinies that they would like to see us fulfill? What would we do if they were to impart beautiful words on our children, on how we should take care of them, or inspire them, or nurture them -- how would we feel? How would the Christians of the world feel if they could experience God like that? If people are paying tens of millions of dollars just to experience space -- to ride a rocket shuttle out and back -- what would people give for the opportunity to spend a day with Jesus Christ? It would be something that money cannot buy.

28) But this is exactly what we have been afforded an opportunity to experience. We are experiencing now what all of history has been waiting for and what all the future generations will be talking about. They will be experiencing True Parents through books and through stories and through videos and recordings, but we have the chance to experience them in the flesh. So can you imagine how incredibly blessed we are?

29) But, on top of that, we have the chance to do something that Jesus himself was not able to do. We have the chance to find that beautiful spouse to whom we can be committed to, with whom we can look forward to building a beautiful family with. We have the opportunity to experience something that the son of God, Jesus Christ himself, did not have the chance to do. So how incredibly blessed we really are if we can think and look at our lives in the context of providential history. Many times when we are dealing with the perfunctory responsibility of day-to-day living, the grocery bills, the utility bills, getting the children off to school, getting the laundry and ironing done -- making sure your husband has pressed shirts to wear in the morning -- many times we don't realize how incredible our life is when we take a step back and look at our lives from a birds eye view point. We don't realize that we are actively experiencing and participating in history making that Jesus Christ himself did not have a chance to do.

30) If we truly love Jesus, as the great Christians that we all are, if we truly love Jesus Christ, and truly understand his sacrifice and his suffering -- knowing that it was not supposed to be, but that Jesus was supposed to be that egg, the symbol of the egg realized, or he was supposed to be the one captaining this beautiful sail ship into the glorious future of mankind -- if we realize that that is what Jesus was supposed to have been, but did not have the chance to do -- and now here we are fast forward 2000 years and because of our True Parents we have the chance to ride that glorious sailing ship together with God, our Heavenly Parent, our True Parents -- together with our children, with our families, and the movement, and share in the breaking news of what an incredible time this is -- we are incredibly blessed.

31) And to think that we have a chance to make right the history of religion, to make right the true understanding of what the relationship of a man and woman should be in an active life of faith -- to understand that we have infinite divinity and worth and dignity as human beings. And just as when we become parents ourselves, we want to experience the love of his son as much as we want to experience the love of a daughter, realizing that God wants the same. Do we not realize how incredibly blessed we really are?

32) As much as In Jin Nim misses her home schooling days, together with her sons and her daughter, painting these glorious eggs, thinking about all that the eggs symbolize -- and each child crafting and fashioning these eggs into beautiful works of art, each of them a symbol of all that they will be, the symbol of their potential yet to be realized. Each of them holding it so cautiously in their hands, painstakingly taking the paintbrush and putting on the glorious colors and the final touches of metallic gilding at the end. All that patience and sacrifice, creating something beautiful -- all of us have this potential. All of us as divine creatures are born with this incredible potential and it is our job to manifest or substantiate it in our lives. Just as In Jin Nim prays for each child to really take that potential, that God-given potential, and hope that she as a mother can do her part -- supporting their personal destinies, it is exactly what she is hoping for all the brothers and sisters that she has come to know as the senior pastor of Lovin' Life. We have talked about this in the context of the family, but here at Lovin' Life we have an opportunity to share it on a whole new, and on a larger and grander scale, the same kind of message of encouragement, of nurturing, of wanting to care for each and every child of God so that you can truly manifest all that you were meant to be, and share your beauty with the rest of the world.

33) Here at Lovin' Life Ministries, Lovin comes before the word Life. We have to love to truly come into being -- in understanding what our life is all about. Our life is not about us, if you really think about it. "My life is not about me." What In Jin Nim does every Sunday is not anything that she does, what In Jin Nim is about, it's more what can she do. Can she be a catalyst for the people who want to be better -- for the people to try harder, and to look again at what you have taken for granted and realize that what you have is incredibly precious? Our lives are not about "me", it's really about us. It's about what we can do to help each other, because the world of peace, of true love, this glorious picture -- what is it going to look like? Is it going to look yellow? Is the tapestry going to look black? Is the tapestry going to look green or blue? It's going to have all different colors, different textures, but when we weave them together utilizing the power and energy of true love we realize that our differences only enhance the depth and beauty and richness of the tapestry. As long as we are willing to come together to formulate a common vision, a common purpose, a common picture -- we realize as long as we're willing to lock hands, to lock our hearts together, we can build an incredibly huge and profound, powerful tapestry that can inspire the world and all of us in the process.

34) If you really think about it, in loving each other we realize the value of our lives, that our lives are not meant for me, myself, and I, but is really a platform to practice this philosophy of living for the sake of others. If we do that, if we truly love life, then what we end up doing is wanting to build these beautiful ideal families. In a way to give birth to the future, give birth to beautiful children who understand themselves as having come into existence because of God's desire and therefore understand that they are divine beings and that life has a purpose, that we were meant to be born in love, to be born in a family where a mommy and a daddy so desires this child and prepares for the child, heartistically, emotionally and physically, and when the child is born to be raised in love, to really be in a family where love is practiced. So you are not being raised in a family where you are being fed on by the people who are supposed to be taking care of you, but you are actually nurtured and protected and you are safe in love, you are comforted in love, and yet at the same time encouraged by constructive criticism to be the best that you can be, to be encouraged to live by love, understanding who you are and therefore practicing living for the sake of others. And then hopefully find this beautiful spouse with whom you can create a loving family and give birth to children who can be the symbols of your love for years to come.

35) When we look and re-read all these glorious books, children's books, Indiana Jones searching for the holy Grail, searching for that elixir that will give you immortality, in a way human beings have been crazy over the centuries looking for that elixir of life that will be the cure-all for everything, the liquid that will make you immortal. But what God is saying is, God has placed everything within your hands, God has provided everything. In a way, you will be immortal through your children. Your love will be immortal through your children and through the successive generations that will come.

36) The prize, if you think about it, is how to create the kind of environment where we can raise these kids to be those divine sons and daughters without all the static in the air. How do we get rid of the static in the air? Father always says you have to go back to the source. Regardless of what you are dealing with if you have talked or spent time with a psychotherapist with a counselor or a psychiatrist or psychologist -- you realize that a lot of the things we are dealing with, the symptoms of adulthood of life that we are suffering the consequences of -- actually started or took place when we were children. What we experience as children pretty much determines the kind of person that we are going to be. This is why the Messiah, the True Parents of the world, come to stress the importance of the cause of the problem. They come to address -- how to fix the cause of a lot of the problems that came to exist in our society. And the root of all the problems usually start in the family, where the child is born. So they come to help us build strong ideal families, families that can be safe, that can be inviting, inspiring and empowering to great future generations to come.

37) In Jin Nim always felt that, regardless of what she does, the most important thing that she can do as a mom is to raise decent kids. When Father and Mother asked her to come to HSA, she has had to deal with different things from a professional point of view and from an individual point of view -- in tackling and taking on the burdens that are thrown at her every day. But she could not have done what she has done if she did not have the support of her children. So, as difficult as it is for them to lose their mother overnight, she barely sees them, just on weekends, but they continue to do their best because they believe in the work that we are doing. And as difficult as it is for them to not have their mother there, they know that their mother can do more for other people who need a lot of encouragement, a little more inspiration.

38) When In Jin Nim thinks about the meaning of Easter and how Jesus came to love life, and what our True Parents are asking all of us to do is to really love and appreciate our lives and understand how incredibly blessed we really are -- she realized to her bones how blessed she truly is, because she has these great five munchkins. (with tears In Jin Nim asked her children to stand and be recognized).

39) It really has been a family effort. They have laughed with her, cried with her, and she wishes that she could be there for them all. One of the most difficult things about doing what she does is being away from them, but knowing that they are in God's hands, and knowing that they are also in our hands and that they receive so much love in so many prayers -- she realizes how incredibly blessed they really are. Even though they are still on their journey to becoming that great son and a daughter of God -- and even though she may not be with them as much as she would like to be at different phases of their growth -- come high or low they know that she will always be there for them. And In Jin Nim thinks that the Ministry and the different members of the congregation need to know that our True Parents will always be there for all of us -- they live for us, they breathe for us, they pray for us, and a die for us, each and every day.

40) As much as True Parents love In Jin Nim's family they love us more. Her brothers and her work in public roles -- and they joke to themselves, the first thing that True Parents ask when they greet them is, "How are the members?" It's never, "How are you doing daughter?" It's, "How are the members, how are the 2nd generation, how is America?" And In Jin Nim realizes that she needs to learn from that. She needs to learn the sacrificial heart, and the heartistic attitude that our True Parents have for their children.

41) In Jin Nim is a work in progress too, and the fact that you've been so kind and so good, going on this journey together with her and along with everyone who works at the Lovin' Life Ministries -- she and they are truly, truly grateful.

42) She realizes that just as her father reminded her, of the incredible journey she would take when he bought her the sailing ship in the bottle many, many years ago -- she realized that everything that our True Father wished for her is exactly what he wishes for all of us. He wishes all of us incredible love, incredible grace on our journey through life. And what Father and Mother would like us to know is that they are always there with us, they are the wind in our sails, and as long as we can maintain our direction and our attention on the North Star which is our God, our Heavenly Parent, and our True Parents -- then the journey that we take with them will be an incredible, incredible experience.

43) Yes there will be highs and lows, but what is music without pianissimo and fortissimo, what is music without legato and staccato, what is music without loud and quiet or fast and rest. In a way, our lives are a beautiful song and your responsibility in life is to make your song memorable so that it can be played over and over again -- and be told over and over again -- so that your future generations will sing about you, will remember you. You are a myth in the making.

44) "Just as in the history of Christianity the 12 disciples of Jesus are talked about, and there is a whole lot of mythology surrounding their lives, so also people will talk about you as the great disciples of our True Parents, disciples who did actually better than Jesus' disciples. You guys were always there, you never deserted our True Parents."

45) "If we are like a rocket -- the rocket goes in three stages. The first stage is the most rattling and most violent stage before it clears the Earth's atmosphere. In a way, that is what the first generations experience was like. But you are incredibly victorious because you made it that far. You never deserted our True Parents, you stayed the course -- and because of your victory, because of your suffering and dedication, but still remaining in keeping that oneness without True Parents -- now the second generation has an opportunity to go, working off of your momentum -- not to do the same thing all over again, not to go back down and doing it again, but traveling off of your good momentum and travel that much further. And the third generation can go where all of us have only dreamt about.

46) "So brothers and sisters our rocket has already taken off! With your faith in True Parents, and here comes the second leg of the journey, here comes your children working together with the True Children to work off of your momentum so that we can prepare the way for the third leg of the journey -- and we will reach the moon. In fact you have touched the moon! You know the moon very well brothers and sisters. You have been taught well by the moon!"

47) "The Italians always like to say, when the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie… but we have all been hit by that pizza pie, we have all been hit by our True Parents. And we each have our favorite topping for our pizza, but it is pizza nonetheless and it has been served by our True Parents, the grand moon of the world, the grand teacher, the True Parents of the world."

48) "So brothers and sisters do not be confused by all the rattling. Do not be confused by the first leg of the shuttle falling off to reveal the second stage. You need to understand that many times in order for the second stage to come about -- out of the first stage of the shuttle things have to be let go, things have to fall by the wayside. Many times those are our old habits of doing things, the baggage we carried along the way, or a whole lot of static in the air telling us that we should not be unified with our True Parents, but if we really understand that the highest aspiration is to be born in love, be raised in love, live by love, and leave love behind -- we realize that we cannot be born without our True Parents. The True Parents are the conduit through which we exist."

49) "Anybody who denies the centrality of the importance and the gravitas of understanding who are True Parents are, at the core in the center of our lives, must fall by the wayside as the second and third generation take your momentum up to the heavens and beyond. When I look at the unity of the brothers and sisters all around the country, when I look at the unity and I experience the unity with all the top managers and brothers and sisters of the True World Group being in an extraordinarily difficult situation that they are in right now -- they never waver. When True Parents called, all of them except one, came to see our True Parents. All of them came to say, "True Parents you call us and we will be here." And even with the constant education that True Parents are not important or that there should be separation between business and church -- well, most of the businesses are managed by church members. How can you take the church out of the business when it is managed by church members? The businesses that have been prepared by our True Parents have done gloriously well because of the goodness and sacrifice of these good members who have been taught righteously and correctly by our True Parents. So brothers and sisters do not be confused, do not be afraid, and do not succumb to the teachings that True Parents are no longer important. They are what make us who we are. We are who we are because of our True Parents."

50) "Help give your brothers and sisters who are working at the True World Group the energy and the support they need to go through this difficult crisis. And regardless of what they have to do, as long as their hearts and their faith is centered on True Parents, I have absolute belief and absolute faith that we can overcome any difficulty and any odds."

51) "Brothers and sisters, in the theme of oneness that our True Parents have given to us at the start of this year, on this glorious Sunday morning as they celebrate Easter, let us realize what the true purpose of Jesus' life was all about. If we realize the true purpose of Jesus' life and mission, then we realize how incredible it is to have our True Parents here with us. So, do not make the same mistake that the Israelites made in Jesus' time. Do not be blind in not seeing this man and woman, this son and daughter of God, do not be blind because of some static in the air telling you that Jesus is a charlatan and he does not know what he is talking about. Do not be blind because we are so greedy with money and power and knowledge and all the assets -- that you cannot take to the afterlife anyway."

52) "We were not born to amass assets. We were born to love and be loved. If we understand that to be the purpose our life then nobody can deny that True Parents have come as the Lord of the Second Advent, as the True Parents of mankind to help us and to teach us, to raise our families to be born right in love, to be raised in love, to live by love -- so that we can leave this world, not with billions and billions of dollars -- but we can leave this world having raised beautiful children behind who are worthy of becoming great world leaders that will safeguard our world from all the hatred and all the wars and all the ugliness that life throws in our path."

53) "So brothers and sisters remember why Jesus was here, remember his heart as he suffered his lonely death on the cross watching that sailing ship drift by. (again, from this point to the end, In Jin Nim spoke with tears) Do not let our True Parents drift by, brothers and sisters. We need to safeguard them, need to protect them, we need to honor them and be there for them until they depart to the other world. In the most precious last year's of our Father's life do not allow Father to see his people confused, his children confused -- about who he is. Let Father go knowing that his children and his movement clearly know who he is, clearly know who our True Parents are. Let our True Parents know that we are their children! We are proud to be their children and we will be centered and united with them as long as we live!"

54) "Brothers and sisters, love God and True Parents with all your heart. Pray for unity and know that as long as they are the center of our lives, as long as we keep them at the center of our faith, we can overcome any difficulty, any trials and tribulations -- and the more difficult and the more painful it is, it will make us that much richer and greater as divine sons and daughters of God."

55) "On this beautiful Easter Sunday please remember God our Heavenly Parent and our True Parents and let them know with our lives, in loving life, how much we truly love them and care about them!"

56) "God bless and thank you!" 

A Grateful Attitude And Heart

In Jin Moon
April 17, 2011
Washington, D.C.

Good morning, Washington, D.C. I am delighted to be with all of you once again. I just came from Las Vegas after spending some time with our True Parents and they send you their love and greetings. I always find it amazing that the True Parents of humankind have decided to plant themselves smack in the middle of what we know Las Vegas to be, Sin City. Through their presence and the kind of work they continue to do there, they intend to turn Sin City not just into a Shining City on a hill but into a Sun City.

When you see the word sin, in the middle sits the letter I. I've always thought that when we think only about ourselves -- or me, myself and I, or the individual -- it's very easy to succumb to the temptations of the world. But when Father wants to change Sin City into Sun City, smack in the middle of the word sun sits the letter U. To me that symbolizes the importance of unity and really living a life of unselfishness.

Our True Parents are reminding us to take ourselves away from the concept of me, myself and I -- or the individual being the master of the universe or the most important thing in our lives -- to an understanding that we really do belong to one family under God, and that we need to unite with God's representative here, our True Parents. We need to unite with them in heart and spirit so we can do the good work that needs to be done. It's extremely important for me to feel the spiritual presence of our True Parents as we continue to do the things we need to do in the course of this year.

I've found it interesting that this is the year of the rabbit, which in the East symbolizes a year of great prosperity and luck. I believe that if we can truly unite heartistically in the spirit of true love with our True Parents, we can reap the heavenly fortune that this new year will afford us and the amazing luck that abounds. I believe that the promise of prosperity can be turned into a substantial reality if we decide today to live as God's eternal sons and daughters united not only as Unificationists in name, but also as true Unificationists understanding who we are and what an incredible time we're living in when Heavenly Father is encouraging all of us to testify about the breaking news of our True Parents.

I think it's not a coincidence that we're embarking here in Washington, D.C., on this joint worship where the various communities will now come together and worship as one family. If we can fully inherit the heart and spirit of God, I believe that the city of Washington can fulfill its providential role of washing not just the capital of America but all of America with the spirit of true love, and the understanding that our True Parents are here in our midst.

How wonderful and surprising it is that we can remind ourselves of how important True Parents are in our lives on this beautiful Palm Sunday. According to the Gospels, Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey while people laid cloaks and tree branches before his feet. Unlike the image of a king riding through town on a horse -- the horse being very much a symbol of war and fighting that would soon ensue -- Jesus rode into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday on a donkey. In the Eastern tradition, this animal is understood to symbolize peace. Jesus was riding into town as the Prince of Peace, as the child of God who will usher in a time of peace and bring God's message not only to be heard but also to be substantiated by himself in his lifetime.

Palm Sunday is particularly significant in that it offers us the beautiful image of Jesus symbolizing the prince of peace by riding humbly into Jerusalem on a donkey. But Palm Sunday always has a bit of sadness because know that a week later we celebrate Easter Sunday. In the course of a week Jesus offers us the beautiful visual imagery as the prince of peace entering Jerusalem, and the heartrending imagery later in the week as he was crucified and then resurrected.

Of course in the resurrection we can celebrate Jesus' spiritual foundation. But we know that what he came to do was to find that beautiful wife and together with her establish themselves as the True Parents of mankind so their brothers and sisters could not only experience true love and true life, but also have the opportunity to substantiate true lineage by grafting onto God's lineage. This beautiful idea of what should have been was lost due to the Israelites' failure to unite, and John the Baptist's failure to fulfill his responsibility of testifying to his people that Jesus was the son of God.

John the Baptist's role and responsibility was to make straight the way of the Lord, but because he could not testify clearly to who Jesus really was, he did not make straight the way of the lord, so Jesus had to go the way of crucifixion and we had to wait many, many years before we could welcome our True Parents.

Palm Sunday is a reminder of what Jesus could have been. Jesus entering Jerusalem as a symbol of the Prince of Peace is a symbol of what could have been. It was the beginning of that lovely story that went truly wrong in the course of a week because the people could not believe and because the key providential person like John the Baptist did not fulfill his responsibility in testifying to the world and to his people what Jesus Christ was really about.

So we had to wait 2,000 years before our True Parents could come and be in our midst. For the first time we now have a man and a woman standing together representing our Heavenly Parent. We have the masculine aspect represented in our True Father and the feminine aspect represented in our True Mother. For the first time we have this holistic picture instead of a picture that has seemed askew.

I think a lot of women in the audience may view the fact that Jesus never had the chance to find his beautiful wife and establish a beautiful family as being closely tied to the fact that in history religion has often been truly unkind to women. Nobody has known what to do with women. Nobody has known what roles women should play in an active life of faith, or whether they should be afforded an active life of faith at all.

Many people did not understand the power of the feminine and how important and outstanding it can be to a life of faith. We had to wait a very long time -- and the history of religion has been that of waiting, constant waiting, waiting for individual salvation, waiting for the Messiah to return, hoping that we could be living at a time when the Messiah does come back.

Instead of living and loving and substantiating this thing called an ideal family and experiencing the true love of God, the history of religion has been that of waiting, waiting for salvation, waiting for True Parents.

Now we have our True Parents with us in our lifetime, brothers and sisters. This is the time when God is going to look to us to reverse the failure of John the Baptist by testifying about our True Parents. The Unification movement has done a whole lot better than the disciples of Jesus in that regardless of how difficult and how much persecution we went through, the first generation never left our True Parents. You stood by them through the good times and the bad times, through the difficulty and the suffering. So all of you were able to accomplish what the twelve disciples could not accomplish in Jesus' time. Your offering and sacrifice became the foundation on which our True Parents still continue to work.

Can you imagine if the Second and the Third Generations now build on your victory, not just keeping our True Parents alive but seizing the opportunity before us to share the breaking news with the rest of the world and start testifying?

I've always found it quite interesting that when you look at the word testify the word test is in there. That's God's hint to us that there's going to be quite a bit of testing along the way. God might put us in situations where he will test our faith, or our understanding of who we are or what we want to do, to see if we're going to stand up and be eternal sons and daughters who testify to the breaking news of our True Parents being with us.

One of the first things you need to do internally when you prepare yourself to be the vessel to testify about our True Parents is first and foremost to be true to ourselves. We have to know who we are, why we are here, why our life is so precious, and why we need to encourage other people to see their lives as something precious, as a divine gift that should not be wasted but should be nurtured, encouraged, and empowered so that we can all be great sons and daughters of God.

When we think about being true to ourselves, it reminds me of the early 1970s and 1980s when we had Divine Principle workshops for blessed children. One of the things we did was go flower-selling. We would pick different locations, usually at an intersection in front of a gas station. One day my older sister, Ye Jin Onni and I and my younger sister, Un Jin, were manning a flower-selling booth, selling roses. A lot of people were coming and going. The persecution of our movement was really intense at that time, so a lot of people driving past, seeing the roses and seeing Asian faces, automatically assumed we were Moonies. Many drivers went by, "Mooooniieeee," honk, honk.

Some people would stop and buy flowers, others would ask, "Where are you from? Who are you?" Because we were being persecuted, we thought, "We're tired and beaten to a pulp already and it's not even noon. We really don't feel like testifying about God, about the church, about True Parents. Maybe we can say we're raising money for charity to send overseas." My sisters and I had a conversation about how we were tired of being called Moonies all morning. "When people stop and ask, why don't we just tell them we belong to a Christian organization raising money for charity that will be sent overseas? Let's see if that does any better."

We did that with a couple of people who stopped by our flower stand, and we thought afterward, "This is much easier. Fewer questions. Not so much provoking us with questions like, 'Is he your father?' 'What kind of a father sends his daughters out flower selling in front of a gas station?' 'He's a cult leader.'" All these things. We were getting sick of hearing that. When we said we were a Christian organization, it was as if the dark cloud raining overhead just suddenly disappeared. People started smiling, "Oh, you're sending money overseas?" "Yes, we are sending money overseas." We thought, "This is going quite well," So we continued on with this little story.

Then one gentleman pulled up in a white car. He came over very seriously and said, "Where are you from?" My sister and I looked at each other, and we each thought, "Better not to say Korea. It will quickly go to Moonies." So my sister said, "We're Japanese." The gentleman said, "Really? What are your names?" Then my sister said, "Ye Jin-go." He said, "What's your name?" "In Jin-go." He looked at my younger sister. "Un Jin-go." We thought we were doing quite well by putting a Japanese ending on our names so it didn't sound Korean.

Then he said, "What are you fund-raising for?" We said, "We're from a Christian organization raising money selling flowers so we can send it overseas." Then he said, "What kind of Christian organization?" My sister and I looked at each other, and replied, "We're a Korean Christian organization." When my sister said that, I could see her brain ticking -- she had just said she was Japanese but she was working for a Korean Christian group.

He said, "So who is your pastor?" My elder sister said, "Pastor Moon." The man asked, "Where is he from? Where do you have your church?" We looked at each other and said, "Yes, we have churches all around the country and our pastor travels all around the country. He is very busy." The man asked, "What is his full name?" We said, "Well, his full name is Pastor Reverend Minister Moon." The man said, "No, what is his first name?" So we looked at each other and he looked at us and said, "You are not Japanese, are you?"

We replied, "No we're not." "Where are you from?" I said, "Well, actually we're Korean." He said, "Well, now that you've told me that you're Korean, you can drop the "go" at the end of your name. Your name is Ye Jin, your name is In Jin, your name is Un Jin. Um hmm. So what church are you from?"

See, finally we said to him, "Well, we are from the Unification Church. But we had a really tough morning being honked at all morning long, being called 'Moonie,' so it's not that we didn't want to be true to ourselves. We were just tired." Then he looked at us and said, "Ladies, I'm a professor at East Asian studies. I speak both Korean and Japanese, so had I started conversing with you in Japanese, you would have been in deep trouble." Of course at the end we exchanged a lot of laughter and he ended up buying a whole bucket of roses.

But that experience taught me something. That experience taught me that we really have to be true to ourselves. Sometimes in the course of our lives we are tired, we just don't want to deal with the persecution. We want to take the easy way out. But at the end of the day it's the truth that will set you free, as it says in John 17:23. It's the truth that will set you free. [Actually John 8:32]

The beautiful thing is, we were able to sell this huge bucket of roses because finally we were able to own up to who we were. Regardless of whether we were tired or beaten, we could finally say, "We belong to the Unification Church. Yes, we are daughters of Rev. Sun Myung Moon." And it felt so good.

Even now, as I go around the country meeting with different people -- politicians, entertainers, great brothers and sisters -- I'm always reminded of the simple need to be true to myself. I was also reminded that despite the great satisfaction and rewards of owning up to who we are as proud Unificationists who know we are divine creatures of God, eternal sons and daughters, many times we are our worst enemies in that we're embarrassed or ashamed of who we are.

But the minute we start raising our heads -- not out of pride, but out of confidence in knowing that we belong to one common parent and that we have this great opportunity to work with our True Parents -- then we realize that we don't have to be afraid. After all the years in the wilderness, being called a lot of bad names -- "Moonie" tended to be one of the better ones -- and being persecuted so heavily, it's almost an instinctual habit, I believe, that whenever we are confronted with a new situation we lock ourselves in. We're not proud or confident the way we should be.

My younger brother, Kook Jin, who's doing such a phenomenal job heading up the Korean foundation -- he single-handedly turned around the financial crisis of the foundation and has now turned it into a money-maker -- is very much acknowledged as a great CEO in Korea. He has been featured in a business magazine that highlights the most promising and up-and-coming CEOs in Korean industry.

Kook Jin Moon

Not only is he well known as a great businessman, but the amazing thing about Kook Jin is that he is also a phenomenal witnesser, in that he is not afraid. He will go up to anybody on the street, to anybody in government, and say, "Hello, good morning, my name is Kook Jin Moon. My father is the Lord of the Second Advent and the Messiah and you as Koreans should be proud that the Messiah was sent to this country. You should work together with our True Parents."

The interesting thing is, when he is so up front about his beliefs, when he can be so bold, courageous, and honest about his beliefs -- our beliefs -- people are initially taken aback, but then they have a second response. "Oh, really? You think your father is the Messiah?" But then whoever is listening to Kook Jin will go through a mental process where they're asking themselves, "How can a son of this man so boldly believe that his father is the Messiah?" And this son is not just any kind of son. He's one of the titans of industry in Korea. He is one of the well acknowledged, up-and-coming CEOs of Korea.

When somebody with this external excellence so boldly proclaims that his father is the Messiah, because it is through his father and mother's teachings that he has come to understand the need for internal excellence as well, then people are, "Wow, this is amazing."

Somebody said to me a while back, "Do not be afraid of anything new. Just remember that it was the amateur, the believer who built the ark, but it was the all-knowing professionals who built the Titanic. In other words, perhaps our boldness might look so innocent, so ignorantly innocent, but if you really think about it, the truth is the truth. It is time for people to realize that our True Father has a profound message to share with the rest of the world, and here are his son and his daughter saying that this is the Lord of the Second Advent we have been waiting for. We are saying that in the form of our True Parents we have a beautiful man and woman who are going to show us how to become ideal human beings, ideal spouses, ideal father and mother, and ideal children.

When we think about how amazing it is to be afforded this opportunity to be breathing and walking together with our True Parents, we realize how incredibly blessed we are, brothers and sisters. This is not a time to be afraid when God tests us. God might put us in a very difficult situation -- perhaps in a room full of journalists or people from organizations like the Cult Awareness Network -- but if we can be bold and not afraid of who we are, and start preaching and sharing the breaking news, I think we will be amazed at the kind of feedback and response we will experience.

I can testify that the stronger I am and the bolder I am in talking about my faith and my parents and how incredible it is to have True Parents here with us, the more people want to hear. People want to study more. People want to read our True Father's autobiography.

Did you know, if you end up going to Las Vegas on this book distribution project that is taking place now, when you drive down the highway you will see a huge billboard advertising our True Father's autobiography as a best-seller. You can learn more about this autobiography at peaceking.com.

I was spending time with True Parents but I wanted to know what the billboards looked like. Reverend Cotter took a video of the approach to the billboard and included comments about what he felt and how it looked to him. When he showed me this video, I saw another example of Reverend Cotter's talent. He has made a good visual record of the car going slowly toward the billboard, but what is quite striking is his narration. It is almost like listening to the Indy 500 -- "Here comes the lead car. Here they come in the turn around the bend," and so on. He was narrating, "Here we are going down the highway, approaching the billboard, which will come up on the left. This is really amazing.

This is the first time something like this has happened in this remarkable Sin City, now Sun City, of Las Vegas. We need to look -- look, look toward the left. As we're approaching, look carefully. There it is! There it is! Beautiful billboard! Father looks magnificent and it's so tastefully done." When I experienced this almost childlike excitement at seeing our True Father on the billboard next to a highway in Las Vegas, I said to myself, "Hallelujah. True Parents have arrived and this is just the beginning."

Father has a lot of plans for Las Vegas and all the wonderful things he will be doing. I'm sure you will be hearing more and more about some of the things that will be taking place. But again I felt, why have we been so afraid to put a beautiful picture of True Parents up on a billboard? It's a lot nicer looking than some of those billboards out there with Australia's "Thunder Down Under," right? You see billboards of half naked men and women all over the place.

But here you come across this beautiful billboard where two hands are holding up the autobiography of our True Father, encased in a blue light, and there are doves flying out of it. Even the company that owns the billboard said this is really quite beautiful.

Even in that small way our True Parents are letting people know they are here. What should we be doing if we see this last three years before 2013 as the window of opportunity when we can be there to testify about our True Parents so they will truly be understood as the True Parents of all humankind? Or are we not going to do our responsibility, and have our True Parents crucified? Once our True Parents start showing up again in the consciousness of the American people, our movement has to be right there like a true John the Baptist, not just to protect them but also to testify as to who they are.

When we're thinking about testifying about True Parents we need to realize that in order truly to testify about True Parents we have to be a living witness for them. I received an e-mail from a Second Gen high school student in Red Hook, New York. She said one of her classes was studying different religions and cults. Of course when the topic of cults came up, immediately it turned to the Unification Church and Rev. Sun Myung Moon. They were showing a video of different cults. It was not a very flattering clip, but the teacher, knowing that there are Unificationists in his class, decided quickly to cut that video segment short. The teacher had to make a couple of statements after the video, saying, "Here in our school we have Unificationists represented and I need to say that they are a wonderful addition to our community and we are so lucky to have them."

The teacher, realizing how unflattering the videotape was about our movement, had to make that statement because the Second Generation going to that school were living witnesses of what our True Parents are all about. They tended to be the best students. They tended to be more focused and more serious about their studies.

Regardless of what people have seen or heard about our movement, when they meet you and our children they have to look at what's in front of them, wrestle with what they've heard, and decide for themselves -- "Is Rev. Moon really a good guy or a bad guy? Because here I have a living witness, a living testament of their faith and all I see is beauty and promise, somebody who is serious about their life." What else can people say? They are naturally won over by you and our children.

Again, this is the power of natural witnessing. When we can raise ourselves up to be excellent, proud, and confident sons and daughters of God, there is very little we need to say. The only thing we need to do is go about our business, doing the good work that we need to do. When people want us to share about our faith then we do so boldly, proudly, and with great confidence and reverence for the True Parents, who are really, truly a gift to all of us.

Our True Parents are saying, "God prepared this beautiful country of America to play a remarkable providential role. What are you Americans going to do for the sake of the world?" Here we are in Washington, D.C., which has been so blessed over the years when Father invested millions and millions of dollars to save America, to help America stand on its two feet and be the great country that God is waiting for it to be.

Our members, who have been fortunate to work at these different institutions such as the Washington Times, The World and I, and Atlantic Video, have also prospered materially. But sometimes when we are blessed materially or externally we get a little complacent. Sometimes we get a little fat in our thoughts, and we forget who we are. We forget why we're getting that check from the Washington Times. We're not getting it just for our own benefit, so we can have a great house, eat great food, play with our neighbors, and say, "I am just like you. I belong to a golf club, to this club and that club."

God did not invest in Washington, D.C., so we could all have memberships to clubs. God and our True Parents invested billions of dollars because they were fighting communism. They were trying to protect the world from things like communism and the kind of life that has no vision or purpose or direction.

If Father and Mother invested that many external resources in this great city of Washington, shouldn't it be more than what Charles Dickens calls a city of magnificent intentions? Shouldn't it be a city that understands how much sweat, blood, and tears lies behind all those financial resources?

American brothers and sisters, those resources came from the mother country of Japan. Don't you think that America, as an eldest son, should finally grow up and be responsible and take care of the father and mother? This begins with taking care of ourselves. We should be the country that generates resources in support of Korea and Japan. Shouldn't we work that much harder, knowing how much Father has invested in this community? Shouldn't we feel the weight of ownership so that we can work harder to be the proud and confident elder son country that God has been waiting for?

Brothers and sisters, when our True Parents come to Las Vegas and are asking all of us to share this breaking news, they're asking us to share their love with the rest of the country. They're asking us to start making people feel God's love through natural witnessing, through being proud and articulating who we are as Unificationists with great dignity and reverence for our Heavenly Parents and True Parents. In that way we can move the conscience of the American people so that America comes to shine as a beacon of light unto the world.

America has been so privileged to have so many things at its fingertips. It has power, prestige, and the best academic institutions around the world. Now what are we going to do with it?

When I entered Columbia University and took my first course in political science, my teacher defined what power meant. He said power is the ability to influence. America sits in a unique position in that it can exercise tremendous power to influence the world. So imagine if America could truly be unified with our True Parents and our Heavenly Parents and exercise its providential power to influence the world to see ourselves as belonging to one family with one God and to understand that the differences we have, if we come together, will combine as strength interwoven in a beautiful tapestry.

As long as we can maintain a grateful attitude and heart, we can continue to exercise a great ability to influence, starting with our own families, communities, and movement, and then expanding to our different communities, cities, towns, and ultimately this country and the world.

Brothers and sisters, we have a lot of good work to do. You need to know that the work we are doing is an extremely important one. No work is more important than helping people come to understand who God is and what our True Parents are all about. Instead of just enjoying this gift of the Blessing ourselves, how wonderful would it be if we could share the gift of the Blessing with the rest of the world, so that in essence we do become one family.

When I received a daughter-in-law who is half Japanese and half Finnish, I felt as if the world was becoming my family. That's the beauty of the blessing. In God's eyes, he and she see no color. We are all children of God and divine beings. So be a proud son or daughter of God. Be proud Unificationists. Know that we have been uniquely blessed through the presence of our True Parents, and that our mission in life is to leave the world better than we found it. So should we not honor God and our True Parents with everything we have?

Our movement has been called the most successful movement in the lifetime of its founder. That's just the first stage. Brothers and sisters, if the Second Generation can continue on this great success by being proud of who they are, and sharing the beauty of themselves with the rest of the world, we're going to experience the floodgates opening.

I'm experiencing in my work day-to-day with the different people whom I meet that they respond differently to our movement now. There is a desire for them to get involved. The concept of True Parents, the feminine and the masculine represented in a holistic picture and with the concept of a loving family, is something that we all desire and aspire to have.

The message of true love, true life, and true lineage is a beautiful one. So go proudly and know that our True Parents are with you every step of the way. Please have a great Sunday and a great week. I hope you can continue to help wash not only the capital of America but all of America. Please help America to find its way back to God so the country will be able to exercise its rightful power and the ability to influence the world in the way that it was meant to.

God bless, and thank you.

Notes:

John, chapter 17

1: When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, "Father, the hour has come; glorify thy Son that the Son may glorify thee,

2: since thou hast given him power over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom thou hast given him.

3: And this is eternal life, that they know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.

4: I glorified thee on earth, having accomplished the work which thou gavest me to do;

5: and now, Father, glorify thou me in thy own presence with the glory which I had with thee before the world was made.

6: "I have manifested thy name to the men whom thou gavest me out of the world; thine they were, and thou gavest them to me, and they have kept thy word.

7: Now they know that everything that thou hast given me is from thee;

8: for I have given them the words which thou gavest me, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from thee; and they have believed that thou didst send me.

9: I am praying for them; I am not praying for the world but for those whom thou hast given me, for they are thine;

10: all mine are thine, and thine are mine, and I am glorified in them.

11: And now I am no more in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to thee. Holy Father, keep them in thy name, which thou hast given me, that they may be one, even as we are one.

12: While I was with them, I kept them in thy name, which thou hast given me; I have guarded them, and none of them is lost but the son of perdition, that the scripture might be fulfilled.

13: But now I am coming to thee; and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves.

14: I have given them thy word; and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.

15: I do not pray that thou shouldst take them out of the world, but that thou shouldst keep them from the evil one.

16: They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.

17: Sanctify them in the truth; thy word is truth.

18: As thou didst send me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.

19: And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be consecrated in truth.

20: "I do not pray for these only, but also for those who believe in me through their word,

21: that they may all be one; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.

22: The glory which thou hast given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one,

23: I in them and thou in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that thou hast sent me and hast loved them even as thou hast loved me.

24: Father, I desire that they also, whom thou hast given me, may be with me where I am, to behold my glory which thou hast given me in thy love for me before the foundation of the world.

25: O righteous Father, the world has not known thee, but I have known thee; and these know that thou hast sent me.

26: I made known to them thy name, and I will make it known, that the love with which thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them."

John, chapter 8

1: but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.

2: Early in the morning he came again to the temple; all the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them.

3: The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst

4: they said to him, "Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery.

5: Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such. What do you say about her?"

6: This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground.

7: And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, "Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her."

8: And once more he bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground.

9: But when they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the eldest, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him.

10: Jesus looked up and said to her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?"

11: She said, "No one, Lord." And Jesus said, "Neither do I condemn you; go, and do not sin again."

12: Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, "I am the light of the world; he who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."

13: The Pharisees then said to him, "You are bearing witness to yourself; your testimony is not true."

14: Jesus answered, "Even if I do bear witness to myself, my testimony is true, for I know whence I have come and whither I am going, but you do not know whence I come or whither I am going.

15: You judge according to the flesh, I judge no one.

16: Yet even if I do judge, my judgment is true, for it is not I alone that judge, but I and he who sent me.

17: In your law it is written that the testimony of two men is true;

18: I bear witness to myself, and the Father who sent me bears witness to me."

19: They said to him therefore, "Where is your Father?" Jesus answered, "You know neither me nor my Father; if you knew me, you would know my Father also."

20: These words he spoke in the treasury, as he taught in the temple; but no one arrested him, because his hour had not yet come.

21: Again he said to them, "I go away, and you will seek me and die in your sin; where I am going, you cannot come."

22: Then said the Jews, "Will he kill himself, since he says, `Where I am going, you cannot come'?"

23: He said to them, "You are from below, I am from above; you are of this world, I am not of this world.

24: I told you that you would die in your sins, for you will die in your sins unless you believe that I am he."

25: They said to him, "Who are you?" Jesus said to them, "Even what I have told you from the beginning.

26: I have much to say about you and much to judge; but he who sent me is true, and I declare to the world what I have heard from him."

27: They did not understand that he spoke to them of the Father.

28: So Jesus said, "When you have lifted up the Son of man, then you will know that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own authority but speak thus as the Father taught me.

29: And he who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what is pleasing to him."

30: As he spoke thus, many believed in him.

31: Jesus then said to the Jews who had believed in him, "If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples,

32: and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free."

33: They answered him, "We are descendants of Abraham, and have never been in bondage to any one. How is it that you say, `You will be made free'?"

34: Jesus answered them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, every one who commits sin is a slave to sin.

35: The slave does not continue in the house for ever; the son continues for ever.

36: So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.

37: I know that you are descendants of Abraham; yet you seek to kill me, because my word finds no place in you.

38: I speak of what I have seen with my Father, and you do what you have heard from your father."

39: They answered him, "Abraham is our father." Jesus said to them, "If you were Abraham's children, you would do what Abraham did,

40: but now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth which I heard from God; this is not what Abraham did.

41: You do what your father did." They said to him, "We were not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God."

42: Jesus said to them, "If God were your Father, you would love me, for I proceeded and came forth from God; I came not of my own accord, but he sent me.

43: Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word.

44: You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

45: But, because I tell the truth, you do not believe me.

46: Which of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me?

47: He who is of God hears the words of God; the reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God."

48: The Jews answered him, "Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?"

49: Jesus answered, "I have not a demon; but I honor my Father, and you dishonor me.

50: Yet I do not seek my own glory; there is One who seeks it and he will be the judge.

51: Truly, truly, I say to you, if any one keeps my word, he will never see death."

52: The Jews said to him, "Now we know that you have a demon. Abraham died, as did the prophets; and you say, `If any one keeps my word, he will never taste death.'

53: Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died? And the prophets died! Who do you claim to be?"

54: Jesus answered, "If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing; it is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say that he is your God.

55: But you have not known him; I know him. If I said, I do not know him, I should be a liar like you; but I do know him and I keep his word.

56: Your father Abraham rejoiced that he was to see my day; he saw it and was glad."

57: The Jews then said to him, "You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?"

58: Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am."

59: So they took up stones to throw at him; but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple.

City of Magnificent Intentions

Charles Dickens (1812–1870), British novelist. American Notes, ch. 8 (1842) wrote about Washington DC:

It is sometimes called the City of Magnificent Distances, but it might with greater propriety be termed the City of Magnificent Intentions.... Spacious avenues, that begin in nothing, and lead nowhere; streets, mile-long, that only want houses, roads, and inhabitants; public buildings that need but a public to be complete; and ornaments of great thoroughfares, which only lack great thoroughfares to ornament -- are its leading features.  

Register for the Second Annual Commencement Gala, Friday June 3rd

In Jin Moon
April 14, 2011

We are proud to announce the Second Annual Commencement Gala, to be held on Friday, June 3rd, at the Manhattan Center, to mark the end of this scholastic year with a bang!

Commemorate it with pictures from the photo booth, participate in a raffle, sing along to your favorite songs and dance the night away! Everyone is welcome to join us in celebrating the graduating class of 2011! Even if you are not graduating, everyone is welcome to join in on the fun!

If you have a picture of your graduate, send it to us for a slide show.

Registration is open at: events.constantcontact.com/register/event?llr=xcjqh8cabandoeidk=a07e3nmi1l545af1c97

Early bird ticket prices are at $30 per person until May 3rd, so get them fast, the prices will go up! 

Sermon Notes, April 10, 2011

In Jin Moon

1) In Jin Nim greeted everyone -- expressing how much she loves the final song that the band had just played "We Are the Champions." It's a great way to start Sunday morning -- to let everyone know that we are the champions of the world.

2) In Jin Nim's eldest son Preston came back from London earlier this week. This is his reading period, the weeks when the London School of Economics students cram for their exams. She and he had a conversation about how his courses are going, the kind of people, from all over the world, that he has had the privilege to meet.

3) He was telling In Jin Nim about his experience at his school, a premier institution for higher learning. A lot of people come there because, in one sense, they want to be champions of their world, masters of the universe. Some of you who saw the movie Wall Street, Gordon gecko, and this whole understanding of greed, of all this money out there that you want to amass and control for yourself -- in essence to be the master of your universe. This is a concept that a lot of people have when they apply to business schools and schools of higher learning -- and in Preston's case he met a lot of these people.

4) In Jin Nim thought about what the word "champion" means. What should it mean to all of us who want to live our lives, not just thinking about ourselves and creating ourselves into this master of the universe type of person, but someone who aspires to do something good in the world -- people who really want to live for the sake of others and not just seek to raise ourselves up, but others along with us.

5) When In Jin Nim thought about this she was reminded of her graduate school years at Harvard many years ago. She remembers being at the library during one of the reading periods. This was a time when everyone stays up very late, many times until two or three in the morning. All these students come to get the top grade, competing with each other. You know who the smart ones are, who you need to beat to get the top grade. During this time when they were in the library, looking at each other, almost suspiciously, because the competition is so fierce and you want to graduate at the top of your class. And the people who come to Harvard are the best, valedictorians, so your classroom is not made up of average students, with a few who are really hard-working and the rest who don't really want to be there. At Harvard you're competing with people who have always been number one in their environment. So the competition is incredibly fierce and during the reading period you see students coming in with boxes of Alka-Seltzer, or a box of Pepto-Bismol -- because they need to pass the exam and get good grades. The stress level and the pressure is incredibly fierce. And In Jin Nim remembered one day, close to midnight, when a young man came storming into the library saying, "guys, guys, we are all winners!" People looked at him wondering what he was talking about. He said "guys we are all winners in that we have experienced the miracle life." And he gave a speech on how all of us are winners in that we beat out something like 300 million sperm's to turn into a zygote that eventually became us. So he was saying, "Why are we competing with each other so ferociously when we are all winners?" He did this to startle everyone and promote everyone to think -- but it also provided comic relief during their study break.

6) But it makes you wonder, if we really are winners in the most competitive race, which is for life -- and here we are as God's eternal sons and daughters -- aren't we born champions?

7) When we look at ourselves in the mirror, or look at those people seated next to us and around us, we have to realize in essence, just as Harvard University is an academic institution that has all the academic winners from around the world -- if you think about it, our world is a world of winners, of champions.

8) When we think of ourselves in that capacity, and we remind ourselves that we come from our Heavenly Parent up in heaven, and that we are His and Her eternal sons and daughters with infinite value, with a divinity flowing through our veins, we realize that we are not just mere dust in the wind -- meant to just float around the earth before we disappear into the atmosphere. We were born champions, we were born winners, meant for greatness. Not in that we ourselves are going to turn ourselves into masters of the universe, but by serving others, raising up others to be just as great and greater than us, and thereby become great ourselves.

9) When we look at the word "champion" -- consulting Webster's dictionary -- it defines champion as somebody who fights for a cause. It also defines it as somebody who is a valiant fighter, valiant meaning incredibly courageous or brave. And it also defines champion as a winner in a competition.

10) When we think about champion in the context of who we are, as God's eternal sons and daughters, those of us in the movement who are committed to our Heavenly Parents and to our True Parents (True Parents) and are committed to living for the sake of others -- and practicing that compassion, in a way we have agreed to do certain things. We have agreed to acknowledge, to be that individual in that family of many many beautiful brothers and sisters all around the world. We've agreed to acknowledge each other as divine beings. We've agreed to work together to try to create something better than how we found the world. And we've agreed to try to inspire and empower ourselves so that we can leave something beautiful and wonderful behind.

11) In Jin Nim has always talked about the importance of raising up this beautiful generation of peace. In Jin Nim looks at the word peace as an acronym -- it means several things. It means first and foremost, the letter P, we belong to our Heavenly Parent up in heaven. And the letter E, reminds us that we are eternal sons and daughters of God. The letter A, reminds us to live a life of altruism, or in the words of In Jin Nim's father "living for the sake of others." And the letter to C, the application of a compassionate lifestyle of nurture and care and empowerment so that we can truly be that eternal letter E -- excellent sons and daughters of God, not just excellent internally but excellent externally.

12) When In Jin Nim thinks about being a champion and all that it entails she thinks about Preston at the London school of economics competing with top students from all around the world -- and the interesting thing about his program is that they have many case studies of a particular corporation, of Fortune 500 companies -- what defines what an excellent leader is, what an effective organization is, what an incredible work environment is. These are all the things that they talk about and learn from doing these case studies. Preston shared with In Jin Nim about one of his symposiums -- there were a couple of people from Germany, these two young ladies who were typical MBA types, who had the best education, perfect resumes -- they looked great, they spoke wonderfully -- and they were talking about what makes a good leader. How do you run an organization in the most effective way?

13) While Preston was contemplating these questions in his mind, he was also taking note of the fact that these two young ladies were incredibly ambitious and aggressive. They not only had a razor-sharp mind, but their whole being was that they wanted to be the master of the universe. No man, no boss, no company was going to stand in their way. During one class they were presented with a situation -- a company in which the fat needs to be trimmed -- in order to have efficiency in this Corporation. The teacher asked the classroom, "what would you do?" And these two ladies jumped in, incredibly aggressively saying, "you've got to trim what you've got to trim -- with no regard to institutional knowledge, if they're too old, get rid of them. If they're not functioning, get read of them." Their quick solution was to "get rid of them, get rid of them." The teacher then questioned them, "What about for the sake of morality, is there room for compassion, is there room for care or nurture in the business, in an aggressive atmosphere such as in a Fortune 500 corporation?" And they answered, "Absolutely not! You got to do what you got to do, bottom line, if anyone gets in your way you have to get rid of them."

14) This made Preston think a little. He said to In Jin Nim, "I've realized that there are lots of people out there that are out there just for themselves -- it is really not about thinking of the good of the company, the good of the city, the good of the country, or the good of the well being of the people you care about. It's basically about what you can grab and what you can take. I found that repulsive."

15) In Jin Nim asked Preston, "Do you think that a true champion can be found in a business setting? Do you think there is room for compassion in business? Or do you think that compassion has nothing to do with money -- in other words compassion is just a very soft sell, a soft feel of nurturing and of caring, but it doesn't amount to power? Do you think that is so?"

16) The thing that In Jin Nim has realized is that the word compassion and really living for the sake of others is a profoundly powerful word. It is not one of these feel-good fuzzy-wuzzy words. As interesting as this might be, compassion can translate into great profitability in a business organization or business setting.

17) The interesting thing is the study that Jim Collins did. He wrote a book called "Goodness to Greatness" and he studies the different components of effective or compassionate business leadership. He found that there are three components. The first is affective -- meaning I feel for you. The second is a cognitive -- meaning I understand you. The third he calls the motivational -- meaning I want to help you. And he said in his findings, in his research, having studied the most effective and most competent leaders in the field of business -- he came to a few conclusions. He said, "I realize the most effective leader is what I call a level 5 leader." What he means by a level 5 leader is that this leader usually has two qualities that are incredibly obvious. Every level 5 leader has the characteristic of humility and the characteristic of great ambition -- not ambition purely for oneself, but ambition for the good of the whole. You are ambitious. You work hard. You are persistent and persevering, not just for yourself, but because you believe that the work you are doing is for the good of the whole.

18) He mentions how, in this understanding of this character of humility in a very effective business leader -- inherent in that is the affective -- I feel for you, and the cognitive -- I understand you. It's implicit in the understanding of a humble leader -- that they are not so preoccupied with themselves but they are really in tune with what people are feeling and what people want.

19) And then he says, when you look at the other characteristics of ambition, ambition for the greater good, he says that encompasses the understanding of the third component of a compassionate business leader which is motivational, in that "I want to help you." The level 5 compassionate effective business leader, believes that he needs to work hard, he needs to be ambitious for the sake of the greater good, because he believes that what he does will ultimately help you.

20) Mr. Collins encapsulates for us what might be construed as something that belongs to the realm of spirituality and the metaphysical and emotional. The word compassion is actually an incredibly powerful word that translates into extraordinary profitability when you understand it in a business setting as that word having these three components of affective, cognitive, and motivational. And then his conclusion, through years and years of research, having pinpointed the most effective leaders, trying to figure out what it is about this leader, this CEO, that truly makes them exceptional -- he found it's the combination of humility, and ambition.

21) When In Jin Nim read this she realized, "Hallelujah! This is what our True Parents are all about." They came here, humbly, to teach us, really share with us the breaking news of the Divine Principle.

22) The word compassion comes from two roots -- "com" meaning together and "pati" meaning to suffer. Somebody who is compassionate understands your suffering, understands exactly the experience that you have gone through. We can all agree that no one has suffered more than our True Parents. They understand our suffering. And the incredible thing about our True Parents being a man and a woman, not some quasi-alien that God sent our way -- but they are human beings just like us. And for them to have become champions means, just like us, they have had to deal with trials and tribulations, but with sincere devotion, commitment, and perseverance, they have become champions of the world. It gives us infinite hope that we can do the same.

23) It gives us hope that the people who understand pain and suffering, as well as joy and love -- if they can be the champions of true love it gives us infinite hope that we can also be the champions of true love. Regardless of how difficult our lives may be, of where we might find ourselves in our lives, when we think about True Parents, when we think about the kind of message that they are bringing -- and the message that they are bringing is not to just tell us that we are horrible -- they come to give us constructive criticism -- "You guys, we all fell away from God so we need to re-graft into the lineage of God. And these are the steps you need to take to re-graft yourselves." They didn't come to tell us that we are horrible. In fact they came to tell us that we are winners in that we are champions, because they teach us that we are eternal sons and daughters.

24) When they came to this great country of America in the 1970s they did not come here just to criticize the living daylights out of the Americans, but they wanted to provoke the young Americans to wake up and to not live a purposeless existence, not be swept away by the tide of sex and drugs and whatever goes. They came to share with us the message that we have infinite value and that we are champions and we can be the champions of our own destiny. But it is our responsibility to be that agent of change, to own up to the kind of person or people that we would like to be, and work. Be ambitious for the greater good.

25) A lot of people feel that religion keeps people meek, keeps people week, and keeps people hostage to the church. But if you really think about it, it is not the job of the church to keep its brothers and sisters addicted. Just as the purpose of a good hospital is to receive a patient and leave them better than we found them. They come, they seek treatment, and they go better than how we found them. And through the therapy that they received in the hospital they can do better, because they feel better. Likewise -- the church is not an institution that should be like a crutch to people. It should be a medium through which people come to understand who they are, come to feel God's love, and people come to understand that because they are inspired in knowing that we are the children of God -- we feel compelled to do the right thing for the good of the whole. In a way, the job of religion is to help us become whole, healthy, happy human beings. Just like the way the job of a mother is not to just raise the kids and keep them in the home forever -- it's to nurture the kids so that they can really grow to their potential, go out into the world, serve the world, and really make the world a better place than they found it.

26) When In Jin Nim thinks about compassionate leadership, and when she thinks about our True Parents -- the great thing about our True Parents, they are the champions of true love, they really live the philosophy that the Good Book talks about in 1 Thess. 5:11. The Bible says, "therefore encourage one another and edify one another." What does edify mean? It means to strengthen, to bolster. In a way, the Bible is reminding us to empower each other, to live encouraging others. When you are encouraging others, wanting them to be great -- the word courage comes from the French word "la couer" (the heart). When you're in the midst of living a heart centered life -- you realize that the whole purpose of your being is not just to think about yourself, but to really live for the sake of others, to encourage others.

27) When In Jin Nim thinks about the kind of people that our True Parents are, a couple of things come to mind. They are the man and woman of real love, genuine love, or true love.

28) And there are a couple of things that true love is not. Number one genuine love, true love, is not envy. When In Jin Nim thinks about the word envy -- and we know our movement is going through so many different transitions, so many generational issues, so many transferences of power and authority from one generation to another -- and whenever you are in a group setting it is a great atmosphere for lots of disgruntlement or sometimes envy or misunderstanding -- when she thinks about the word envy, in her ears when she hears the word -- it sounds to her like end. When we are engrossed in being envious, or living a life where envy becomes our God, it totally incapacitates us, it kills what our life could be, because it turns us inward and negative -- almost like rotting from within.

29) In Jin Nim remembers seeing a movie about Mozart called Amadeus. That movie so wonderfully portrayed the relationship between Mozart and Salieri the great court composer of the day. Salieri was someone who was loved by the King, commissioned by the King, wrote great works of art for the King, and was himself a fine musician. Everybody honored and loved him. Then one day this young upstart named Mozart comes and he is nothing like an angelic figure. He is rowdy, rambunctious, flirty, he is not serious -- but somehow Mozart has been touched by God. He has an incredible ability to make melodies spontaneously, extemporaneously -- the kind of melodies that Salieri can only dream about. Here was Salieri, incredibly educated, learned, distinguished -- a fixture in the king's court, suddenly finding himself being envious of this seemingly worthless, young, irresponsible, unscrupulous young upstart. The feelings of emotions started churning in his heart and mind, and as he goes about trying to compose another piece for the King -- another piece to honor God -- there is a scene in the movie in which he cries out to God, "I want to honor you with my music. Why do you bless Mozart with this incredible melody? Why do you not bless me?" So Salieri is consumed with anger, frustration, envy, jealousy -- like being stuck under this Jell-O of a mud like existence. He literally wants to kill this Mozart. But Mozart, being so carefree, so innocent, doesn't really see what Salieri is up to, what he is capable of. And so Mozart goes about his own way, expressing and manifesting his God-given talent to the dismay of Salieri.

30) In Jin Nim thinks, as difficult as it must have been for a Salieri -- you see it's the desire of every person to be that person to honor God, but the interesting thing is we don't decide who God wants to work through. We don't decide the time and place. We as God's eternal sons and daughters have infinite value and God uses us in many many different situations and in different ways -- and God did use Salieri to honor God, in praise of God with his music, giving delight to the court with his music. But then God wanted to work through Mozart. But Salieri instead of being grateful for the opportunity to have served, and an understanding that just as there are four seasons in the year -- spring, summer, fall, and winter -- can you imagine if one season said no, I refuse to turn over -- it will be forever spring, or it will be forever summer, it will be forever autumn, it will be forever winter. If that were the case we would not be able to enjoy and experience all of God's majesty and the beauty that comes through traveling through the spring when the seeds are planted, through the ripening of the fruit in the summer, to the harvest in the fall, to the preparation again for the next spring in the winter. Can you imagine if the seasons simply refused?

31) In the case of Salieri he was like a season that simply refused to see that God wants to turn over into a new season called Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. And because he could not turn over, could not let go of his desire, "I want to serve God." And that desire is wonderful, incredibly wonderful, but we also have to leave God the room to exercise who He wants to work with or who She wants to work with.

32) In a way, God was asking Mozart to now be the season. Salieri was so consumed with envy. He could not overcome the desire to, in his own words, honor God. But if you really think about it, it wasn't really about honoring God, it was about wanting to maintain his position in the court, maintain that position in the eyes of the King, maintain that position amongst the musicians that lived in the court.

33) Of course we know what happened to Mozart and his sad fate, but he was one of those rare geniuses, a gift to the world. In a way we can experience God's laughter through Mozart's music. And regardless of how many seasons come and go his music is eternal in that we know it's God speaking to us through his music.

34) One of the other things that real love, genuine love, true love is not -- real love is not self-pity. Many times we have this complex, a martyr complex -- especially in the life of a religious person -- we are not living for the sake of others, meaning we need to be alive in order to serve, but we have literally become empty carcasses, we have been dying for the sake of others. For so long, we have not been able to generate -- we have lost the connection to the outlet. We are like a light bulb that needs that electric current to shine brightly. We are like an empty carcass of a person because we can't be connected to this eternal source of life, and of hope, and of faith. So we are dying for the sake of others -- and at the same time feeling incredibly sorry for ourselves.

35) In Jin Nim remembers meeting one sister, a very very capable sister. She pulled In Jin Nim aside to talk to her -- she is doing all these things for her husband, for her children, she is bent over backward, she barely has time to bathe or feed herself, she is running around like a crazy dog without a head, "my children don't appreciate me, my husband does not appreciate me, my friends do not appreciate me, I don't know what I am anymore, I feel so empty and hollow."

36) When In Jin Nim heard this sister's story -- it was a case of self-pity. She was trying her best to really do everything she could, but she forgot to take care of herself. Regardless of how crazy life can get -- for instance in In Jin Nim's life with 5 children, when she feels herself on the edge of doing something not so good, because children have this way of taking you to the limit and back, she reminds herself of what True Mother said many years ago, "Don't forget to breathe. You have to breathe."

37) If you don't breathe -- you start out as fine music but you will turn into … like blowing into a flute, you start out beautifully, but how far can you go on one breath. You need to take a step back to give it new air, to give it new breath. Every song has a rest. Every melody has a silence. Sometimes the silence is more powerful than the actual playing of notes. We breathe in and out. But when we forget to breathe, when you forget to live for the sake of others, and suffer under this martyr complex, "I was meant to suffer, to be miserable, I could not appreciate my life because I'm a sinner." If we allow ourselves to start thinking that way then we can so easily turn into a person that does not live for the sake of others, but dies for the sake of others. And then we can fall into this trap of extreme self-pity.

38) When In Jin Nim finds herself in this predicament she switches her mind to concentrate on her father's life, our True Father's life. Here's a man who's been in and out of prison six times. He was incarcerated in a North Korean concentration camp, Hung Nam, for more than two years and eight months -- where most inmates perished after six months. This was a man who'd been through extraordinary difficulty, he's been tortured numerous times, has been thrown out from prison for dead twice in his life. If anybody could feel sorry for himself, it certainly should be True Father.

39) But the incredible thing about True Father -- he said to In Jin Nim once, "there's no time in life to feel sorry for yourself -- when we are here to do good work in service of others."

40) When In Jin Nim thinks about her father and mother together, her father's message -- saying that there is no time to think about your self pity, other than to think about other people, and her mother's guidance to her -- don't forget to breathe. This means taking their message in a holistic way -- we have to find the balanced way to deal with our religious life and our family life -- in that instead of succumbing to this martyr complex, and feeling incredible self-pity, we need to start thinking, instead of self-pity we should be grateful. Because whatever we're going through, we are doing it to make the world a better place. As long as we remember to breathe, as long as we can take a step back, and take two steps forward, take a step back, take two steps forward -- yes, maybe too slowly, but we will certainly get to our destination and goal alive and not dead.

41) Another thing that true love is not, is this need to constantly tear somebody down. In Jin Nim was having lunch with some of her friends. This is a place where people go to have power lunches. She was seated at a table with a couple of woman and two gentlemen. Then a beautiful lady walked into the restaurant and was seated. The interesting thing was, the men at the table were greatly admiring this beautiful woman. But the ladies at the table had the need to tear this woman down, "That hair cannot possibly be natural blonde. She must torture herself at the gym six days a week, five hours a day, that must be all that she does. I bet she doesn't touch anything on her plate. Let's watch what she eats." As In Jin Nim was watching she wandered why do we have this need to tear a beautiful masterpiece down. If someone is beautiful or handsome we should be happy for them. Thank God there are some handsome and beautiful people in the world. "Imagine if the whole world looked like me. How boring."

42) Why do we feel the need to tear the person down. We feel the need to tear them down because we are not practicing or experiencing real genuine love. We are tearing that person down because we feel threatened, and our insecurities have been pushed into play and so we have to attack back by clawing them down.

43) When we think about all these characteristics of what true love is not, true love is not envious, it is not self-pitying, it is not tearing down. These are all qualities that we as parents, when we truly love our children, that we honestly can say we don't feel -- and we would never be envious of our children. We want them to be far better than us. We don't want to be self pitying and turn on our martyr complex so that our children feel the weight of that. We don't want to become sinkers to our children when we want them to fly and sore and become incredible men and women of God. We as parents would not tear down our children -- we would not stay, "you're not a natural blonde. You look good because you're on that insanity program five hours a day." When our children are healthy, and they look good, they're good at sports, great at music, good in scholastics -- we are so proud of them and we want to talk good things about them. "Grandfather look what your grandson did, look what your granddaughter did." Would we call to our parents and say, "look how horrible your grandson is, look how superficial your granddaughter is?" You don't do that. Because we genuinely love our children, with real genuine affection.

44) If we realize that these are the characteristics -- envious, self-pity, having the desire to tear someone down, that are not the characteristics of true love, then we realize, when we think about what we talked about earlier -- the compassionate and effective business leaders. When Jim Collins talks about three components of being affective, cognitive, motivational -- that I feel for you, I understand you, I wish well for you, in a way if you think about it the characteristics of real love, when it is transposed onto this understanding of compassion in a business setting of all settings, you realize that when you are an affective leader, you're feeling "I feel for you" you are not an envious leader in that you are sincerely happy for the prosperity, not envious of someone else's accomplishments, because you feel for them.

45) Talking about the other component, being cognitive -- I understand you, this understanding can be understood as someone who is not self pitying, not a martyr complex, in that we know that we are eternal sons and daughters with infinite value -- so we have no room to feel sorry for ourselves when we should be concentrating on all the great things that we will be doing.

46) And when we think about the motivational component of a compassionate business leader -- it's very much like someone who practices real love, in that we don't feel the need to tear people down. An effective, compassionate, great leader has no desire to tear people down in his or her organization. If you really believe that you are there to help others to be in service of the organization, is to be in service of the very employees that work for that leader.

47) If we can understand that regardless of where we might be in life, for instance when we contemplate on this word compassion -- and many of us thought that compassion is a very weak, meek word -- a little bit of nurture here, a little bit of care there, but can it translate into great profitability, something that can make great money for the organization? -- In Jin Nim would have to say absolutely. When we can raise up a generation of peace, future leaders that can be alive, leaders like Jim Collins talks about, the future generation leaders that have within them the humility and the ambition to do great things.

48) In order to be a great son and daughter of God, to be that excellent son and daughter of God, means internally and externally excellent, the combination of both. Being a man and woman of religion does not mean that we are so humble that we don't do anything. We need to be humble internally, in understanding who we are and where we stand vis-à-vis everybody else, but knowing that we have infinite potential and knowing that we are divine sons and daughters, we have a duty to be that great son and daughter. We should be ambitious, be willing to work hard, willing to forgo short-term gratification because we want to accomplish something great, we want to accomplish or build a world that is better than when we found it. If we can raise up young men and women, to really understand that the religious life is not just for people who want to live a soulful or spiritual life, but a religious life and an understanding of who we are in relation to God, is just as important as wanting to be a lawyer, a doctor, or anything else in the world. The ingredient for success, humility and ambition -- not selfish ambition, the master of the universe type, but ambition that you want to work hard for the greater good -- these two qualities you find anywhere, not just in business, not just in law, not just in literature, in the arts, but everywhere.

49) If we can inspire our children -- this is the kind of leader we need to be, because we have been given this incredible thing called life, to be living at this time, at this time of the breaking news, together with our True Parents. Our True Parents are here as the living example of what real true genuine love is all about. If we have them as a living example can we not be just as good and may be do even better, and more, so that we can make them proud of us?

50) When the Good Book says encourage each other, edify each other -- encourage means empower those around you, empower the ones you work with. And edify them, means strengthen them, build them up -- not tear them down. If every person can decide today to be this kind of a compassionate leader in their life, or in their career, success is built in. Success has everything to do with how we understand ourselves, how we view ourselves, and knowing that we are here in service of others. We are here to practice living for the sake of others.

51) We have a lot of great things that we will be accomplishing this year, and again In Jin Nim would like to thank all the District Pastors and State Leaders around the country who have joined with her and are really creating the sense of unity as we embark on another 40 day prayer condition. And we as the Unification Church, are really a medium through which the world will begin to see. Unification Church, unified family, Unification Church -- the world will begin to see when they start discovering our movement and all of you. And the world will begin to see when they discover our True Parents.

52) "Spread the breaking news brothers and sisters! And have a blessed Sunday and God bless you!" 

Sermon Notes, April 3, 2011

In Jin Moon

1) The Sunday message began with a clip from a prime time TV show, "What Would You Do?". In the show they have a hidden camera recording people's reaction to special situations that are acted out. In this case there is a blonde girl (acting) who wants to buy a black doll. The woman caring for her (also an actress) is telling her she cannot have a black doll -- she can only buy a white blonde doll. The show focused on the comments of one shopper -- who happened to be one of our 2nd gen., Emanuel. They introduced him as "a remarkable young man... with wisdom and maturity." Emanuel's comments are profound. He asked the woman what would she do if her girl wanted an Asian doll or a red-headed doll. He goes on to share the perspective of our True Parents, that all people, no matter the color on the outside, are beautiful because they are God's children.

2) In Jin Nim welcomed everyone. She thought she would be in Korea, but True Parents gave special permission for her to celebrate the 52nd True Parents Day together -- along with the fact that this is the second anniversary for the Lovin' Life Ministry.

3) Truly God is with us today because the second year anniversary of Lovin' Life Ministry happens to fall on one of the most profound and significant holidays in our movement, celebrating the meaning of True Parents and who they are and why they are so precious to all of us.

4) In Jin Nim expressed her desire to start the morning with the heart of gratitude towards our True Parents, and she wanted to share with us the fruits that we have harvested over the years. This TV "what would you do?" segment shown on ABC is an example of the kind of fruits that we are harvesting in our movement. Emanuel is called a remarkable man by these journalists. For them to bestow on a young gentleman in this modern-day era the word remarkable is an incredible thing. What they are saying is that our children, God's children, are remarkable -- meaning they are extraordinary divine creations of our Heavenly Parent and our True Parents.

5) One of the most beautiful things about our movement is this emphasis on loving people of all races, from all different backgrounds, appreciating the differences and coming together and making a beautiful harmonious tapestry of love that we call one family under God. Truly, in our movement and here in the Lovin' Life Ministry we don't just experience what it is to an Asian American but we understand what it means to be an African American, a white American, but first and foremost we realize that we are all children of God, born with incredible potential -- because we are divine eternal sons and daughters of God.

6) For many years our movement has been out in the wilderness. In a way, the inspired response that America first gave to our movement early in the 1970s was short-lived and we witnessed and experienced the back lash of being misunderstood. Our movement was the victim of its own success. Hundreds of young people were joining our movement every weekend at workshops across the country. Suddenly, what seemed like a gift to the American people -- this very interesting looking Asian man together with his beautiful Asian bride, coming and encouraging American people, not to waste their lives on sex and drugs and purposeless living -- but really encourage them to be the best Americans, be the best eternal sons and daughters of God. This was the message that changed a lot of people's lives. And so, initially we received great fanfare, we were awarded the keys to every state, True Parents were honored in every governor's mansion, they were heralded as great missionaries, teachers of God, and prophets for the New Age. But in the following decades we suffered the backlash because we were so successful as a movement.

7) In Jin Nim grew up at a time when every day she was ridiculed for being a Moonie. She was told, and mocked, by her classmates that her father was a cultist and that he spent all his time brainwashing the young minds of the American people.

8) We have been stuck in this wilderness course for a long time. In a way, fighting for our survival. Survival was key. We had a wilderness survival mentality and we were accustomed to certain things -- like knowing how to hunker down.

9) In Jin Nim was talking with one of her friends who has done lots of ministerial work in prisons. He said to her, one of the things you realize when you go into a prison is that new inmates very quickly learn how to eat -- protecting their food. Because if they don't protect it, it will be taken from them.

10) So, in a way, many of our habits stay with us because we went through this wilderness course and we have this kind of protective, hunkering down, "this is my family, this is my food" -- but True Parents are talking to us about the Pacific rim era, about the need to settle, to enter the land of Canaan and to not just have suffered but arrived at a point in our life where we can begin to be successful internally and externally. In a way, enjoy the prosperity internally and externally and become the kind of men and women that not only dream about the ideal but actually have the opportunity to substantiate that very ideal in our lives.

11) Our True Parents are saying, it's time to move on. It's time to enter a new era. So the whole vision behind the love and life Ministry is to do just that. We need to take ourselves away from this wilderness mentality, coming with a lot of baggage and habits, and really liberate our hearts. As scary as it might be to allow God to work mysteriously in our lives, because God is here to tell us that it's time brothers and sisters, it's time to not just suffer, to just hunker down and fight for mere survival -- it's time to settle, its time to be empowered, to manifest our divinity out into the world. It's time to be that bright shinning light unto this beautiful country of America and truly inspire it to be that providential country that God so desires.

12) When In Jin Nim looks at the example of Emanuel, he is an example of what In Jin Nim has called natural witnessing. Last Sunday In Jin Nim warned a lot of the brothers and sisters sitting in the audience that they are on camera and the camera does not lie. And, the incredible thing about this TV footage, is that it captured natural witnessing at its best -- because Emanuel did not know he was on camera. He was just being his natural God-given self, with an understanding that we belong to one family under God. There is no color when it comes to God's love, and the fact that we are God's children is something we breathe and live each and every day.

13) Unbeknownst to us God is always working with and around us. This is God's gift, not just to America but to all of us in the movement. It's God's way of saying, "brothers and sisters open up and see what you have. See what I have bestowed in your care. Look at how beautiful your children are. Look at how different they are."

14) In the beginning of the TV segment, the woman who was asked what she would do did not have an answer. But the incredible thing about Emanuel, because he was raised in a movement like ours, because he was raised in the teachings of our True Parents and our Heavenly Parent, he could give a very clear answer. He could articulate why a child should be able to have a doll that is different from her -- because we are all God's children.

15) This TV clip is a beautiful gift from God, just to remind us, to let us know what beautiful treasures we have in our midst. When In Jin Nim calls upon all of us to help her build something beautiful, something beautiful that we can leave behind in the form and body of our children, like Emanuel, to leave the world better than when we found it, to leave the world in the hand of those who care, who see no color, who see no barrier, who see no hate, but only want to live and breathe love, peace, and harmony. This is the beauty of our True Parents.

16) On this day, when we are celebrating True Parents Day -- when In Jin Nim was on the phone with Father and Mother, she told them that we are celebrating the second anniversary of Lovin' Life Ministry. She thanked them for their prayers, for their support, and their love. She told them, "The American movement is immensely grateful to be so blessed with your presence." And she told Father, "The Lovin' Life Ministry has been quite busy. We have been doing a lot of work, creating ways for people to participate, contribute, become inspired about who we are" -- the fact that we are God's children and we have a beautiful example in the form of our True Parents here with us, living at this breaking news time when we can not only dream and learn about ideal families, but we have the opportunity to create one ourselves. She told True Parents this is such an incredibly exciting time. And she told them we have been busy giving a lot of birth to new members.

17) True Parents asked, "Lots of new members?" In Jin Nim answered yes, we have been in labor for quite some time, but yes we have given birth. And True Parents asked "how many?"

18) At this point In Jin Nim turned the question to us. She called on one young lady in the audience -- asking her how many new members she thought we have. She answered 1000. In Jin Nim told her she is too kind.

19) Most people In Jin Nim has talked to started with 5? 10? When she asked her husband -- he began with "35?" In Jin Nim had to coach him to go higher. He asked, "40?" When she told him it was higher he would only go up by one, "41?" Asked again, he would only go up in small increments until he reached 50, and finally he said, "it can't be 100, can it?" She gave him a hint -- it's connected to the number two, our second anniversary. He finally guessed 200. Finally In Jin Nim announced that in the period from August of 2010 to the end of February 2011 we gained 222 new members. This does not include the people who joined in March.

20) In Jin Nim spoke to Rev. Cotter, our executive vice president, and to our district pastors -- and she asked them "When is the last time we had over 200 members join in about six months?" They told her it had never happened before. And we have not yet finished the year -- we still have time, until August.

21) When these numbers finally came in all of us were quite amazed and surprised. But this is what In Jin Nim was talking about when she emphasized an example of natural witnessing that we saw in Emanuel. In a way, we had to clean house, we had to clean out our old wilderness mentality of mere survival and understand and re-imagine ourselves as that divine son and daughter -- allowing that confident, not arrogant, but confidence to shine through -- in knowing that we are God's sons and daughters. And that is the kind of natural witnessing that attracts people to want to ask the question, "What is so special about Emanuel? Why is he different? Why does he answer in such a way? Why does he articulate his thoughts in such a way?" These are the questions that will ultimately lead the new members to have a connection with God, our Heavenly Parent, and our True Parents, and become part of our movement, our family, and graft into the original lineage of God for the blessing -- and have this opportunity to build an ideal family themselves, and thereby for the first time truly understand the heart of God, our Heavenly Parent.

22) Only by becoming parents ourselves can we understand how much God truly loves us and how much God has longed for a perfected Adam and Eve -- to be able to stand in the position of True Parents so that God, together with his children, can celebrate this beautiful day called True Parents Day.

23) God, our Heavenly Parent, has been waiting a long time for such a day. Adam and Eve should have been the True Parents that celebrated True God's Day together with God -- liberating God from years of loneliness, allowing Him to experience the love and the joy of being a parent to Adam and Eve. And when Jesus came he was not supposed to die on the cross. He was supposed to find that perfected wife with whom he could establish true parent-ship and become an example of a man and a woman beautifully loving each other, starting to have children, a family, and show the world how to build ideal families. Then the history of Christianity would not have been the one of denial, of loneliness, of constant waiting. The history of religion has been a history where man and woman were constantly waiting, waiting for salvation, waiting for the Messiah, hoping the Messiah would come at the time when they were living.

24) But, the beautiful thing about our True Parents, and they had to come again because Jesus never had the chance to find that wife and become true parents, blessing many many people all around the world, helping them to graft onto God's lineage. But because Jesus went the way of the cross True Father had to come as the Lord of the second Advent and he had to find his beautiful bride. And when they finally found themselves, and finally could stand in the position of True Parents, can you imagine how incredibly happy our Heavenly Parent must have been to finally celebrate True Parents Day with His beloved son and daughter? Can you imagine how many tears of joy must have been shed?

25) For us to be living at this time, with our True Parents, is an incredible blessing.

26) In Jin Nim referred us to the Bible, the book of Philippians, 3:13-14. It was written by Paul when he was in prison under the Roman authorities. He was trying to encourage his brothers and sisters to stay focused on the theme of Christian unity, the true meaning of Christian discipleship. What Paul was saying to his brothers and sisters was that, "you got to know that there are many many seasons in our life of faith." And what God is asking us to do, in this particular passage, is to forget what lies behind. Forget (meaning let go) of your attachments, your old habits, your old wilderness survival mentality. What Paul was asking the Christians of his time to do was to unite in the centrality of Christ and understand that we have to, in a way, rid ourselves of the attachments, the old ways of doing things, and march forward, or press on to what lies ahead.

27) Paul was emphasizing the need for all of us, as good Christians, good men and women of faith, to leave room within ourselves for God to do His and Her mysterious thing. We need to be able to be willing to let go of the old ways of doing things. Perhaps were not going to sing all 30 holy songs that we used to sing. Perhaps we are going to have some rock 'n roll and Aerosmith's version of Dream On -- to inspire us to continue dreaming. Perhaps instead of unison prayer, praying hysterically, perhaps this is the time to meditate on the universal language of love, to allow the music to flow through our veins, allow God to speak to us in many different ways, not just in the ways that He and She had spoken to us before. Maybe it's a call for us to leave our attachment to our understanding that only classical music is worthy of a good hallelujah, perhaps God gave rock 'n roll to all of us for a good reason.

28) This is a time when we should not be prejudice, just like the way the white mother (in the TV clip) told her daughter she could not have the doll because it was black. We must not be the kind of church that, just because throughout history classical music was the only type of music that did the hallelujah-ing, it does not mean that rock 'n roll, jazz, soul, blues, might not have the same effect on people.

29) Just as we need to appreciate all races, perhaps this is the time to appreciate all types of music, after all music is the language of love, is it not? If we can use this media as a means to connect people to God -- to In Jin Nim, that is hallelujah!

30) When In Jin Nim called upon the District pastors to come together, she was not telling them, "I am a young upstart and I can do better, not at all. What I am saying, you have done a phenomenal job -- surviving. Now, let's work, truly inheriting the spirit of unity and understanding that we need our True Parents and knowing that God wants to take us to the next level, not to just survive, but to prosper, to thrive, to be successful, to be satisfied in our life of faith, to really love our life and understand our lives as a gift and therefore this attitude of gratitude is what we leave behind and the philosophy of living for the sake of others is what we practice in our daily lives."

31) Up until now these great men and women of God, District Leaders and all the State Leaders all around this great country of America -- they have done a phenomenal job. So In Jin Nim asked them the other day, "Do you want to be known as these great pastors who did a fantastic job at surviving? Would you want to go out with a bang, or better than that, why not go out giving birth to not just hundreds of new members, but thousands, what about tens of thousands?"

32) When In Jin Nim started the love and life ministry two years ago she remembers sitting in the board room with some people, sitting around the table, and when she gave her vision of what she would like to do with a unified ministry they all looked at her as though she was totally insane. They gave her all the reasons why it would not work. "In midtown Manhattan parking is too expensive." The tri-state area worshiping together in the same location, "impossible, impossible."

33) In Jin Nim expressed, "regardless of what you were thinking, and what you must have been going through, the miracle of the matter is -- that you were willing to give it a go. You were willing to give it a try. For that In Jin Nim is immensely grateful."

34) Even though, we hear at Lovin' Life Ministry have had to go through labor pains and growing pains -- and even though there are those who try to bring down our broadcasts every Sunday morning, things like this can be disheartening at times, but In Jin Nim always tells brothers and sisters, just the fact that so much money and energy is poured in to try to stop what we are doing -- means that we are doing a good thing. It means that we are having an effect.

35) If we could give birth to 222 babies in about six months, with our members barely joining together -- imagine what we could do if we really, totally with our hearts, invested, and believed, and worked to share this breaking news with the world. Can we imagine what that would be like? 222 is only the number of new members -- it does not take into account all the Ambassadors for Peace that have joined and the first generation that have come back, and the second generation who have come back and are now actively participating in the ministry. So the number 222 is just the tip of the iceberg. In other words it's an appetizer with a great entrée to come. So, if the first two years were the appetizer -- this next year, the third-year of Lovin' Life Ministry will be the year that we start serving the entrées. And how wonderful it will be if we can all join in with one heart as one family, really be united and centered on our True Parents.

36) A couple years back one leader came to In Jin Nim and told her, "your idea of boosting up the membership as they did in the 1970s -- highly unlikely, impossible. And let me give you the reasons why." But the great thing about lists of impossibilities -- when someone gives In Jin Nim a list of all the reasons why something is impossible, she is going to spend all her energy trying to figure out how to make it possible -- and not just possible, but to take that impossibility through the realm of possibility and make it a reality.

37) Lovin' Life Ministry is proof that the impossibility, went through the realms of possibility, and is now a reality. So imagine what we could do if we could really truly engage ourselves, being that confident eternal son and daughter of God.

38) Can you imagine, when Father stresses to us over and over again the importance of 2013 -- and everyone is thinking impossible -- In Jin Nim is thinking, "Mmmm, not only is it possible, it can be a reality." The example of natural witnessing is a new kind of witnessing. In Jin Nim is not talking about witnessing to people one-on-one, she is talking about witnessing to churches. With the great work that has been done with ACLC, now churches are partnering up with Lovin' Life Ministry -- they are worshiping together with us, and all of you are worshiping together with different Christian brothers and sisters around the country.

39) We have to understand that just because, for the last couple of decades, it was business as usual -- the same old same old, does not mean that the floodgates have not opened. They have opened and we have done the impossible. There is nothing that we cannot accomplish if we work together.

40) One of the things that In Jin Nim says to brothers and sisters is, "God gave us, and he has delivered to us, all that we need, to be that great son and daughter. The principle teaches us that God has done 95% and it's only our 5% responsibility -- to own up to who we are, to decide to be that agent of change. That is going to make the difference."

41) At this incredibly crucial time when we have our True Parents here with us, we have an opportunity, to not just think about the floodgates opening, not to just hear about it, but to experience it. We are in the thick of it. This is a time when God is basically trying to say, "My dear child, start connecting the dots. I have given you everything you need." For example, in New York City God has provided for us the Manhattan Center, the New Yorker Hotel, and 43rd St.. Before they were each doing their own thing. But if we understand what God wants us to do -- to connect the dots together, to create this beautiful picture of a common vision, and a common purpose -- relying on the theme, and standing on the foundation of unity, we can do incredible things -- if we realize, if we just step back.

42) Many times we are our own worst enemies in that we don't realize what we have, we don't realize what a treasure a child like Emanuel is. This is our child. Sometimes we are our worst enemies.

43) Many times when In Jin Nim works with artists they tell her -- the whole world has to love you before your hometown can recognize the artist that you are. In a way Lovin' Life Ministry has suffered the same fate. All the different ministers, imams, and rabbis have said that this is cutting edge, this is going to change the world. But it's been our brothers and sisters, still with the wilderness survival mentality, that have been the greatest persecutors of Lovin' Life Ministry. People who are too close to realize that they are standing right next to the light. It is always the place right underneath the light that is the darkest. So let us not be like the men and woman who lived during the time of Jesus Christ, who failed to see that he was the son of God, and failed to see that he was sent to become the True Parents of mankind and therefore never participated in the opening of the floodgates. Let us not make that same mistake. Here we have our True Parents with us. They've given us the gift of the Divine Principle, they have shared with us the gift of the Blessing, and they have taught us not to be afraid of death through the great events like the Seunghwa Ceremony. They have helped us overcome death. They have given these great three gifts to the world. How can we not realize how incredibly blessed we really are.

44) Let us not be the blind, the people who are standing right next to True Parents but fail to see who they are. Let us not be men and woman sitting in one of the most interesting and exciting movements in the world -- not realizing the revolution of heart that is taking place. Let us not wait for new members to tell us how wonderful our faith is, how wonderful and beautiful our community is. Let's start waking up to the fact that we are, just as the journalist said, a remarkable movement.

45) What does the word remarkable mean? It means extraordinary. In a way we are no different from anyone else, we are ordinary in that we are all human beings -- but we are extraordinary -- we have a passion for love, we have an attitude of gratitude, we have a determination to make something -- to give back to the world through our own efforts, something beautiful that everyone can enjoy together. If you think about it, the message of true love that our True Parents share with us, and we have been so fortunate in our daily lives, we have to realize that we are some of the most lucky people in the history of mankind.

46) Our True Father, in one of the talks that he gave in 1969, September 13 -- he said that true love is fulfilled when it's centered on parental love. And the beauty of having our True Parents here is that through them we can experience, not just true love and true life, but we have the ability and opportunity to experience what grafting on to the true lineage is all about. We have a chance to have children of our own. We have a chance to really understand how much God must have loved us and how much He and She loves us still, and must be rooting us on each and every day.

47) We have so much to look forward to, and we must value this time as something sacred, and holy, and the most precious gift that God is allowing us to share together with our True Parents. In Jin Nim knows that in Korea True Parents are saying blessings, and giving their prayers for this great country of America. How wonderful it will be if America can truly be the great nation -- not just a superpower that wields its might and strength onto the world, but what if America could be a country that ushers in this new millennium with a new understanding that we are all God's children and that we all belong to one family and that we must really honor and live with God, as if He and She is our common parent -- and therefore overcome the barriers of hatred, overcome the difficulties of war, overcome the difficulties of poverty, overcome the differences and the difficulties of religious dissension and realize that it is within our hands, if we can determine that we are going to live our lives differently, from the way it has been before. We can decide today to love. We can decide today to want to build that peaceful world, to want to seek and strive for harmonious living.

48) Here at Lovin' Life Ministry, every week, we invite a member from a different faith to come and bless our congregation. And the brothers and sisters in the audience -- In Jin Nim hopes that we can open up our hearts and accept the blessing as a gift to us -- the gift of interfaith dialogue, the gift of really communicating as if we truly belong to one common parent.

49) As difficult as it might have been for the Lovin' Life Ministry team to get up so early every Sunday to prepare for the Lovin' Life Ministry -- they have truly done a phenomenal job in providing such a fine, fine worship for all of us. In Jin Nim asked us to give them a round of applause.

50) They are too numerous to name, but you know who you are -- people like George Kazakos, David Eaton, Robert Carvell, Roy Clark, all the different men and women in the band Sonic Cult, all the choir members, and all the unseen people -- the engineers who work behind the scene to make Lovin' Life Ministry what it is. When In Jin Nim says that Lovin' Life Ministry gave birth to 222 members, she is not saying that she did it -- she is saying that we and her together did it.

51) In Jin Nim has heard it all. You name it, she's been called it, from a saint to a whore and everything in between. There are numerous obstacles we have had to overcome, and we are still overcoming each and every day -- but she wakes up in the morning because she is inspired by us, she wakes up in the morning because she is inspired by the unsung heroes that we do not see every Sunday, but are putting in the hours and the effort to make this ministry what it is. So be grateful that God has prepared this beautiful Manhattan Center for this ministry and that God has prepared a beautiful hotel like the New Yorker, and the beautiful building that we have turned into a learning center at 43rd St.. This is a Trinity of sorts. It is the beginning of something great.

52) We can be the engine of something great. Regardless of how beautiful the exterior of a Ferrari is, without that fabulous engine the car is not going to go. The Trinity that we have going here at the headquarters in New York City is that engine. The Lovin' Life Ministry is the engine for our movement. And not only are we touching our movement but all of you are touching brothers and sisters all around the world -- in Europe, Asia, Africa, and everywhere. Be proud of who you are. Be proud of being a member. Be proud of being a Unificationist. Be proud in knowing that you are God's eternal sons and daughters and we are here to do great things. And what is better than to leave something behind in the form of new people who have come to realize the beauty and majesty and glory of God through our good works? There is nothing more beautiful than that. What you have done together with In Jin Nim is good work, it's phenomenal work, it's wonderful work.

53) Continue to be inspired, because this is just the tip of the iceberg. As we continue to do good work please encourage those within our fold, who did not quite get it, that something good is taking place. Something phenomenal is taking place -- and our kids are being empowered and inspired to be those great future leaders who will take our world to a much better place than how we found it. Isn't that the greatest gift that we can leave behind?

54) "Be grateful to our heavenly parent. Be grateful to our True Parents. And be grateful to each other."

55) In Jin Nim's final comments (with tears) were: "And from one senior pastor to the congregation I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for giving me this opportunity to learn, to grow in ways I never thought I would find myself in. But as difficult as things might have been, the rewards have been much sweeter. And truly having had this opportunity to work with all of you has been an honor for me -- I can only look forward to next year with great inspiration and great encouragement. God Bless You!" 

Lovin Life Ministries Second Anniversary

In Jin Moon
April 3, 2011

[Note: A video clip from an ABC show was shown prior to In Jin Nim's sermon. In this clip, Emmanuel Rinkema, a Second Generation, was secretly filmed expressing his very mature views transcending racism. See: www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SV67vybnd8; starting at 5 minutes.]

Good morning, brothers and sisters. How is everyone this morning? (Loving life.) Fantastic answer!

I'm delighted to be with all of you. I thought I would be en route to Korea, but True Parents gave all of us special permission to celebrate together both the 52nd True Parents Day and the second year anniversary of Lovin' Life.

I feel that God is with us today because the second year anniversary of Lovin' Life happens to fall on True Parents Day, one of the most profound and significant holidays in our movement as it celebrates the meaning of True Parents, who they are, and why they are so precious to all of us.

I wanted to start the morning off by expressing my gratitude to our True Parents and also sharing with you the fruits that you have harvested over the years. The "What Would You Do" segment that was shown on ABC is an example of the kind of fruit we have been harvesting in our movement. Emmanuel is called a remarkable man by these journalists. For them to bestow the word remarkable upon a young gentleman in our modern-day era is powerful, brothers and sisters.

What they are saying is that your children, our children, God's children, are remarkable, meaning they -- and we -- are extraordinary divine creations of our Heavenly Parent and our True Parents. One of the most beautiful things about our movement is the emphasis on loving people of all races and from all different backgrounds, appreciating the differences, coming together, and making a beautiful, harmonious tapestry of love that we call one family under God.

Truly in our movement, and here in Lovin' Life Ministries, we experience not only what it is to be an Asian American, but what it means to be an African American, to be a white American. But first and foremost we realize we are all children -- divine eternal sons and daughters -- of God, born with tremendous potential.

Brothers and sisters, for many years our movement has been out in the wilderness. The inspired response that America first gave to our movement early in the 1970s was short-lived and then we witnessed and experienced the backlash of being misunderstood. Our movement was a victim of our own success. Hundreds of young people were joining our movement every weekend at different workshops across the country. At first it must have seemed like a gift to the American people, this very interesting-looking Asian man together with his beautiful Asian bride encouraging American people not to waste their lives on sex, drugs, and purposeless living, but to be the best Americans and the best eternal sons and daughters of God.

This was a message that changed a lot of people's lives, and so initially we got great fanfare. We were given keys to every state. Our True Parents were honored at every governor's mansion. True Father was heralded as a great Christian missionary, a great teacher of God, and a great prophet for the new age. But in the decades following we've suffered the backlash because we were so successful as a movement.

I grew up at a time when every day I was ridiculed as being a Moonie. I was mocked by my classmates that my father was a cultist who spent all his time brainwashing the young minds of the American people. This was the wilderness course and we have been stuck in it for a long time, fighting for our mere survival. At that time, survival was key. We had a wilderness survival mentality and we were accustomed to certain things, like knowing how to hunker down.

I have since heard this expression "hunker down" when I was talking to one of my friends who does a lot of ministerial work in prisons. He said, one of the things you realize when you go into prison is that new inmates very quickly learn how to eat like this [hunching over]. They learn how to protect their food because if they don't protect it, it will be taken from them.

Many of our habits from the wilderness course have stayed with us. We had this protective hunkering down -- this is my family, this is my food. But True Parents are talking to us about the Pacific Rim era, about the need to settle, to enter the land of Canaan knowing that we have suffered but also knowing that we have arrived at a point in our lives when we can be successful and prosperous both internally and externally. We can become the kind of men and women who not only dream about the ideal but who have the opportunity to substantiate it in our lives.

Our True Parents are saying it's time to move in. It's time to enter into a new era. The whole vision behind Lovin' Life Ministry is to do just that. We need to take ourselves away from this wilderness mentality with all its baggage and habits, and liberate our hearts. Even as scary as it might be we need to allow God to work mysteriously in our lives, because God is here to tell us that it's time, brothers and sisters. It's time not to just continue suffering as we hunker down and fight for mere survival.

It's time to settle. It's time to be empowered. It's time to manifest our divinity out in the world. It's time to be a bright shining light unto this beautiful country of America, and to inspire it to be the providential country that God has so desired.

Emmanuel Rinkema speaking against racism on "Prime Time What Would You Do?"

When I look at the example of Emmanuel, I see an example of what I call natural witnessing. I warned a lot of the brothers and sisters sitting in the audience last Sunday that you guys are on camera and the camera does not lie. The profound thing about this footage is that it captures natural witnessing at its best because Emmanuel did not know that he was on camera. He was just being his natural self, his God-given self, with an understanding that we belong to one family of God. There is no color when it comes to God's love, and the fact that we are God's children is something that Emmanuel seems to breathe and live every day.

Brothers and sisters, unbeknownst to us, God is always working with and around us. This video clip is God's gift, not just to America but to all of us in the movement. It's God's way of saying, "Brothers and sisters, open up and see what you have. See what I have bestowed in your care. Look at how beautiful your children are. Look at how different they are."

In the beginning of this segment an elderly woman was asked, "What would you do?" She did not really have an answer, but the remarkable thing about Emmanuel was that he could give a very clear answer. We know that he could do this because he was raised in a movement like ours; he was raised in the teachings of our True Parents and our Heavenly Parent. He could articulate why the child should be allowed to have a doll that's different from her -- because we're all God's children.

This clip is indeed a beautiful gift from God reminding us what beautiful treasures we have in our midst. We are reflections of the beauty of our True Parents, brothers and sisters. This is why I am calling upon all of you to help me build something beautiful that we can leave behind in our children, like Emmanuel, to leave the world better than we found it, to leave the world in the hands of those who care, and who see no color, barrier, or hate, but only want to live, breathe, and love peace and harmony.

When I was on the phone with Father and Mother I told them we will be celebrating the second anniversary of Lovin' Life. I thanked them for their prayers, support, and love and told them how the American movement is immensely grateful to be so blessed with their presence.

I told Father, Lovin' Life Ministries has been quite busy. We've been doing a lot of different work. We've been creating new membership forms and different ways of getting people to participate, contribute, and be inspired. We are especially clear about the value of knowing who we are as God's children, how blessed we are to have our True Parents' beautiful example here with us, and how privileged we are to be living at this breaking-news time, when we can not only dream about and learn about ideal families but have the opportunity to create one ourselves.

I said to our True Parents that this is an extremely exciting time. I said, "You know, we've been busy giving birth to a lot of new members." Our True Parents said, "Oh, a lot of new members?" I said, "Yes, we've been in labor for quite some time, but yes, we have been giving birth." Father and Mother said, "How many?"

I would turn the question right back to you: "How many babies do you think we have in Lovin' Life Ministries?" The young lady over there with the yellow cardigan, "How many new members do you think we have here at Lovin' Life?" "A thousand?" "You're too kind."

Most people that I talk to started with, "Five? Ten?" When I said to James, "We have a lot of new members here at Lovin' Life; how many do you think we have?" He said, "Well, last time in one of those Sundays you said we had 30-some members, so thirty-five?" I said, "It's a little better than that." So he said, "Forty?" I said, "It's a little better than that." "Forty-one?" I said, "Can you do a little better than single digits?" Then he said, "Forty-five?" I said, "You can do better than that." "Forty-six?" I said, "Why is it that every time you go up five, the next one is a one?" I said, "Try again." Then he said, "Fifty?" "It's a little better than that."

After fifty it started going really, really slow, so I said, "It's a whole lot better than that." Then he said, "Well, it can't be one hundred, can it?" So I said, "It's a little better than that." So he said, "150?" I said, "Wow, 50 in one jump." I said, "It's a little better than that." So he said, "175?" "It's a little better than that. Let me give you a hint. This is our second year anniversary, so try to number two somewhere in there." He said, "200?" I said, "Actually it's a little better than that."

So we finally got this man to a point where he came very, very close to the actual number of fully registered, full-time members who signed membership forms. This is starting from August of last year, when we implemented the new membership forms. So we're talking about the month starting in August to the end of February. We didn't even tally up the numbers for March yet, but the number of new births comes in at 222. We have two hundred twenty-two new members.

So I said to Reverend Cotter, the executive vice president, and the good gentle folks whom I spent some time with yesterday, the district pastors, "When was the last time when we had 222 members join in about six months?" They looked at me and said, "This never happened before." We haven't even finished a year. We still have some time to go until August of this year.

When the numbers finally came in, I think all of us were quite amazed. But this is what I was talking about when I emphasized the example of natural witnessing that we saw in Emmanuel. We had to clean house, to clean up our own wilderness mentality of mere survival. We had to understand and reimagine ourselves as divine sons and daughters allowing our confidence -- not arrogance but confidence -- as God's sons and daughters to shine through. That's the kind of natural witnessing that attracts people to want to ask the question, "What is so special about Emmanuel? Why is he different? Why does he answer in such a way? Why does he articulate his thoughts in such a way?"

These are the questions that will ultimately lead the new members to have a connection with God, our Heavenly Parent, and with our True Parents. These questions will lead people to become part of our movement, our family, and to graft into the original lineage of God through the blessing so they can have the opportunity to build an ideal family themselves, and thereby come to understand the heart of God, our Heavenly Parent.

Only by becoming parents ourselves can we possibly understand how much God loves us and has longed for a perfected Adam and Eve who can stand in the position of True Parents so that God, together with his and her children, can celebrate this beautiful day called True Parents Day. God our Heavenly Parent has been waiting for a long time for such a day. Adam and Eve should have been the True Parents who celebrated True God's Day together with God, allowing God to experience the love and the joy of being their parent.

When Jesus came, he was not supposed to die on the cross. He was supposed to find the perfected Eve with whom he could establish true parentship, so they together could be an example of a man and a woman beautifully loving each other, having children, raising a family, and showing the world how to build ideal families. If that had happened, the history of Christianity would not be the one of denial, loneliness, and constant waiting. You know, in the history of religion men and women were constantly waiting -- waiting for salvation through the coming messiah, hoping that the messiah would come at their time, when they're living.

But True Parents had to come because Jesus never had a chance to find the wife with whom he could become True Parents, so they could bless many, many people around the world, helping them to graft onto God's true lineage. Because Jesus went the way of the cross, True Father had to come as the Lord of the Second Advent and he had to find his beautiful bride.

When they finally found themselves and could stand in the position of the True Parents, can you imagine how incredibly happy our Heavenly Parent must have been to finally celebrate True Parents Day with his and her beloved son and daughter? Can you imagine how many tears of joy must have been shed?

For us to be living at this time with our True Parents is an amazing blessing. The words of the apostle Paul written while he was in prison under Roman authorities to encourage his brothers and sisters to stay focused on Christian unity and the true meaning of Christian discipleship carry a lesson that is very relevant to us today. In Philippians 3:13–14, Paul essentially says to his brothers and sisters, "Look, you've got to know that there are many seasons in our life of faith." What God is asking us to do in this particular passage is to forget what lies behind -- meaning forget, as in "to let go." Forget your attachment, your old habits, your old wilderness survival mentality.

What Paul was asking the Christians of his time to do was to unite in the centrality of Christ and understand that they had to rid themselves of their attachments, of the old ways of doing things, and march forward or press on to what was lying ahead. Paul was emphasizing the need for all of us as good Christians, as good men and women of faith, to leave room within ourselves for God to do his and her mysterious thing.

Aerosmith lead singer Steven Tyler

We need to be willing to let go of the old ways of doing things. Perhaps we're not going to sing all 30 holy songs that we used to sing. Perhaps we're going to have a little rock n' roll, an Aerosmith version of "Dream On" to inspire us to continue dreaming. Perhaps instead of unison prayer in which we're praying hysterically, this may be a time to meditate on the universal language of love, to allow the music to flow through our veins, and to allow God to speak to us in many different ways, not just in the ways that he and she have spoken to us before. Maybe it's a call for us to leave our attachments to our understanding that only classical music is worthy of a good hallelujah; perhaps God gave rock n' roll to all of us for good reason.

This is a time when we should not be prejudiced like the white mother in the video clip -- of course, she was an actress -- who, just because the doll is black, is not going to buy it for the daughter. We must not be the kind of church that presumes that just because throughout history classical music was the only type of music that did the hallelujah-ing that rock n' roll or jazz or any soul music or blues might not have the same effect on people.

Just as we need to appreciate all different races, perhaps this is the time to appreciate all different types of music. After all, music is the language of love, is it not? And if we can use this medium as a means to connect people to God, to me, that's hallelujah. Brothers and sisters, when I call upon the district pastors to come together, I am not telling them, "Look, I'm a young upstart and I can do better." Not at all. What I am saying is, "You have done a phenomenal job of surviving. Now let's work to inherit the spirit of unity, understanding that we need our True Parents and knowing that God wants to take us to the next level. God wants us not just to survive but to prosper and thrive, to be successful and satisfied in our life of faith, to love our life and understand it as a gift, and therefore to live and practice in our daily life the attitude of gratitude and the philosophy of living for the sake of others.

So up until now, these great men and women of God -- district and state leaders from all parts of America -- have done a phenomenal job. I asked them yesterday, "Do you just want to be known as district pastors who have done a fantastic job at surviving? Or do you not want to go out with a bang? Or, better than that, why don't you go out giving birth not just to hundreds of new members but thousands. What about tens of thousands?"

When I started this Lovin' Life Ministries two years ago, I remember sitting in a boardroom with some people around the table. When I gave my vision of what I would like to do with a unified ministry, they all looked at me as if I were totally insane. They gave me all the reasons why it would not work. "It's in midtown Manhattan. Parking is too expensive. The tri-state area worshipping together in the same location? Impossible. Impossible. Impossible."

But, brothers and sisters, regardless of what you were thinking and what you must have been going through, the miracle of the matter is that you were willing to give it a go. You were willing to give it a try, and for that I am immensely grateful. We here at Lovin' Life Ministries have had to go through our own labor pains and growing pains. Now we even have different people trying to bring down our satellite broadcast every Sunday morning at 9 o'clock sharp. Things like that can be disheartening at times, but I've told my brothers and sisters, just the fact that so much energy and money is being poured in to try to stop what we are doing means that we are on to a good thing and we are having an effect.

If we could give birth to 222 babies in less than six months, with people barely joining together, imagine what we could do if we really totally, with our hearts, invested and believed and worked to share this breaking news with the world? Can you imagine what that would be like?

This number of 222 counts only the new pledged members. It does not take into account all the new Ambassadors for Peace who have joined. It does not take into account a lot of the First Generation who have come back. It does not take into account a lot of the Second Generation who had left our fold, but have come back and now are actively participating in the ministry.

The number 222 is just the tip of the iceberg. In other words, it's an appetizer for the great entrée to come. So, if the first two years were the appetizer, this next year, the third year of Lovin' Life, will be the year when we start serving great entrées. And how wonderful it would be if we would all join as one heart and one family, being united and centered on our True Parents!

A couple of years back a leader came to me and said, "Your idea of boosting up membership is like the way we did in the 1970s… Highly unlikely, impossible, and let me give you the reasons why." But, you know, a list of impossibilities has a great thing about it. I don't know why, but for me, when somebody gives me a list of all the reasons as to why something is impossible then I'm going to spend all my energy trying to figure out how to make it possible -- and not just possible, but to take that impossibility through the realm of possibility and make it a reality.

Brothers and sisters, Lovin' Life Ministries is proof that the impossibility went through the realms of possibility and is now a reality. So imagine what we could do if we would fully engage ourselves as confident, eternal sons and daughters of God. Can you imagine? When Father stresses to us over and over again the importance of 2013 and everyone's thinking, "Impossible," I'm thinking, "Hmm, not only is it possible, but it can be a reality."

The example of natural witnessing is a new kind of witnessing. I'm not talking about witnessing to people one on one. I'm talking about witnessing to churches. With the great work that has been done with ACLC, now churches are partnering up with Lovin' Life, worshipping together with us. All of you are worshipping together with different Christian brothers and sisters around the country.

Brothers and sisters, we have to understand that just because for the last couple of decades it was business as usual, or same-old, same-old, does not mean that the floodgates have not opened. They have opened. And we have done the impossible. So there is nothing that we cannot accomplish if we work together.

One of the things I say to brothers and sisters when I have the opportunity to talk to them is that God has delivered us all that we need to be great sons and daughters. The Principle teaches us that God has done 95 percent and it's only our 5 percent responsibility to own up to who we are and decide to be the agent of change who is going to make the difference.

At this crucial time when we have our True Parents here with us, we have an opportunity not only to think about the floodgates opening, or hear about it, but to experience it. We're in the thick of it. This is a time when God is basically trying to say, "My dear child, start connecting the dots. I have given you everything you need."

In New York City, God provided for us the Manhattan Center, the New Yorker, and 43rd Street, yet each of the three buildings was doing its own thing. But if we understand that what God wants us to do is to connect the dots together, to create a beautiful picture of a common vision and purpose relying on the theme and standing on the foundation of unity, then we can do great things.

Many times we are our own worst enemies in that we don't realize what we have. We don't realize what a treasure a child like Emmanuel is, because he's our child. Sometimes we ourselves are our worst enemies. Often when I work with different artists I hear them tell me that the whole world has to love you before your hometown recognizes what a fantastic artist you are.

Lovin' Life has been suffering the same fate. All the Christian ministers and all the different imams and rabbis who come to our service are saying, "This is cutting-edge. This is going to change the world." But it's our brothers and sisters, still in the wilderness survival mentality, who have been the greatest persecutors of Lovin' Life. These are people who are too close to realize that they are standing right next to the light. It's always the place right underneath the light that is the darkest.

So let us not be like the men and women who lived during the time of Jesus Christ: They failed to recognize Jesus as the son of God sent to become the True Parents of humankind, and therefore they never participated in the floodgates opening. Let us not make that same mistake.

Here we have our True Parents with us. They have given us the gift of the Divine Principle. They have shared with us the gift of the blessing. They have taught us not to be afraid of death through the great events like Legacy of Peace and the Seunghwa ceremonies. They have helped us overcome death. They have given these three great gifts to the world. How can we not realize how tremendously blessed we are?

So let us not be the blind, as people who are standing right next to True Parents but fail to see what they are all about. Let us not be men and women sitting in one of the most interesting and exciting movements in the world yet not realizing that the revolution of heart is taking place. Let us not wait for new members to tell us how wonderful our faith is, how wonderful and beautiful our community is. Let's start waking up to the fact that we are, just as that journalist said, a remarkable movement.

What does the word remarkable mean? Remarkable means extraordinary. In a way we are no different from anybody else. We are ordinary in that we're all human beings but we are extra-ordinary because we have been lit from within. We have the passion for life. We have an attitude of gratitude, and we have the determination to make something of our lives, to give back to the world through our own efforts something beautiful that everybody can enjoy together.

If you think about it, the message of true love that our True Parents have shared with us and that we have been so fortunate to breathe in our daily lives makes us some of the most lucky people in the history of humankind.

Brothers and sisters, our True Father, in his talk on September 30, 1969, said that true love is fulfilled when it's centered on parental love. And the beauty of having our True Parents here is that through them not only can we experience true love and true life, but also we have the ability and opportunity to experience grafting onto the true lineage and then to build our own true lineage. We have a chance to have children of our own. We have a chance to understand how much God must have loved us, how much he and she love us still, and how much he and she must be cheering us on every day.

We have so much to look forward to. We must value this time as something sacred and holy, and the most precious gift that God is allowing us to share together with our True Parents.

I know that in Korea our True Parents are saying their blessing and giving their prayers for this great country of America. So how wonderful it would be if America would actually be that great nation, not just a superpower wielding its might and strength in the world, but a country that ushers in the new millennium with a new understanding that we are all God's children, we all belong to one family, and we must honor and live with God as if he and she is our common parent! We must overcome the barriers of hatred, the difficulties of war and poverty, and the differences and the difficulties of religious dissension, and realize that it's within our hands to determine that we are going to live our lives differently from the way they have been lived before.

We can decide today to love, to want to build that peaceful world, and to seek and strive for harmonious living. Here at Lovin' Life every week we invite a member from a different faith to come and bless our congregation. Brothers and sisters in the audience, I hope that you can open up your hearts and accept this blessing from our clergy brothers and sisters as a gift to us, the gift of interfaith dialogue, the gift of communicating as if we truly belong to one common Parent.

As difficult as it might have been for the Lovin' Life team to get up so early every morning on Sunday in preparation for the Lovin' Life Ministries, our team members have done a phenomenal job of providing such a fine, fine worship for all of us. I would like you to give them a round of applause.

The names are too numerous, but you know who you are. These are people like George Kazakos, Dave Eaton, Robert Carvel, Roy Clark, all the different men and women in the band here, Sonic Cult, all the different choir members, and all the unseen people -- the engineers who work behind the scenes to make Lovin' Life what it is.

When I say Lovin' Life Ministries gave birth to 222 members, I'm not saying, "I did it." I am saying, you and I together, we did it."

I have heard it all, and I have been called everything from a saint to a whore. You name it; I've been called it, and everything in between. We've had to overcome numerous, numerous obstacles and we are still overcoming obstacles every day. But I get up in the morning because I am inspired by you. I get up in the morning because I am inspired by the unsung heroes you don't see every Sunday, while they are putting in the hours and effort to make this ministry what it is.

Brothers and sisters, be grateful that God has prepared this beautiful Manhattan Center for our ministry, and that God has prepared an outstanding hotel like the New Yorker and the beautiful building that we have turned into a learning center at 43rd Street. This is a trinity of sorts. This is the beginning of something great. We can be the engine of something great.

Ferrari Enzo

Regardless of how beautiful the exterior of a Ferrari is, without its fabulous engine the car is not going to go. So the trinity that we have going here at headquarters in New York City is that engine, and Lovin' Life Ministries is the engine for our movement. Not only are we touching our movement, but all of you are touching brothers and sisters around the world -- in Europe and Asia, in Africa, everywhere.

So be proud of who you are. Be proud to be a member. Be proud to be an Unificationist. Be proud in knowing that you are God's eternal sons and daughters and we are here to do great things. And what is better than to leave something behind in the form of new people who have come to realize the beauty, majesty, and glory of God through our good works? There's nothing more beautiful than that.

What you have done together with me is good work. It's phenomenal work. It's wonderful work. So, brothers and sisters, please continue to be inspired because this is just the tip of the iceberg. As we continue to do good work, please encourage those within our fold who still do not quite get it that something good and even phenomenal is taking place. Our kids are being empowered and inspired to be great future leaders who will take our world to a much better place than how we found it. Isn't that the greatest gift that we can leave behind, brothers and sisters?

Let's be grateful to our Heavenly Parent, to our True Parents, and to each other. From one senior pastor to the congregation, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for giving me this opportunity to learn and to grow in ways I never thought I would find myself in. But as difficult as things might have been, the rewards are that much sweeter, and truly having had this opportunity to work with all of you has been an honor for me.

I can only look forward to next year with great inspiration and encouragement. So, God bless, and thank you.

Notes

Philippians, chapter 3

1: Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you is not irksome to me, and is safe for you.

2: Look out for the dogs, look out for the evil-workers, look out for those who mutilate the flesh.

3: For we are the true circumcision, who worship God in spirit, and glory in Christ Jesus, and put no confidence in the flesh.

4: Though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also. If any other man thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more:

5: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law a Pharisee,

6: as to zeal a persecutor of the church, as to righteousness under the law blameless.

7: But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ.

8: Indeed I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as refuse, in order that I may gain Christ

9: and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own, based on law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith;

10: that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,

11: that if possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

12: Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.

13: Brethren, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead,

14: I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

15: Let those of us who are mature be thus minded; and if in anything you are otherwise minded, God will reveal that also to you.

16: Only let us hold true to what we have attained.

17: Brethren, join in imitating me, and mark those who so live as you have an example in us.

18: For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, live as enemies of the cross of Christ.

19: Their end is destruction, their god is the belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things.

20: But our commonwealth is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ,

21: who will change our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power which enables him even to subject all things to himself.

Dream On lyrics by Aerosmith lead singer Steven Tyler

Every time I look in the mirror
All these lines on my face getting clearer
The past is gone
It goes by, like dusk to dawn
Isn't that the way
Everybody's got their dues in life to pay

Yeah, I know nobody knows
where it comes and where it goes
I know it's everybody's sin
You got to lose to know how to win

Half my life
is in books' written pages
Lived and learned from fools and
from sages
You know it's true
All the things come back to you

Sing with me, sing for the year
Sing for the laughter, sing for the tears
Sing with me, if it's just for today
Maybe tomorrow, the good lord will take you away

Yeah, sing with me, sing for the year
sing for the laughter, sing for the tear
sing with me, if it's just for today
Maybe tomorrow, the good Lord will take you away

Dream On Dream On Dream On
Dream until your dreams come true
Dream On Dream On Dream On
Dream until your dream comes through
Dream On Dream On Dream On
Dream On Dream On
Dream On Dream On

Sing with me, sing for the year
sing for the laughter, sing for the tear
sing with me, if it's just for today
Maybe tomorrow, the good Lord will take you away
Sing with me, sing for the year
sing for the laughter, sing for the tear
Sing with me, if it's just for today
Maybe tomorrow, the good Lord will take you away......