Sermon Notes, August 21, 2011

In Jin Moon

1. In Jin Nim greeted everyone, asking us how we are, she then gave us greetings from True Parents (True Parents) who just left for Korea. On the 18th True Parents celebrated the dedication of the Won Mo Boat ceremony with many guests and VIPs in Las Vegas. It was a time for the guest to realize what an incredible genius our True Father is. Yes he is a spiritual leader, but by training he is a scientist. This boat is a boat that he designed. It utilizes helium tanks so that the boat is faster and lighter and it saves a whole lot of fuel.

2. It's our True Father and True Parents' desire to reclaim leisure for the sake of the family, and father is encouraging families to own one of these boats and enjoy them with their family – for each family to come together and experience something beautiful. At the same time, in line with his ocean providence and his effort to end world hunger – this is father's way to reinvigorate and make it work a lot better for us, so that we are free to have a great time, but also to go fishing and bring something back that the family can enjoy together.

3. It was an incredible time. Our True Parents were in good spirits. Every time In Jin Nim sees our True Parents she is always taken aback by their desire to really give something of themselves to the world, present something to the world as a gift, to make humanity that much better.

Won Mo Boat

4. In Jin Nim felt that when Father named the boat "Won Mo" – the Chinese character 'won' means circle or round and the letter 'Mo' means mother – it's interesting that father held the ceremony after a special meeting of all the woman gathered there for the event. True Father asked for a special workshop with all women present – again stressing the importance of the Pacific Rim Era. Stressing the importance of woman reclaiming their dignity as the eternal daughter of God and leading humanity in the right direction towards a world of peace, harmony, and love.

5. When you take these two Chinese characters together 'Won' meaning circle and 'Mo' meaning a mother, what father envisions for the boat is the symbol of universality of our parents. We look at the relationship, the dynamic circular relationship between a man and a woman you realize that it becomes complete when the man finally finds a beautiful wife – someone who can be a beautiful mother to the children. You realize that the circle of a family is complete when the feminine is also represented.

6. Again, looking at the theme of the Pacific Rim Era, women have to finish the circle of humanity. What the world witnessed in terms of the power, might, and strength of the masculine must end in a beautiful circle with women in different positions of leadership – in their families, societies, and Nations, to be the kind of people that can usher in the new millennium, emphasizing the importance of compassion, love – really emphasizing the importance of living for the sake of others, and in doing so help raise up the brothers to be that great eternal son of God, become that great father, that great son. And, by working together, create a world where men and women can reclaim their heavenly worth, their equal dignity as eternal sons and daughters and share the world with everyone that thinks and understands each other, as having similar value and dignity.

7. When our True Parents named this boat Won Mo, In Jin Nim feels that our True Father is signaling a time when the woman have to come up to the forefront and be that agent of change, to claim their dignity, and raise up all our brothers, fathers, and sons, to become better people.

8. When In Jin Nim realized that one of the most important providences, or work or mission, that our Father has engaged in developing is the ocean providence – finding ways to manufacture fine fish products, he emphasizes the importance of fishing, because unlike farming, where you have a process of planting seeds, waiting for them to sprout, waiting for the autumn harvest – before you can share in the harvest of plenty – In Jin Nim's father is thinking about feeding the world each and every day. He looks at the ocean as a treasure of incredible natural resources that we have yet to really understand. Our Father and our True Parents' desire is for humanity to be healthier, to find its way out of poverty, out of the hungry existence that a lot of men and women are still suffering from, that a lot of children are suffering from – and yes, in this modern-day age, we see the effects of spiritual starvation, but in vast areas of the world many millions of people still suffer from physical starvation. This is what our True Parents want to address through the ocean providence.

9. As In Jin Nim was experiencing the boat dedication ceremony, thinking back about all that our Father has done – single-handedly bringing the sushi revolution to America. Before, America did not know what raw fish was about. If you were to mention "let's go eat some raw fish at a really nice restaurant" 20 years ago, people would have looked at you as if you were mad. But now with all the fisheries that our True Father created and the hundreds of sushi restaurants that he created all around this country – sushi has become the in-food. Sushi is healthy, it's what all the "beautiful" people enjoy, and it is fashionable to do in our day.

10. Our True Father has made incredible innovations even in the methods of fishing. In Jin Nim has shared with us how her father has single-handedly introduced hand line fishing in the catching of Blue Fin Tuna – which is still utilized to this day.

11. With the constant desire and genius of our True Father he continues at the ripe old age of 92 to design and manufacture boats – always better and more efficient and effective. He is really trying single-handedly to be that agent of change that can give the world something and then take it to a better place. When In Jin Nim thinks about the world that we are immersed in, this technologically powerful world – we have everything at the tip of our finger in this superpower of America. The Internet has given us access to many things we did not have access to before. Now if we want things we can get them instantaneously. If we look for things we can find them on the Internet. Even things that are taboo can be found on the Internet.

12. And so we are flooded with all these opportunities and the only thing that a lot of us feel that we need to do is to satisfy our hunger. Yes we have our physical hunger and yes we have our emotional hunger, and our spiritual hunger – but in one form or another, a lot of the men and woman in our world are suffering from hunger.

13. When In Jin Nim thought about this, about the difficult financial-economic recession that we are in – she did some research. She wanted to find out in this hungry state of humankind, immersed in one of the worst economic recessions of our time – what continues to be successful? What continues to be profitable during these times? Her research yielded two things that she found incredibly interesting. The two things that continue to grow successfully and prosper in terms of making huge profits in times of difficulty and economic recession – are the churches and human trafficking.

14. In Jin Nim thought that this was interesting. Yes, many times in this modern-day people feel somewhat at odds with the fast pace, the cold technologically advanced world, and they are seeking for some kind of spiritual comfort food, spiritual soul food – and so they go to churches, because they want to comfort their soul. And the church is in the business of saving souls. The spiritual deprivation and the coldness of the world that people feel is somewhat remedied, were taken care of, when people go to church. The promise that somehow the divine will look after each and every one of us if we go to church is a wonderful promise for a lot of people and that is why they go to church and tithe. They want to hope for something better.

15. But when you talk about brothels, human trafficking, becoming extremely profitable – at a time when we are suffering severe economic recession, we realize that this is an area of our society that exploits the soul. It is an exploitation of the soul. It destroys the soul of the person, of the individual, and turns them into empty carcasses, the living dead that we see all around us.

16. In Jin Nim's dear friend who is a famous documentary film maker. He produces a lot of shows for the major networks – especially HBO. His friend is a musician who was invited to perform in Moscow. This friend went to Moscow to perform at one of the clubs and while he was there he met a Russian translator who was 17 or 18. When he met her she was extremely excited about meeting someone from America. She shared how she was approached by a management company that was going to take care of her, set her up with a place to live, connect her with people who would give her a legitimate job, and she would be able to find her own way working in conjunction with this management company – and she was scheduled to go to the United States. As this musician was listening to her story he thought that something did not smell right. When he came back to America he did some research and realized that this management company was a sham, a scam, it was a way of bringing girls for human trafficking.

17. And so he, being a musician, wanted to give a voice to these young girls who did not have a voice, who are pushed into this slavery like existence – almost herded like cattle – this type of work that abused them, used them, and threw them out. And so he felt it was his calling to write music about human trafficking and the atrocities that are taking place. So together with some journalists, who put their life on the line, who went above and beyond the journalist ethic, that you don't get emotionally involved in the story that you are writing about, he implored them to go undercover and go to these places where the exploitation is taking place. And so In Jin Nim's friend was asked to do a video on human trafficking and he sent In Jin Nim his work, wanting her input.

18. And when In Jin Nim saw the gravity of the exploitation that is taking place, she was totally shocked. We hear bits and pieces of people in the sex slave, sex trade, being exploited – sometimes it's a column in the New York Times, or maybe a little subtitle under a picture in the Daily News. It is something that we feel is very, very far from us. We definitely empathize with the people who are suffering, but many times we don't do anything about it, because it is something that is seemingly so alien to most of us as we go about our daily business of raising families and wanting to provide a good home for our family and our children. But when you realize and when you look at the documented exploitation that is taking place – girls that are as young as three years old who are being sold as sex slaves – the documentary video reveals going beyond the storefront, beyond the alley that connects to the storefront, that takes these Johns, these gentlemen, into these dimly lit rooms where there are 20 to 30 of these young girls age 4 – 8, are waiting to be sold.

19. The things that they were asking the girls were unbelievable. These girls were incredibly young, they should be playing in Gymboree or at McDonald's or in Central Park – but they were being herded like cattle into this dimly lit room. They were taught the 'important' English, the English that will get them selected for that hour, for that moment – words like – (because they are tiny children) – because the Johns will ask the girls if they "boom boom?" (meaning do you have sexual intercourse) – to a 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 year old girl. And they answer "Yes, yes, I boom boom." They're saying that in English, "I boom boom really good. Pick me!"

20. This is not a movie, this is the reality of what is taking place in the lives of a lot of young girls all across the world. You realize that they are using baby language, like boom boom – so to the young girls who don't know anything else, who don't know it's wrong, they think it is something they have to do in order to get food and have a place to stay. The journalist was asking, "do you boom boom?" And the girls answered "yes I boom boom, I boom boom good, good boom boom." The journalist also asked, "do you Yum Yum (meaning do you provide oral sex)" and three girls rushed to the journalist and grabbed his leg and said "I Yum Yum, I Yum Yum really good!"

21. When you see this you cannot help but to cry your eyes out because you realize that something like this is taking place somewhere in the world. These little girls, and they are getting younger every year, these little girls are being asked to boom boom and yum yum to these people who come away from their countries, travel to different places like Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines, all these different areas so that they are away from their families and society – because they are afraid of what people might say when they go to these countries to exploit young girls. This is taking place with our husbands, our sons, and our fathers.

22. When you see what is taking place in the world – and we are thinking this only takes place in faraway lands. But one of the biggest problems and one of the fastest growing problems in America is human trafficking, in the capital of our country, in Washington DC – in the suburbs, young girls are being sold and bought right before our eyes.

23. When you think about what is taking place, when you think about the kind of exploitation that is taking place, we have to ask ourselves a couple of things. One of the things that we have to ask ourselves is, "who are these Johns, who are these people that are giving money to these businesses that allows them to not just exist but to thrive – incredibly so. And so there is a continuous flow of these innocent young girls and boys who are thrown into this kind of a career. And their chances for a really decent life are ravaged from them from a very very young age.

24. When you think about how the moral fiber of society has degenerated to such an extent that we look the other way while all of this is taking place, we have to ask ourselves, if we really want to change the world, if we really want to build ideal families and help people develop moral character – which is really the only way we are going to solve these problems? A lot of politicians say, "let's try this program – anytime a John gets caught in the act let's send the files of the report to his family and may be that might have the Johns suffer the consequences of their actions and make sure they don't do it anymore." Different countries have tried this method, trying to take care or fix the problem from the effects of moral degeneration, and the end result is always the same. Not only does it not stop them, it just makes them go further undercover, and the brothels more undercover, and these girls are put into more severe situations where it is worse and more difficult for them. And so a lot of countries have had to take a good look at themselves and ask themselves the question, how are we going to solve this problem?

25. It is one of the biggest problems in every country. It is one of the biggest problems in our modern-day era, especially with the advent of the Internet. At least before, in In Jin Nim's generation, if people wanted pornography they had to have the courage to go to the shop and either steal the magazine or get your friends to get it for you – or somehow you had to do something out of the ordinary to obtain materials like that. But nowadays with the Internet pornography is at your fingertips.

26. And a lot of parents are in denial. They think their child is a healthy young man – "of course they would not buy or look at things like that." Even though they are thinking that it might happen, many parents do not own up to the reality of the situation and really talk or work with their son and daughter through it.

27. What we really need to do is to educate what pornography does to our civilization, where pornography comes from, and, do our children really know that when they buy different services on the Internet, because they want a quick fix, or quick private couple of hours on the computer with all the photography available, do they really know where their money is going? Do they know that it is helping to fund the industry that continually exploits young man and woman as young as three years old. We as families need to talk to our children and help them morally reason through their immediate impulse of wanting to do whatever they want on the Internet, by helping them think through what the consequences of their actions are – that every time they click on the computer and go to that site and buy some time they are giving money to these people, all around the world, who continue to exploit, abuse, and murder these young people who are incredibly hungry. And they are sold by their families for a quick profit – to put money on the table. Their families are actually the ones who are abusing them. Their families that see them as something to be exploited.

28. We need to be cognizant of what we are doing. Our True Father often talks about how the greatest power in the universe is love. And one of the reasons why our church emphasizes the importance of the blessing and the importance of having that loving relationship with your spouse and with your family, and how it is important to prepare to be that great spouse to the man or to the woman that you are going to call your eternal partner.

29. Father and mother are providing, or giving something to the world, that is absolutely necessary. In a way every child that In Jin Nim saw being exploited on the documentary film was born as an eternal son and daughter of God. They are no different from us. They are no different. They are no different from our children. They could be your children's playmate, the ones that you see on the playground, but because of this industry that exists, that continually preys on young men and women, that feasts on young men or women, we as a society need to ask ourselves, how do we tackle this monster? Do we try to put it into balls and chains? If you put it in balls and chains it will fight harder, it will fight more violently and viciously to break out of its chains.

30. The only way we are going to solve this societal problem is by addressing the root of the problem. And the root of the problem is the dysfunctionality of the home, the degeneration of the home, no concept of each individual as being that holy son and daughter of God, each child being that handiwork, every one of them, of God. If we are going to be a movement that wants to usher in a world of peace and love and harmony, we need to be the movement to really exemplify what we are saying. We need to be the movement that helps our children through the moral educational process, to help them reason through, morally, the consequences of their actions. Instead of thinking that the most important thing is the gratification of sexual desire – is to help our children realize that the most important thing is true love. And in the context of a beautiful relationship between a husband and wife – sexual love can be the most beautiful, most fulfilling, most satisfying –and that is just it – in the right context.

31. Our young people are being inundated each and every day by different advertising companies, different campaigns, that tell them, "this is what a woman should look like, this is what you need to be looking at when you look at a man." And the problem with pornography is, not only does it exploit men and women and young children, but it teaches the watcher, the audience, the one who is viewing the pornography – to look at human beings as body parts and not as a temple of God, a divine temple, where something as beautiful as sexual love can be communicated and shared in the context of a loving and beautiful relationship.

32. In a way, if we inundate ourselves with constant visual images of everybody having sex – in pornography everybody is having sex, it lowers our inhibitions and makes us think that everybody is doing it and therefore I should do it. It makes us think and teaches us to look at another human being, not as a human being, but as something, an object, that is a means to gratify our own sexual desires and impulses. And when it is left unfettered, when it is left unchecked, then you are going to think, "the Internet doesn't give me the rush anymore," so you go out for the real thing. You travel abroad and take a tour – there are literally sex tours that take you to different countries for the sole purpose of gratifying our sexual desires, and exploiting these children from different countries. And many times people learn to think – "they don't look like me, so they are not really like me. They are not my race – so maybe that race was made to please me, gratify me, for me to exploit." There is a disconnect, not realizing that the person you are exploiting happens to be a child of God themselves.

33. When we see what is taking place we have to ask ourselves what is going to happen in the lives of these victims. And victims come in all forms and sizes. It doesn't matter where you are, things like this are taking place each and every day. What can the victims do? How are they going to rise up and away from what they have been through, from what they have suffered through, and not turn into a ball of hate, that totally hates the world, and hates the life that we are in – but somehow rise above it and look at another day as an opportunity for life?

34. When we really think about what we need to do in terms of helping these victims, we realize that the first and most important thing – dealing with our families, dealing with adolescents, with kids who might have a severe problem with pornography – we as the parents need to take them aside and say, "you know, you are a young healthy male (or female) and we know you are curious about your sexuality. But we need to think about what you are doing, we need to talk through what you are doing every time you log onto the Internet and you buy their services." We need to ask ourselves – "what would you do if that happened to be your daughter 20 years from now? What would you do if the person that is turning you on the Internet is your sister? Would you want your sister to be in that production? Would you want your sister or your family or your daughters to be exploited like that?" We have to help our child through a hypothetical, and how they might feel if what they're watching is someone who is incredibly dear to them. "If that company were exploiting our mothers, our daughters, our sisters, how would I feel?"

35. We have to own up to the fact, if we want to change the world we have to be the agent of change. In the context of a family, where we deal with the different issues that arise – to become that glowing family we so desire, we have to ask our children and our young people – there has to be a willingness to forgive, to forgive ourselves. That is the first step in being that agent of change, when you are dealing with a monster like pornography on the Internet.

36. Any healthy young man or woman is going to be curious about sexuality, but there is a difference between being curious and being addicted. When we find ourselves being addicted to the problem we have to have the courage to look at our fears and our insecurities in the face and say, "I forgive you. I forgive me for having done these things. But now that I have gone through the moral reasoning as to why I do not want to do it, even if my impulse is incredibly powerful, I now know that every time I log on, every time I buy the service, I am giving money to an institution, the worldwide institutionalized human trafficking, and I'm helping and supporting the exploitation of young men and women and children."

37. If we really take a moment to think through what that tap on the computer is going to do, affecting hundreds and thousands of people's lives all around the world, then, any decent conscientious person is going to think twice about it. And any decent conscientious person is going to want to work through their addiction, work through the difficulty so that they can become a whole and a healthy person who is preparing to have a healthy sexual relationship with a very important and precious person -- whom you are going to call your spouse, with whom you are going to build a beautiful family that is going to be incest free, abuse free, and filled with love and nurturing supportive environment that can really usher in and raise children that are worthy of bringing in this new millennium.

38. We need to think, we need to help our young people, and our husbands, and brothers, and fathers, think through what is taking place in their life – if they choose to touch that button, if they choose to throw money that way – and make them face the reality – "do you really want to support an industry that teaches a 4,5,6,7,8 year old child to boom boom well, to yum yum well?" Any decent person, anybody with a conscience, no matter how incredible your sexual desire at that time might be, anyone who has a conscience, who knows that they are eternal sons and daughters of God, cannot say, "I don't care."

39. There has to be a willingness, first and foremost, to look at the problem in the face and forgive ourselves. We need to forgive before we can take the next step. In the next step – we have to tell ourselves, "living for the sake of others is really an opportunity to practice mind over body." We have to practice mind over body. And one of the most difficult things is dealing with our sexual desire. How do I practice mind over body so that instead of looking at that woman as body parts, I look at that woman as a beautiful daughter of God, someone's sister, somebody's future mother, somebody that deserves to be honored in their dignity as a divine creature of God. How do we practice this in our daily life? We practice that by applying and practicing and exercising mind over body.

40. This is why when Lovin' Life Min. introduces ballroom dancing and for the first time encourages male and female contact – basically we are trying to look at each other as, not body parts, not something you can take, abuse, and manipulate for your own exploitation, but see them as a beautiful child of God, a beautiful sister and a brother who you can have a wonderful time with – as long as you honor them as such, as the beautiful handiwork of God.

41. Yes, when you put a whole group of attractive young men and women together, there are going to be crushes, they're going to be checking out and looking, but if we can encourage healthy social interaction with the opposite sex, stressing at the same time the need to look at each other, not as something to exploit but something to honor and respect, something to celebrate – then we teach our young people to not look at each other as body parts, but we teach them to appreciate a sister and a brother, or a wonderful time that they can have together on the dance floor – learn how to talk to a woman, learn how to talk to a man, so that socially and emotionally you can be prepared for a healthy relationship when you go towards the blessing.

42. In Jin Nim has known a lot of blessed couples and children who have no ability to communicate once they are blessed and married, because they have never had any kind of social interaction with the opposite sex. Many of them have gone through periods where they were severely addicted to pornography and feeling incredibly guilty, faced with the inability to forgive themselves, so they do not know how to rid themselves of their problem and what ends up happening is that the problem follows them into their marriage, into a new and blessed relationship.

43. The healthy interaction, and learning how to look at the power of sexuality in a healthy way, in a holistic way, is necessary to prepare our children to have that great experience and loving relationship in the context of a marriage.

44. By encouraging our youth and our fathers and our mothers and our sisters and brothers – first and foremost, be that agent of change. "Be your own change that you want to see in the world," said Gandhi. Tell yourself, "I am going to practice mind over body. I am going to practice true love. I'm going to apply true love in my life by living to be a person that is not like a radioactive substance let loose out in the wilderness, but I am going to be that contained, properly channeled, incredible source of energy, source of love, that I want to share with the world. I want to start loving, and want to start practicing true love in my life by deciding first to forgive myself."

45. Another thing we all need to think about in raising families, and in combating this problem that we're all dealing with on different levels and in different segments of our lives, we have to realize that once you forgive and once you decide to really practice true love – once that decision is made there has to be a level of commitment. In a way mind over body – not only are we going to practice love, but we are going to practice commitment to this decision that we made, each and every day.

46. What else are we going to do, other than forgive and love? We are going to learn how to unite, unite in the sense that we are going to learn how to work together with the opposite sex in a healthy way. We are going to learn how to work as fathers and mothers, as brothers and sisters, as different members of the family respecting each other's divinity, respecting each other as that temple of God. And instead of thinking how can I exploit this relationship, exploit and manipulate the situation, we are going to think of ways, how can we work together, with me deciding to deal with my problems, my addiction to pornography – I am going to start changing my life. I'm going to start by forgiving myself first and foremost, releasing me from the bondage of guilt that I place myself under, take myself out of the closet, look at my guilt and insecurities in the face and say, 'you know what, starting from today I'm going to love. I'm going to love those girls that have no future. I'm going to love those girls that have no voice. I'm going to love them as my divine sister, as my divine daughter, and as my divine mother, and I am going to do that by honoring them as the beautiful feminine that they are and decide not to further exploit them by utilizing them to satisfy my immediate sexual impulses, that day, that hour, or that minute. And then I'm going to tell myself, not only am I going to love them, but I am going to unite my family around me, I'm going to unite my society around me, I am going to unite my world around me, and stress the importance of moral education, stress the importance of moral reasoning, the ability to think through what we are confronted with, the ability to not just act impulsively, but to ask ourselves the question, "if we act, what will it result in?"

47. And if we clearly know that exploitation of this kind results in 4,5, 6 and 7 year old girls learning what boom boom and yum yum means, then we have to work together as a society to raise healthy young men and women who have the ability to practice mind over body, who have the power and the depth to deal with the impulses and push it through a constructive channel in the context of a beautiful loving relationship. That is the only way we are going to change the world, the only way we are going to liberate these women and men.

48. The problems that take place in the Philippines, Thailand, and other Southeast Asian countries and Africa, they are not worlds apart in the sense that we belong to one family. When one is exploited we are all exploited. When one is abused we are all abused. When one is manipulated we are all manipulated. Because, that person is not just an island unto themselves. They have friends, colleagues, and families that their lives affect.

49. In Jin Nim thought it was incredibly heart-wrenching because her friend zoomed in on one girl who is 12 years old and she has been set to work ever since she was five – and he found her in the squalor of this tiny little room, incredibly dirty and dingy – the sheets looked like they had not been washed for centuries – and they zoomed in on this girl because her walls were plastered with pictures of Britney Spears, Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen, and all the great singers of the world. When you see the wall of this young girl you realize that she is no different from any other 12-year-old who is so excited about their favorite artists, favorite singer. And you realize that this girl in this dingy squalor of her room was living a reality that was fantasy for her.

50. It was something that she had conjured up – like in the movie Matrix – we don't know what is reality and what is not reality. When they are hooked up to a pod, and that is the real existence -- and that is the reality that is manufactured or created that we experience as real. What the girl was doing was exactly that. The life of a young child prostitute is like being hooked up to a pod where you are not really living, you are basically sleeping your life away, like the walking dead. That world is so foreign to her – and so she has manufactured this alter reality in which she lives in a fantasy world in which she is communing and being entertained by these different artists.

51. And you realize more and more that, it's not just this girl that is in a brothel in Southeast Asia, but a lot of our youngsters are living that Matrix-like existence – in the sense that the real world is too painful, too difficult. It's much easier to lie in a pod and sleep life away -- while you live a fantasy life that you manufacture for yourself. And sooner or later you have to deal with, when does fantasy overrides reality? When does reality cease to exist? When do I cease to exist? Because without my fantasy I and in essence dead, I am not living.

52. We realize that for a lot of people the pod can represent many different things, it can represent a life that we no longer are facing because it is just too difficult. Some of the issues that arise in a family are too difficult, it's much easier to sleep in our pod, sleep through our reality, because we have created this alter fantasy like reality where we don't really tackle the problems that are in our family, the problems that exist amongst our kids, because we have created a world in which we don't have to.

53. The whole point of developing and building ideal families is that we have to unhook ourselves from the pod and really start living the reality that we want to substantiate. That pod can be an addiction of sorts to denial. That pod can represent total denial of what is taking place in our families. It can represent a career that we are so engrossed in that we are not really living. We are functioning but not really living.

54. What God hopes in all of us is for us to fulfill the destinies, the blueprints that he has for each and every one of us. We were not meant to just sleep through our lives hooked up to some kind of a pod. We were not meant to create fantasies out of our realities. We were meant to create a reality of life that is real, real life that is tangible – with the good and the bad, with the joy and tribulations that help us rub up against each other and help us grow as a deep and strong and compassionate and profound son and a daughter of God.

55. It says in Isaiah 40:31, those of you who have hope, those of you who have hope will have renewed strength. Why will you have renewed strength? Because as long as you have hope in the Lord you will have renewed strength and you will soar like the eagle, you'll run without growing weary, and you will walk without growing faint. What the Bible means through this is that there is a way out of our excessive behavior and our addictive behavior, and the change starts in our finding hope. It starts by developing a relationship with the divine, by reclaiming our relationship with our Heavenly Father – and then we will soar on the wings of Eagles. We will have the courage to soar.

56. The interesting thing about Eagles is Eagles do not fly in flocks. They have the courage to fly alone, they have the courage to face their fears and fly alone. Regardless of what we struggle through in life there are moments when we do things together as a group, we do things together as a family, but sometimes when we are dealing with our own demons, working on mind-body unity, we need to learn how to fly and soar alone, majestically like an eagle. And we need to run towards the destinies that are waiting for us and not grow weary. And we need to learn how to walk without growing faint.

57. In Jin Nim likes to say, whenever she wants to take a walk, when she wants some fresh air – the initial feeling of walking away from home is incredible, but after a fantastic walk there is nothing like the feeling that you get when you are on your way home, when you've decided I'm going to come home, when we have decided I am going to forgive myself, I'm going to reclaim my relationship with my God, my Heavenly Parent, and I am going to run back home to my Heavenly Father, I'm going to walk my way back home to my Heavenly Father, I am going to have the courage to work on myself, have the courage to fly solo, work on that individual responsibility of mind over body – because ultimately, it doesn't matter where we are in life or where we go, we always want to come back home.

58. "Brothers and sisters we need to realize that we are living in an incredible time with our True Parents, the incredible time of the breaking news, but it also means – it is not just the time when we share, but it is the time when we need to start looking at the different things we are dealing with and give each other the tools to work through these problems and encourage our youth to forgive, love, and unite, and overcome their difficulties, their addictions and obsessions by helping them to walk through the road of moral reasoning, to realize what their actions actually result in by constantly supporting and feeding money to an industry that preys on the future of our world. Children are our future. They need to be a generation of peace, not a generation of exploited young men and women."

59. "This is the reason why True Parents are incredibly important at this time. They are not here to bandage the effects of the problem society is dealing with, they are here to address the root of the problem. They're here to clean up from the beginning, from the root of all the societal ills that are wrought from a dysfunctional family. And so the work they will do in dealing with our families contributes incredibly to building this ideal world, because if we can be responsible for each of our families, one family at a time, as a cornerstone, the building block of our society, then the world that we so long for is in our hands."

60. "Brothers and sisters, talk to your family, encourage your family, encourage everyone to forgive, love, and unite. And know that we are living in a blessed time. This is a time when we can heal the wounds that are separating our children, separating us with our parents, separating us with our relatives – a whole lot of healing needs to take place if we are going to usher in that beautiful world of peace, love, and harmony."

61. "There is a wonderful quote that the poet Rumi said, "there is a moon in all of us, learn how to live with it as your companion." There is a moon in all of us in that our Father and Mother, the Rev. and Dr. Sun Myung Moon have taught us well and their teachings live in all of our lives. So all we have to do is appreciate that teaching, become a great companion to it, grow together and start building something wonderful, and change our world in the process by changing ourselves."

62. "Brothers and sisters have a wonderful Sunday and let's all go home to our Heavenly Parent, Thank you!"

Notes:

Isaiah, chapter 40

1: Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.

2: Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
and cry to her
that her warfare is ended,
that her iniquity is pardoned,
that she has received from the LORD's hand
double for all her sins.

3: A voice cries:
"In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD,
make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

4: Every valley shall be lifted up,
and every mountain and hill be made low;
the uneven ground shall become level,
and the rough places a plain.

5: And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed,
and all flesh shall see it together,
for the mouth of the LORD has spoken."

6: A voice says, "Cry!"
And I said, "What shall I cry?"
All flesh is grass,
and all its beauty is like the flower of the field.

7: The grass withers, the flower fades,
when the breath of the LORD blows upon it;
surely the people is grass.

8: The grass withers, the flower fades;
but the word of our God will stand for ever.

9: Get you up to a high mountain,
O Zion, herald of good tidings;
lift up your voice with strength,
O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings,
lift it up, fear not;
say to the cities of Judah,
"Behold your God!"

10: Behold, the Lord GOD comes with might,
and his arm rules for him;
behold, his reward is with him,
and his recompense before him.

11: He will feed his flock like a shepherd,
he will gather the lambs in his arms,
he will carry them in his bosom,
and gently lead those that are with young.

12: Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand
and marked off the heavens with a span,
enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure
and weighed the mountains in scales
and the hills in a balance?

13: Who has directed the Spirit of the LORD,
or as his counselor has instructed him?

14: Whom did he consult for his enlightenment,
and who taught him the path of justice,
and taught him knowledge,
and showed him the way of understanding?

15: Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket,
and are accounted as the dust on the scales;
behold, he takes up the isles like fine dust.

16: Lebanon would not suffice for fuel,
nor are its beasts enough for a burnt offering.

17: All the nations are as nothing before him,
they are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness.

18: To whom then will you liken God,
or what likeness compare with him?

19: The idol! a workman casts it,
and a goldsmith overlays it with gold,
and casts for it silver chains.

20: He who is impoverished chooses for an offering
wood that will not rot;
he seeks out a skilful craftsman
to set up an image that will not move.

21: Have you not known? Have you not heard?
Has it not been told you from the beginning?
Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?

22: It is he who sits above the circle of the earth,
and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers;
who stretches out the heavens like a curtain,
and spreads them like a tent to dwell in;

23: who brings princes to nought,
and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing.

24: Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown,
scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth,
when he blows upon them, and they wither,
and the tempest carries them off like stubble.

25: To whom then will you compare me,
that I should be like him? says the Holy One.

26: Lift up your eyes on high and see:
who created these?
He who brings out their host by number,
calling them all by name;
by the greatness of his might,
and because he is strong in power
not one is missing.

27: Why do you say, O Jacob,
and speak, O Israel,
"My way is hid from the LORD,
and my right is disregarded by my God"?

28: Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary,
his understanding is unsearchable.

29: He gives power to the faint,
and to him who has no might he increases strength.

30: Even youths shall faint and be weary,
and young men shall fall exhausted;

31: but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength,
they shall mount up with wings like eagles,
they shall run and not be weary,
they shall walk and not faint.
 

Fighting Human Trafficking and Pornography Addiction with True Love

In Jin Moon
August 21, 2011

Good morning, brothers and sisters. How is everyone this morning? I bring you greetings from our True Parents. They've just left Las Vegas for Korea. On the 18th we celebrated the dedication of the Won Mo boat, with many guests and dignitaries in Las Vegas, together with our True Parents. It was a time for the guests to realize what a remarkable genius our True Father is, in that, yes, he is a spiritual leader, but by training he is a scientist.

Won Mo Boat

The Won Mo Boat

He designed the Won Mo boat, which utilizes helium tanks so that it's faster, lighter, and saves a whole lot of fuel. In our True Parents' desire to reclaim leisure for the sake of the family, Father is encouraging families to own one of these boats, to enjoy their time with their family. Father wants to give each family a chance to come together and experience something quite profound and beautiful. And yet at the same time, in line with his ocean providence and his desire to end world hunger, this is evidence of Father's way of innovating all the pre-existing things that we have taken for granted, making them technologically better. He is making boats work a whole lot better for us so we can be free to have a great time, go fishing at the same time, and bring something back that the family can enjoy together.

It was an amazing time. Our True Parents were delighted and in good spirits. Every time I see my father and mother, our True Parents, I am so taken aback by their desire to give something of themselves to the world, to present something to the world as a gift to make humanity that much better.

In the name of the boat Won Mo, the Chinese character for Won means circle, round, and Mo means mother. It is extremely interesting how Father wanted to have the Won Mo dedication ceremony after a special meeting of all the women gathered there for this event. Father asked for a special workshop with all the women present, again stressing the importance of the Pacific Rim Era and the importance of women reclaiming their own dignity as eternal daughters of God, to lead humanity in the right direction toward a world of peace, harmony, and love.

When you take these two Chinese characters together, Won and Mo, what Father envisions for the boat is really the symbol of the universality of our True Parents. When you look at the dynamic, circular relationship between a man and a woman, you realize that it becomes complete when the man finally finds a beautiful wife, somebody who can be a beautiful mother to the children. You realize that circle and the family becomes complete when the feminine is honored, when the feminine is also represented.

Again hearkening the theme of Pacific Rim Era, the women have to finish the circle of humanity. What the world witnessed in terms of the power, might, and strength of the masculine must end in a beautiful circle, with women in different positions of leadership in their families, their society, and their nation. Women are to be the kind of people who can usher in the new millennium by emphasizing the importance of compassion, love, and living for the sake of others, and in doing so help raise men to be great eternal sons of God and great fathers. By working together, women and men are to create a world where they can reclaim their heavenly worth, their equal dignity as eternal sons and daughters, and share the world with everyone who thinks of each other as having similar value and dignity.

When our True Father named this boat Won Mo, I felt that he is signaling a time when the women have to come to the forefront as agents of change, claiming their dignity and raising up all the brothers, fathers, and sons to become better people.

Satisfying Spiritual and Physical Hunger

One of the most important missions our Father has engaged in is developing the ocean providence, finding different ways to manufacture fine fish products, as he has also emphasized the importance of fishing. Unlike farming, in which you have a process of planting seeds, waiting for them to grow, and waiting for the autumn before we can share in the harvest of plenty, my father is thinking about feeding the world every day. He sees the ocean as a treasure of incredible natural resources that we have yet to really understand.

Our True Parents' desire is for humanity to be healthy and to find its way out of poverty, out of the hungry existence that a lot of men, women, and children are still suffering from. Yes, in this modern day we see the effects of spiritual starvation, but in vast areas of the world many millions of people still suffer from physical starvation. This is what our True Parents want to address through the ocean providence.

As I was experiencing the Won Mo boat dedication ceremony, thinking back about all that our Father has done, I recalled how he single-handedly brought in the sushi revolution here in America. Before True Parents, nobody knew what eating raw fish was all about. Twenty years ago, if you'd suggested going to a restaurant to eat raw fish, people would have looked at you as if you were mad. But now, with all the different fisheries that Father created, all the hundreds of sushi restaurants he has created around this country, sushi has become the "in" food, the food that's healthy, that all the "beautiful" people enjoy. It's a fashionable thing to eat nowadays.

Our True Father has made amazing innovations, even in the method of fishing. I've shared with brothers and sisters how our True Father has introduced hand-line fishing when it comes to catching bluefin tuna, which is still utilized to this day. With the constant design genius of our True Father, he continues at the ripe old age of 92 to design and manufacture boats that are so much more efficient and effective. He's trying single-handedly to be the agent of change that can give the world something and take it to a better place.

When I think about the world we are immersed in – this technologically incredible and powerful world – we have everything at our fingertips in this superpower of America. The Internet has given us access to a lot of different things that we never had access to before. If we want things, we can get them instantaneously. We can look for things and find them on the Internet. The things that were even taboo are available on the Internet. We're flooded with all these opportunities.

The only thing that a lot of us feel we need to do is satisfy our hunger. Yes, we have our physical hunger, we have our emotional hunger, and, yes, we have our spiritual hunger. In one form or another, a lot of men and women in our world are suffering from hunger. When I thought about this, about the difficult economic recession we are living through, I did a little research on the Internet, wanting to find out – in this hungry state of humankind immersed in one of the worst economic recessions of our time – what continues to be successful? What is the most profitable thing during these times?

My research yielded two things that I found highly interesting. The two things that continue to grow and prosper in terms of making huge profit in times of difficulty and economic recession are churches and human trafficking. I thought it was interesting in that, yes, many times in this modern day people feel somewhat at odds with the fast-paced, cold, technologically advanced world, and they're seeking for some spiritual comfort food, spiritual soul food. They go to churches because they crave this comfort of the soul.

The church is in the business of saving souls. The spiritual deprivation, the coldness of the world that people might feel is somewhat taken care of when people go to church. The promise that somehow the divine would always look after every one of us is a wonderful promise to a lot of people, and that's why they go to church, they tithe, and they want to hope for something better.

But when we're talking about brothels or human trafficking becoming extremely profitable at a time when we are suffering severe economic recession, we realize that this is an area of our society that exploits the soul. It destroys the soul of individuals and turns them into empty carcasses, the living dead that we see all around.

A Shocking Documentary on Human Trafficking

I was thinking of my friend who is a famous documentary filmmaker who produces a lot of shows for the major networks, especially HBO. One of his friends is a musician who was invited to perform in Moscow, and he went there to perform at one of the clubs. While there he met a Russian translator who was 17 or 18. She was extremely excited to meet someone from America. She said, "I was just approached by this management company that wanted to take care of me, set me up in a place where I can live, and put me up with different people who can give me a legitimate job. I can find my own way working in conjunction with this management company and I'm scheduled to go to the United States."

As the musician was listening to this girl's story, he felt something was not right. When he came back to America, he did a little research and realized that this management company was a scam, a way of bringing girls into the seamy world of human trafficking. Being a musician, he wanted to give voice to these young girls who didn't have a voice and who were pushed into this slavery-like existence, being herded like cattle into work that abuses them, uses them, and throws them out. He turned it into his calling to write music about human trafficking and the atrocities that are taking place. He connected with some journalists whom he implored to put their lives on the line and go above and beyond the journalistic ethic of not getting emotionally involved in any of their stories, and he persuaded them to go undercover to the places where the exploitation is taking place.

My friend was asked to create a documentary video on human trafficking. He did just that, and he sent me his work, wanting my input. When I saw the gravity of the exploitation that is taking place, I was totally shocked. We hear bits and pieces about sex slaves and the sex trade, sometimes in a New York Times column or a little subtitle under a picture in the Daily News. But it's something very far from us, or so we think. We definitely empathize with the people who are suffering, but we don't do anything about it because it's something seemingly so alien to most of us who are going about our daily business of raising families, wanting to provide a good home for our children.

But it was no longer remote when I looked at the documented exploitation that is taking place. We're talking about girls as young as three years old being sold as sex slaves. The video reveals the alley that connects to the storefront, and behind the storefront we see men in dark and dimly lit rooms where there are 20 to 30 young girls, aged four to eight, and each of them is hoping she will be sold to one of these men. The men were asking the girls unbelievable things.

These girls were painfully young, of the age to be playing at Gymboree, a McDonald's playground, or a playground in Central Park. But they had been herded like animals into this dimly lit room and they had been taught the "important" English, the kind that would get them selected to be sold for that moment.

Because they're tiny children, the men customers, the johns, are encouraged to ask these girls, "Do you 'boom-boom'?" They are asking, "Do you 'boom-boom'?" to a 4-, 5-, 6-, 7- or 8-year old girl, meaning, "Do you have sexual intercourse with whomever wants to buy you?" These girls are saying, "Yes, yes, 'I boom-boom'" in English. "I 'boom-boom' really good. Pick me, 'boom-boom'." This is not a fictional movie. This is reality of what is taking place in the lives of a lot of young girls all across the world.

As you're watching this, you realize why they're using baby language like "boom-boom." The young girls who don't know anything else, who don't know it's wrong, are thinking, "It's something I have to do in order to get food, to have a place to stay." The journalist was asking, "So you 'boom-boom'?" "Yes, I 'boom-boom' good. Good boom-boom." The journalist also asked, "Do you 'yum-yum'?" Meaning, do you provide oral sex? And three girls rushed toward the journalist, grabbed his leg and said, "Yes, 'yum-yum.' I 'yum-yum' really good."

When I saw that, I could not help but cry my eyes out because I realized that something like this is taking place in the world. The age at which these little girls are being asked to "boom-boom" and "yum-yum" in different places like Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, and the Philippines is getting younger each year. Their users and abusers come to them from home countries far away. So the Johns are away from their societies and families. They're away because they're afraid of what their colleagues might say. They go to these countries to exploit young girls. This is taking place with men who may be our husbands, our sons, or our fathers.

When we see what is taking place in the world, we shouldn't be lulled into thinking that this only takes place in far-away lands. One of the fastest-growing problems in America is human trafficking, even in the capital of our country, Washington, D.C., in the suburbs. Young girls are being bought and sold right before our eyes.

When we think about the kind of exploitation that is taking place, we have to ask ourselves a couple of things. We have to ask ourselves, "Who are these men, these johns? Who are the people who are giving money to these businesses that allow the businesses not just to exist but to thrive incredibly – so much so that there's a continual flow of innocent young girls, and boys, being thrown into this kind of life. Their chances for a decent life are ravaged from them at a very young age.

When we think about how the moral fiber of society has degenerated to such an extent that we look the other way while all of this is taking place, we have to ask ourselves some hard questions. If we really want to change the world, if we really want to build ideal families, if we really want to help people develop moral character – which is really the only way we're going to solve these problems – how are we going to do that? A lot of politicians say, "Well, let's try a program where any time a john gets caught in the act, we send a report to his family. Maybe that might have the john suffer the consequences of his actions and make sure he doesn't do it anymore."

Different countries have tried that method, trying to fix the problem by punishing the effects of moral degeneration, and the end result is always the same. Not only does it not stop the crime – the johns continue doing what they're doing – but it drives the operators and the brothels undercover. So these girls are put in more severe situations that are worse and more difficult.

Preventing Sexual Exploitation

Small children being held in brothels is part of the larger interconnected global sex industry. A lot of countries have had to take a good look at themselves and ask, "How are we going to solve this problem?" It's one of the biggest problems in every country in our modern day, especially with the advent of the Internet. When my generation was growing up and a young person wanted access to pornography, it would have required the courage to go to a shop and steal the magazine, or to get your friends to give it to you, or to do something out of the ordinary to obtain materials like that. But now on the Internet, pornography can be right at the fingertips of any child.

I think a lot of parents are in denial when they think, "My son is a healthy young man. Of course he would not buy things like that, or look at things like that." Even though they're thinking that might happen, many parents don't own up to the reality of the situation or work through it with their son or daughter.

What we really need to do is to educate about what pornography does to our civilization and where pornography comes from. Do our children know where their money is going when they buy different services on the Internet because they want a quick couple of hours of access to all kinds of pornography? Do they know that it's helping to fund the industry that continually exploits young men and young women, as young as three years old?

We as a family need to talk to our children, to help them morally reason through their immediate impulse of doing whatever they want on the Internet. We need to help them think through the consequences of their actions. Our children need to realize that every time they click on the computer, go to that site, and buy some time, they are giving money to people all around the world to continue to exploit, abuse, and murder these young people who are starved for love and affection, and often for physical food. Their families sell these young people for a quick profit to put food on the table. Their families are actually the ones that seize them as something to be exploited. We need to be cognizant of what we are doing.

True Father often talks about how the greatest power in the universe is love. Our church emphasizes the importance of the blessing, and of having a loving relationship with your spouse and your family. We emphasize the importance of preparing to be a great spouse to the man or woman whom you are going to call your eternal partner.

Father and Mother are giving something to the world that is absolutely necessary. Every child that I saw being exploited in that documentary film was born as an eternal son or daughter of God. They are no different from you and me. They are no different from our children. They could be your child's playmate. They could be the ones you see on the playground. Because this industry that continually preys and feasts on young men and women exists, we as a society need to ask ourselves, "How do we tackle this monster? Do we try to put it in ball and chains?" If we put it in ball and chains, it will fight harder. It will fight more violently and viciously to break out of the chains."

The only way we're going to solve this societal problem is by addressing the root of the problem. The root of the problem is the dysfunctionality of the home, the degeneration of the home because within the home there is no concept of each individual as being a holy son or daughter of God, of each child, every one of them, being the handiwork of God.

If we are going to be a movement that's trying to usher in a world of peace, love, and harmony, we need to be a movement that exemplifies what we're saying. We need to give our children moral education that helps them to reason through morally the consequences of their actions. We need to help them realize that true love is much more important than simply the gratification of sexual desire apart from true love. In the context of a beautiful relationship between a husband and wife, sexual love can be the most beautiful, most fulfilling, most satisfying. But that's just it: in the right context.

Our young people are inundated every day by different advertising campaigns that tell them, "This is what a woman should look like. This is what you need to be looking at when you look at a man." The problem with pornography is that not only does it exploit men, women, and young children, but it also teaches the watcher, the audience, the viewer to look at human beings as body parts and not a temple of God. Pornography perniciously and falsely repudiates the truth that the human body is a divine temple where something as beautiful as sexual love can be communicated and shared in the context of a loving and beautiful relationship.

If we inundate ourselves with constant visual imagery of everybody having sex – in pornography everybody is having sex – it lowers our inhibitions. It makes us think that everybody is doing it and therefore I should do it. It makes us think and teaches us to look at another human being not as a human being, but as an object that is a means of gratifying our own sexual impulses.

When pornography consumption is left unfettered, then pretty soon a person can start thinking, "Okay, the Internet doesn't give me an adrenaline rush any more. Let me go toward the real thing. Oh, well, I want to travel abroad and basically take a tour." There are sex tours available that take people to these countries for the sole purpose of gratifying sexual desires and exploiting these children from different countries. Many times people learn to think, "Well, they don't look like me, so they're not really like me. They're not my race, so maybe that other race was made to please me, to gratify me, for me to exploit." There's a failure to realize that the person you're exploiting happens to be a child of God as well.

When we see what is taking place, we have to ask ourselves, "What's going to happen in the lives of these victims?" Victims come in all forms and sizes. It doesn't matter where you are. Things like this are taking place every day. What can the victims do? How are they going to rise up and get away from what they have suffered through, and not turn into a ball of hate that hates the world and the life that they're in, but somehow rise above it to look at another day as an opportunity for life?

When we really think about what we need to do in terms of helping these victims, we realize that the most important thing when we're dealing with our family, with adolescents, with kids who might have a severe problem with pornography, is that we as parents must communicate directly with our children about their problem. We need to take them aside and say, "You're a young healthy male or female, and we know you're curious about your sexuality. But you need to think about what you are doing. We need to talk through what you are doing every time you log onto the Internet and you buy their services. We need to ask ourselves hypothetically, what would you do if that happened to be your daughter 20 years from now? What would you do if the person that is turning you on on the Internet is your sister? Would you want your sister to be in that production? Would you want your sister or your family or your daughters to be exploited like that?"

We have to help our children through a hypothetical of how they might feel if what they are watching were to involve somebody who is wonderfully dear to us. "If that production company was exploiting my mother, my daughters, my sisters, how would I feel?"

We need to own up to the fact that if we want to change the world, we have to be the agent of change. In the context of a family in which we deal with the different issues that arise as we are trying to become the glowing family that we so desire, we have to ask our children and our young people to have a willingness to forgive themselves. That is the first step in being the agent of change when you're dealing with a monster like pornography on the Internet.

Healthy young men and women are going to be curious about sexuality, but there's a difference between being curious and being addicted to the problem. When we find ourselves being addicted to the problem, we have to have the courage to look our fears and insecurities in the face and say to ourselves, "I forgive you. I forgive me for having done those things. But now that I have gone through the moral reasoning as to why I do not want to do it, even if my impulse is extremely powerful, I now know that every time I log on, every time I buy the service, I am giving money to worldwide institutionalized human trafficking, and I am helping and supporting the exploitation of young men, young women, and children."

If we take a moment to think through what that tap on the computer is going to do, by affecting hundreds and thousands of people's lives all around the world, then any decent, conscientious person is going to think twice about it. And any decent, conscientious person is going to want to work through the addiction and difficulties so that he or she can become a whole and healthy person preparing to have a healthy sexual relationship with a very important and precious person who will be his or her spouse. With that spouse, he or she is going to build a beautiful family that is free of incest and abuse, and filled with love in a nurturing, supportive environment that can usher in and raise children who are worthy of bringing in this new millennium.

So brothers and sisters, we need to help our young people and our husbands, our brothers, and our fathers think through what is taking place in their lives if they choose to touch that button, if they choose to throw money that way. We need to make them face the reality, "Do you really want to support an industry that teaches a 4-, 5-, 6-, 7-, 8-year-old child, 'I boom-boom well' and 'I yum-yum well'?"

Any decent person, anybody with a conscience, no matter how powerful your sexual desire at that time might be, cannot say, "I don't care about those young girls, I don't care about those young boys." Anybody who has a conscience, who knows him- or her-self as an eternal son or daughter of God, cannot say, "I don't care."

So, there has to be a willingness, first and foremost, to look my problem in the face and forgive myself. I need to forgive before I can make the next step.

And for the next step, we have to tell ourselves, "Living for the sake of others is really an opportunity to practice mind over body." We have to practice mind over body, and one of the most difficult things is dealing with sexual desire. How do I practice mind over body? Instead of looking at that woman as body parts, I look at that woman as a beautiful daughter of God, as somebody's sister, as somebody's future mother, as somebody who deserves to be honored for her dignity as a divine child of God.

Loving Ourselves and Others as Divine Human Beings

How do we practice that in our daily lives? We practice that by applying and practicing and exercising mind over body. That's why Lovin' Life Ministries has introduced ballroom dancing, and for the first time in our church encourages male and female contact. Basically what we are trying to do is to help young people look at each other not as body parts, not as something to be taken, abused, manipulated, and used for personal exploitation, but as beautiful children of God, beautiful sisters and brothers with whom a wonderful time can be had so long as there is a mutual honoring of each other as a beautiful handiwork of God.

Yes, when you put a whole group of attractive young men and women together, there are going to be crushes. They are going to be checking each other out; they are going to be looking. But if we can encourage healthy social interaction with the opposite sex, stressing at the same time the need to look at each other not as something to exploit but something to honor, something to respect, something to celebrate, then we can teach our young people not to look at each other as body parts, but to appreciate a sister and a brother as a partner for a wonderful time together on the dance floor. Young men can learn how to talk to a woman, and young women can learn how to talk to a man, so socially and emotionally they can be prepared for a healthy relationship when they go towards the blessing.

I've known a lot of blessed couples and blessed children who have no ability to communicate once they are married because they've never had any social interaction with the opposite sex. Many of them before the blessing have gone through periods when they were severely addicted to pornography. They were feeling overwhelmingly guilty and unable to forgive themselves, so they didn't know how to rid themselves of their problem. When such people are blessed, their problem follows them into the marriage, into the new relationship, into a blessed relationship.

So healthy interactions and learning how to look at the power of sexuality in a healthy, holistic way are necessary to prepare our children to have great experience and loving relationships in the context of a marriage. Let's all move in that direction by encouraging our youth and our fathers, mothers, sisters, and brothers, first and foremost to be agents of change. "Be your own change that you want to see in the world," says Gandhi.

Tell yourself, "I am going to practice mind over body. I am going to practice love. I am going to apply true love in my life by learning to be a person who is not like a radioactive substance let loose out in the wilderness. I am going to be that contained, properly channeled, powerful source of energy and love that I want to share with the world. And I want to start loving. I want to start practicing true love in my life by deciding first and foremost to forgive myself."

Another thing we all need to think about in raising families and combating this problem that we're all dealing with on different levels and in different segments of our lives is the importance of realizing that once we forgive and once we decide to practice true love, there has to be a level of commitment, mind over body. Not only are we going to practice love, but we're going to practice commitment to this decision that we made every day.

What else are we going to do other than forgive and love? We're going to learn how to unite – in the sense that we are going to learn how to work together with the opposite sex in a healthy way. We're going to learn how to work as fathers and mothers, as brothers and sisters, as different members of the family, respecting each others' divinity, respecting each other as a temple of God. Instead of thinking, "How can I exploit this relationship? How can I manipulate the situation," we're going to think of ways we can work together to deal with problems, including addiction to pornography.

We're going to start telling ourselves, "I am going to start changing my life. I am going to forgive myself first and foremost. I am going to release myself from the bondage of guilt that I have placed myself under. Then I am going to take myself out of the closet, look my guilt and insecurity in the face, and say, 'You know what? Starting from today I'm going to love. I am going to love those girls who have no future. I am going to love those girls who have no voice. I am going to love them as my divine sister, as my divine daughter, as my divine mother – and I'm going to do that by honoring them as the beautiful feminine that they are. I am going to decide not to further exploit them by basically utilizing them to satisfy my immediate sexual impulses – whether in that day or that hour or that minute.

"Then I'm going to tell myself, 'Not only am I going to love them, I'm going to unite my family around me. I'm going to unite my society around me. I'm going to unite my world around me, and I'm going to stress the importance of moral education and moral reasoning, the ability to think through what we are confronted with, the ability to act not just impulsively but after asking ourselves the question, if we act, what will it result in?"

And if we clearly know that exploitation of this kind results in 4-, 5-, 6-, and 7-year-old girls learning what "boom-boom" and "yum-yum" means, then we have to work together as a society to raise healthy young men and women who have the ability to practice mind over body, and the power and depth to deal with their impulses by pushing that energy through a constructive channel in the context of a beautiful loving relationship. That is the only way we are going to change the world. That is the only way we are going to liberate these women and men.

Waking Up and Tackling Reality

Brothers and sisters, the human trafficking problems in the Philippines, Thailand, the Southeast Asian countries, and Africa are not worlds apart, because we all belong to one family. When one is exploited, we are all exploited. When one is abused, we all are abused. When one is manipulated, we all are manipulated, because that suffering person is not just an island unto him-or herself. That person has friends, colleagues, and families who are affected by that person's life.

The documentary was especially heart-wrenching in the scene where my friend zoomed in on one girl who is 12 years old, who'd been set to work ever since she was five. He filmed her in the squalor of this extremely tiny room with painfully dirty, dingy, sheets looking like they had not been washed for centuries. But he zoomed in on this girl because she had her walls filled with all the great singers of the world – Brittany Spears, Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen, and others. When you see the walls, you realize she's no different from any other 12-year-old girl who is excited about her favorite artist, her favorite singer.

This girl in this dingy, squalid room was living a reality that was fantasy for her. It was something she conjured up. It's like the movie Matrix, in which we don't know what is true and what is not true; we don't know what is reality and what is not reality. When we are hooked up to a pod, we think that's the real existence, but then everything that we see or experience in the movie Matrix is a manufactured or created reality that we experience as real. In one sense what the girl is doing was exactly like that.

The life in a brothel, the life of a young child prostitute is like being hooked up to a pod through which you're not really living. You're basically sleeping your life away. She's like the walking dead. That world is so foreign to her, so she has manufactured this alternative reality, where she lives in a fantasy world, where she's being entertained by these different artists. You realize more and more that not just this girl in a brothel somewhere in Southeast Asia but a lot of our youngsters are living that Matrix-like existence, in the sense that the real world is too painful, too difficult. It's much easier to lie apart and sleep life away while you live a fantasy life that you manufacture for yourself.

Sooner or later each of has to deal with the question, when does fantasy override reality? When does reality cease to exist? When do I cease to exist? Because without my fantasy I am in essence dead, I am in essence not living. We realize that the pod can represent many different things for a lot of people. It can represent a life that we no longer are facing because it's just too difficult. Some of the issues that arise in the family are too difficult. It's much easier to sleep in our pod, to sleep through our reality because we've created this alter-fantasy-like reality where we don't really tackle the problems that are in our family. We don't tackle the problems that exist amongst our kids because we've created a world where we don't have to.

But the whole point of developing and building ideal families is that we have to unhook ourselves from the past and start living the reality that we want to substantiate. That pod can be an addiction of sorts, to denial. That pod can represent total denial of what's taking place in our families. It can represent maybe a career that we are so engrossed in but we're not really living. We are functioning, but we're not really living.

But what God invests for and hopes for in all of us is for us to fulfill the destiny or blueprint that he had for every one of us. We were not meant to just sleep through our lives, hooked up to some kind of pod. We were not meant to just create fantasies out of our realities. We were meant to create a reality, a real life, real life that is tangible, with the good and the bad, with the joys along with the tribulations. We were meant to create a reality that helps us rub up against each other and helps us grow as deep, strong, compassionate, and profound sons and daughters of God.

Having the Courage to Work on Oneself

The Bible says in Isaiah 40:31, "For those of you who have hope will have renewed strength. You will soar like the eagle, you will run without growing weary, and you will walk without growing faint."

The Bible means by this that there is a way out of our obsessive and addictive behaviors. The change starts in finding hope in the Lord, by developing a relationship with the divine, by reclaiming our relationship with our heavenly Father, and then we will soar on the wings of eagles. We will have the courage to soar. And the interesting thing about eagles is that eagles do not fly in flocks. They have the courage to fly alone, to face their fears and fly alone.

Regardless of what we struggle through in life, there are moments when we do things together as a group, or as a family. But sometimes when we're dealing with our own demons, really working on our own mind and body unity, we need to learn how to fly, how to soar alone, majestically like an eagle. We need to run toward the destinies that are waiting for us and not grow weary. And we need to learn how to walk without growing faint.

I often like to say, "Whenever I decide to take a walk because I would like some fresh air, the initial feeling of walking away from home is wonderfully liberating, but after a fantastic walk there is nothing like the feeling you get when you're on your way home, when you've decided, I'm going to come home." At another level, there is nothing like the feeling you get when you've decided, I'm going to forgive myself; I'm going to reclaim my relationship with my God, my Heavenly Parent, and I am going to run back home to my Heavenly Father, or I am going to walk my way back home to my Heavenly Father. I am going to have the courage to work on myself, to fly solo, to work on my individual responsibility for mind over body. We all can know these feelings because ultimately it doesn't matter where we are in life or where we go, we always want to come back home.

Sun Myung Moon, Hak Ja Han, and Hyung Jin Moon, May 21, 2011

Brothers and sisters, we need to realize that we are living in an incredible time with our True Parents, the incredible time of the breaking news. But we also need to realize that this is not just the time when we are to share the breaking news, it's also the time when we need to start looking at the different things we're dealing with and give each other the tools to work through these problems. We need to encourage our youth to forgive, love and unite, and help them overcome their difficulties or their addiction or their obsession by helping them to walk the road of moral reasoning to realize that their actions may be ones that support, feed, and give money to an industry that preys on the future of our world. Children are our future. They need to be a generation of peace, not a generation of exploited young men and women.

This is the reason why True Parents are so extremely important at this time. They're not here to bandage the effects of the problems society is dealing with; they are here to address the roots of the problem. They're here to clean up from the beginning, from the root of all the societal ills that result from dysfunctional families. So the work that we all do in dealing with our families is strongly contributing to building this ideal world because if we can be responsible for each family, one family at a time, as a cornerstone or building block of our society, then the world that we so long for is within our hands.

Brothers and sisters, talk to your family. Encourage your family. Encourage everyone to forgive, love and unite, and know that we are living in a blessed time. This is a time when we can heal, when we can actually heal the wounds that are separating our children, that are separating us from our parents and from our relatives. A whole lot of healing needs to take place if we want to usher the world toward that beautiful world of peace, love, and harmony.

There's a wonderful quote that the famous Persian poet, Rumi, said to his beloved. He said, "There's a moon in all of us. Learn how to live with it as your companion." There is a moon in all of us in that our father and mother, the Rev. Sun Myung Moon and Dr. Hak Ja Han Moon, have taught us well, and their teachings live in all of our lives. All we have to do is to appreciate those teachings, become a great companion to them, grow together, start building something wonderful, and change our world in the process by changing ourselves.

So brothers and sisters, have a wonderful Sunday, and let's all go home to our Heavenly Parent. Thank you.

Notes:

Isaiah, chapter 40

1: Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.

2: Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
and cry to her
that her warfare is ended,
that her iniquity is pardoned,
that she has received from the LORD's hand
double for all her sins.

3: A voice cries:
"In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD,
make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

4: Every valley shall be lifted up,
and every mountain and hill be made low;
the uneven ground shall become level,
and the rough places a plain.

5: And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed,
and all flesh shall see it together,
for the mouth of the LORD has spoken."

6: A voice says, "Cry!"
And I said, "What shall I cry?"
All flesh is grass,
and all its beauty is like the flower of the field.

7: The grass withers, the flower fades,
when the breath of the LORD blows upon it;
surely the people is grass.

8: The grass withers, the flower fades;
but the word of our God will stand for ever.

9: Get you up to a high mountain,
O Zion, herald of good tidings;
lift up your voice with strength,
O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings,
lift it up, fear not;
say to the cities of Judah,
"Behold your God!"

10: Behold, the Lord GOD comes with might,
and his arm rules for him;
behold, his reward is with him,
and his recompense before him.

11: He will feed his flock like a shepherd,
he will gather the lambs in his arms,
he will carry them in his bosom,
and gently lead those that are with young.

12: Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand
and marked off the heavens with a span,
enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure
and weighed the mountains in scales
and the hills in a balance?

13: Who has directed the Spirit of the LORD,
or as his counselor has instructed him?

14: Whom did he consult for his enlightenment,
and who taught him the path of justice,
and taught him knowledge,
and showed him the way of understanding?

15: Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket,
and are accounted as the dust on the scales;
behold, he takes up the isles like fine dust.

16: Lebanon would not suffice for fuel,
nor are its beasts enough for a burnt offering.

17: All the nations are as nothing before him,
they are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness.

18: To whom then will you liken God,
or what likeness compare with him?

19: The idol! a workman casts it,
and a goldsmith overlays it with gold,
and casts for it silver chains.

20: He who is impoverished chooses for an offering
wood that will not rot;
he seeks out a skilful craftsman
to set up an image that will not move.

21: Have you not known? Have you not heard?
Has it not been told you from the beginning?
Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?

22: It is he who sits above the circle of the earth,
and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers;
who stretches out the heavens like a curtain,
and spreads them like a tent to dwell in;

23: who brings princes to nought,
and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing.

24: Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown,
scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth,
when he blows upon them, and they wither,
and the tempest carries them off like stubble.

25: To whom then will you compare me,
that I should be like him? says the Holy One.

26: Lift up your eyes on high and see:
who created these?
He who brings out their host by number,
calling them all by name;
by the greatness of his might,
and because he is strong in power
not one is missing.

27: Why do you say, O Jacob,
and speak, O Israel,
"My way is hid from the LORD,
and my right is disregarded by my God"?

28: Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary,
his understanding is unsearchable.

29: He gives power to the faint,
and to him who has no might he increases strength.

30: Even youths shall faint and be weary,
and young men shall fall exhausted;

31: but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength,
they shall mount up with wings like eagles,
they shall run and not be weary,
they shall walk and not faint.
 

Innovative Sport Fishing Boat to Be Unveiled in Las Vegas

In Jin Moon
August 16, 2011

Boats With Revolutionary Hulls to be Manufactured in Nevada

Las Vegas, NV – The Reverend Dr. Sun Myung Moon of Korea, honored by millions around the world as a prophet, peacemaker, wedding convener, newspaper publisher and fisherman, will add a new credential to his resume on Thursday in Las Vegas: inventor.

Not one to rest on his laurels, the 91-year-old Rev. Moon has been tinkering for years with new designs of fishing boats, which are manufactured by his company, Master Marine Yacht Building Co. At 9:30 a.m. on Thursday, Aug 18, 2011, Rev. Moon will unveil the prototype of his newly invented, 28-foot sport-fishing boat, complete with a revolutionary new hull construction, at 6590 Bermuda Road, Las Vegas, Nevada, 89119. The new boat, which will be manufactured and sold in Las Vegas, is the product of an innovative "negative NC resin mold" that allows it to move through water at 45 knots an hour. Branded the Won Mo Boat, it is lighter and faster than any vessel in its class, and virtually unsinkable, according to executives at Master Marine.

Doors open at 9:00 a.m. for a reception, entertainment and the boat dedication. Dr. Hak Ja Han Moo, Rev. Moon's spouse, will deliver the keynote address at the dedication ceremony, and later she and Rev. Moon will test the Won Mo on the fresh waters of Lake Mead. Introductory remarks will be given by Rev. Moon's son, Rev. Hyung Jin Moon, who leads his worldwide church, and Rev. In Jin Moon, who leads the Unification Church in the United States. Rev. Moon has told friends and members of his congregation that Las Vegas is destined to become the hub of family-friendly entertainment that will include world-class shows, fishing on Lake Mead and visits to the majestic natural wonders nearby. Whereas some see 2012 as the year the world ends in calamity, Rev. Moon has said he foresees a new era of peace and prosperity to be inaugurated in 2013, and he sees Las Vegas as a city with a bright future.

Rev. Moon has supported boat-building since he supervised the manufacture of his first fishing boat in the 1960's. He continued through the 1970's with manufacturing facilities in Alabama, New Jersey and North Carolina. Since 2008, he has been focusing on recreational opportunities on Lake Mead. The Won Mo Boat is believed to be taking the small-boat industry to a whole new level and will greatly enhance sport fishing and commercial fishing, according to Master Marine representatives. As he has explained frequently to members of his worldwide congregation, Rev. Moon's vision for the maritime industry encompasses feeding the world through the oceans and enjoying the tranquility of the lakes, rivers and seas to rejuvenate the human spirit. 

Sermon Notes, August 14, 2011

In Jin Moon

1. In Jin Nim was greeted with a spontaneous round of "Happy Birthday" in honor of her birthday, embarrassing the "bejesus" out of her. (This is also the 3rd Anniversary of her inauguration as the senior Pastor and President of HSA-UWC USA.). She has tried to convince those around her not to celebrate her birthday. Since she reached age 21 she has had a policy of counting backwards each year.

2. She has been with our True Parents in Las Vegas – and she passed on their love to us.

3. In Jin Nim wanted to be a part of the BCSF (Blessed Children's Sport Festival) – she had received reports that this was an event not to be missed. Over 500 people had gathered, were having a great time, engaged in competitive sports, and everyone there was with a great attitude – thrilled to be there. And so she very much wanted to be there, but because she could not be there the Lovin Life Ministries team prepared some video for her to watch.

4. As our senior pastor it made her more proud to be an Unificationist – to see all the beautiful faces of the young men and woman truly enjoying each other in the celebration of our community, of our lives, truly loving life. It was very moving for her to hear the different reports of all the activities, talent shows, fashion shows – everyone was kept busy. All the people that came and the great athletes – In Jin Nim was very happy to hear about it and to see the visual through the video.

5. When In Jin Nim thinks about the new CARP mascot, Mr. Fish, who embraced the Sports Festival this year – she realized that "yes we are a little bit different" (in one of the songs sung before her presentation there was the line "Yes! We are a little bit different!" We are different in that we have been inspired by this vision of creating one family under God. We have been nurtured under the philosophy of living for the sake of others, and we truly believe that our life is a gift, an opportunity, to really make something wonderful of ourselves and to fulfill our destinies – because we have been blessed and anointed by God to be His and Her eternal sons and daughters. In a way, we don't take life lightly – we take it seriously in that we realize that we have a divine purpose and plan, but at the same time we go about it with a grateful attitude, an attitude that is fun filled, exciting, and inspired. This is what the Lovin' Life Ministries is trying to do – it's trying to infuse our community with the spirit of how exciting it is to be living at the time of the breaking news when our True Parents are here. We should celebrate our uniqueness, our differences, and we should realize that – to be standing, walking, talking, and working together with our True Parents when they are living – is an incredible blessing for all of us.

6. In Jin Nim was thinking about our community being different and our blessed children being different. She often thinks, what is our personal life as sons and daughters of God? Before you build the house you have to have a blueprint, get to know what kind of house you are going to build – whether you're going to build an apartment, a single room house, a house for two or three families, or a mansion – you have to have an idea of what you're going to build.

7. Likewise, In Jin Nim believes that when God created each and every one of us, Heavenly Father also had an idea of what kind of a son and daughter He and She wanted to create and what kind of a blueprint Heavenly Father and Mother was thinking when He gazed into each and every one of us.

8. "We (In Jin Nim's family) were raised as children in a community where we celebrated our differences, our uniqueness" – and In Jin Nim remembers growing up with seven brothers, there are seven sisters and seven brothers in her family. She remembers her father very much encouraging the daughters to not let the brothers beat them. In other words, there is a time to be a nice Asian young graceful and elegant lady, but there is also a time to get muddy and dirty – beating your brothers in a bike race.

9. In Jin Nim grew up with the mentality that her life before her is truly an oyster and there is nothing that she cannot accomplish, that she cannot fulfill, that she cannot complete, as long as she has a vision or a clear blueprint in her mind of what she would like to accomplish and complete, and as long as she was willing to persevere and go through the effort of disciplining herself, to control herself, to become the best she could be – she knew there was nothing in her way.

10. Yes there were times when her brothers beat her, but yes there were glorious moments when she beat her brothers. This not only took place in terms of sports and extracurricular activities, but her father and mother both encouraged all the daughters to do the un-Asian like things like learning how to ride a horse or how to shoot a bow and arrow – knowing how to hit a target with whatever you are holding in your hands. These were the different ways that her parents encouraged them to really get rid of all the obstacles or the mental barriers that we placed in their minds.

11. When In Jin Nim had children of her own she wanted to do the same thing. She started out hoping for a girl but Heavenly Father gave her Preston. The second one she was hoping for a girl, but Heavenly Father and Mother gave her Rexton. The third time she prayed really hard, she told God, "you know, I grew up with seven brothers like a tomboy and I would really like to go towards the pink side of the department store – in the children's corner – I really want a little daughter." She did a 21 day prayer condition, then she felt she should do more – a 40 day prayer condition, and she did a 120 day prayer condition asking Heavenly Father and Mother "I want to experience not just the masculine but also the feminine, please, please, can I be worthy enough to have a daughter?" And finally she got Ariana.

12. Then she thought she should try for symmetry. Her family had seven brothers and seven sisters and so she wanted the symmetry within her kids. And so she wanted one more, one more girl would make it perfect, two boys and two girls. And so she waited for the fourth one and Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother gave her Trusten. And so she thought must she try for three boys and three girls – and then Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother gave her Paxton. Then she thought, "This is more than expected. This is enough. Let's go for quality instead of quantity."

13. And so In Jin Nim put all her efforts into raising her children to the best of her abilities. And she must say that one of the most fulfilling and rewarding, but at the same time most difficult challenges, was being a stay-at-home mom for a good chunk of her years when her children were growing up.

14. In Jin Nim remembers, there was a time when her parents were traveling around the world, and because they were so busy taking care of many different things – and at the same time she was going to school, her parents offered to take her children and educate them for her. And so they took Rexton and Ariana to Korea for kindergarten and their nursery years. When In Jin Nim had the opportunity to visit she would go to the school and participate in the different activities.

Little girl dressed as Batman (No Ariana)

15. She remembers one dress up party for the school – it was at a time when Cinderella, Snow White, and the Little Mermaid were all the rage. Korean and Oriental mothers do not want to raise tomboys, they want to raise elegant, sublime, quiet Asian young ladies. When In Jin Nim and Ariana got to the party, when they walked in everybody was staring at them. As they walked into the room In Jin Nim realize that all the boys were Superman, Transformers, robot type characters, or a space shuttle – and on the other side of the room there were beautiful girls all dressed up like Cinderella, Snow White, and the Little Mermaid – beautiful princesses all in dresses. In Jin Nim realized that the entire class was staring at her and her daughter. In Jin Nim was very proud of what her daughter was wearing and her daughter was proud of what she was wearing – and they were ready to have a great time. But the response they got from the classroom was something they did not expect – because they did not know what to do with a four-year-old girl coming in as Batman. She had on the full cape with a mask. She was not wearing a dress – but instead spandex. She was ready to party, but the girls looked at her as if she were an alien, something too different to allow in their circle. And so there was a moment of awkward silence and hesitation – trying to figure out what to do. And In Jin Nim said, "well, she is from America!" In Jin Nim then encouraged her daughter to go and greet each of her classmates, the boys and girls, with a handshake. The girls did not know what to do getting a handshake from a girl dressed up as Batman. And the boys, not knowing what to do, stepped back. It was moments like this, her daughter just four or five and obviously not quite fitting into this classroom and the culture that was teaching at a very young age how girls and boys should be. But In Jin Nim's daughter was very free and very excited about being Batman. And so even though there was an awkward moment – they transitioned into the festive atmosphere and at the end everyone had a good laugh and ended up having a good time.

16. As a mother In Jin Nim was incredibly proud of her daughter because she had no concept or barrier that she could not be Batman. She was there to have fun and her favorite play toy was a doll in the Batman figure. In Jin Nim's daughter had grown up in a family where people did not make her feel that she was strange or different or weird. When In Jin Nim thinks about that she is reminded, and she is grateful, that her daughter feels comfortable in her own skin – to not be afraid to go confidently wherever she needs to go, because she is a living testament of our Heavenly Parent, she is not going to be defined in a certain way – because God has a reason for why she is here. And perhaps, through her, God will teach or share with the world something new, something wonderful, and something exciting.

17. In Jin Nim remembers being very proud. One of the things, as the senior pastor, is she gets lots of e-mails from brothers and sisters. A lot of congratulatory e-mails, constructive criticism e-mails, criticism e-mails, and supportive e-mails, and a lot of beseeching e-mails – asking for help, SOS.

18. But, just last week we had a successful WFWP conference and there was a beautiful gala and all the young men and woman dressed beautifully. The young man looked dashing in the young ladies looked so beautiful. The thing about our community – we're trying to raise up a new generation of young man and woman who are confident in their skin, knowing who they are as eternal sons and daughters – and they're not afraid to be handsome or beautiful. In Jin Nim is so proud when she sees these young men and woman enjoying healthy brother and sister relationships having a great time on the dance floor. For In Jin Nim, she sees it as great preparation for going into their profession, or future careers.

19. So much of our community has been about separating the boys and girls, almost keeping them under lock and key, so much so that many of our young people never learn how to integrate properly into society – they became socially handicapped. But through these different projects such as the ballroom social, young men and women have an opportunity to practice having a healthy relationship that will give them the social advantage when they hit their careers or when they enter the professional market.

Ballroom dancing

20. Of course In Jin Nim received a lot of congratulatory e-mails, but she knows that when we start something new and we try to move our movement forward, push it forward, there is going to be lots of different segments of our community that will feel very uncomfortable. For example In Jin Nim received one e-mail from a brother who basically chastised her for encouraging young ladies to be beautiful and to be proud of their femininity. He commented on how short their dresses were, that he did not like their high heels because they accentuated their legs. He got onto In Jin Nim's case asking her to stop it. And there was another e-mail which said, "Women should not wear pants. They should only wear skirts. Because, when women wear pants it distracts the brothers."

21. When In Jin Nim got these e-mails she realized that this is the old generation that we have to help move along. Because, they are thinking about their youth and their past when they were distracted by high heels and short skirts and beautiful woman. And they realize that they have a problem – they are still trying to overcome the problem of looking at a woman with pants, because it is distracting for them.

22. But, In Jin Nim would answer to these brothers – if we are going to say that woman cannot express themselves in a beautiful way for the gala – and this was for the gala, it was not for church or something else, it was to go to a dance and have a good time. If our young woman are to feel so oppressed that the only thing they can come in is a pair of sneakers and a burka to the gala – In Jin Nim does not think that that will be too inspiring for the young ladies or to herself.

Woman in burka

23. In other words, instead of trying to confine women to be a certain way because it is distracting for brothers – In Jin Nim thinks it is high time in this Pacific rim era, for the brothers to think about, "how do we train ourselves so that we can have a healthy relationship with our beautiful sisters?" Covering the distraction is not going to solve the brothers' problem. Put a woman in sneakers and burkas is not going to solve your problem. "If you cannot learn to control your own sexuality, if you cannot learn to appreciate woman as beautiful masterpieces of God's creation, then that is something to be worked on."

24. The young people of our movement are going to embrace beauty in our culture, embrace fun in our culture, and are going to embrace a healthy competitive spirit in our culture – because we are not living a life of suffering or denial. That was not God's blueprint or God's plan for all his children. And when we grow up and come together in this beautiful thing called holy matrimony through the blessing and have this incredible opportunity to build this ideal family and have children of our own – all of us, the moment we hold that child in our hands we are going to realize that the first and last wish that we have for this child is for the child to be happy, healthy, wise, prosperous, successful, and be the completed picture that Jesus was supposed to show us – had he had the opportunity to fulfill his mission of finding that beautiful wife, creating that beautiful family, and of raising beautiful kids.

25. There is a reason why the blueprint for Lovin' Life Ministries is Lovin Life. In a way, Jesus came to love life 2000 years ago. But he never had the opportunity because his disciples and his people were not there and he had to suffer a lonely death on the cross. But his destiny was not to be the life of a miserable suffering servant. He was born to be the King of Kings, the true parent of all humankind. Now fast-forward 2000 years and here we have our True Parents here with us today, completing the picture, the picture that Jesus was not able to finish or complete.

Sun Myung Moon, Haj Ja Han, and Hyung Jin Moon, May 14, 2011

26. In our True Parents, in our own families, and in our life of this great opportunity of building these ideal families – and In Jin Nim always likes to joke that building ideal families is not a walk in the park – it's a lot of work, you have to deal with a lot of issues, obstacles, and barriers to build that ideal family. But if we can do that one family at a time we can build a beautiful world, a harmonious world, a peaceful world, a loving world. And that is what we're trying to do.

27. When our True Parents come, they come to crush a lot of rocks in our lives and a lot of these rocks are preconceived notions of what a faithful and religious servant of God is supposed to be like. Yes, it is incredibly important to understand the suffering life of Jesus Christ, his suffering course, and the suffering in life and course of our True Parents in truly bringing themselves up to the position where they can stand as that perfected Adam and Eve and as the True Parents of mankind – to create that foundation by which all of humanity can be grafted into the heavenly lineage so that we can truly call ourselves one family under God. Yes there were lots of sweat, tears, and blood shed along the way – but that was a process, it is not an end in and of itself.

28. Every parent, when they hold a child, want that child to be happy, to love and be loved – they want that child to fulfill its destiny. And God is no different. God had a loving life waiting for Jesus, God has a loving life waiting for our True Parents, and therefore it is our responsibility to make their life worthwhile and inspired and truly loving so that they know that their children love them. And every child born, touched by God and our Heavenly Parent and our True Parents, is born to love life, born to fulfill their destinies – to be that confident, not arrogant, but confident son and daughter of God. We were meant to be loving life, living testaments of God, of our True Parents. This is our purpose in life, that's our blueprint.

29. When you think about it, when you look at the word – that it is our duty and responsibility to really testify, especially those of us who have been hand-picked to be born at the time when we can serve and work together with our True Parents at this time of the breaking news – we realize that we were born with a special-purpose, a special responsibility, and that responsibility is to testify about our True Parents, it is to testify to our brothers and sisters all around the world that our God up in heaven is our Heavenly Parent, that we are his eternal sons and daughters, and that we have a duty to be compassionate individuals, a duty to live a life living for the sake of others, an altruistic type of lifestyle, and that we have a duty to be that internally excellent and externally excellent son and a daughter of God.

30. We realize that our life has to be like a living testament of what God and our True Parents are all about. When you look at the word testify, you realize that there are four letters, the first four letters, that spell the word test.

31. When we are engaged, at this time of the breaking news, and testifying about our True Parents, it is going to require a couple of things. There is going to be a test. The test is going to check our character, our commitment, and our courage. It's going to test whether we have what it takes to be that eternal son and a daughter of God.

32. When you go to the school, elementary school, junior high school, and high school, and you take the SATs in preparation for college – it is a litmus test that gives the admission officers who are looking to recruit you for their college, an idea of what kind of a student you are. If you are somebody that gets 800s on your SATs, obviously you are smart, you must have worked hard, and you must have been diligent in all the things that a student is responsible for in their years in high school. Therefore, the admissions officer knows that you are well-prepared for the next stage of your life which is college. And for those who do not do so well, it could be an invitation for them to study another year – to review all that took place in the last four years of high school so that they can be better prepared for college – when they take the test again, and hopefully they will do better.

33. A test is a good way to get a visual, or a snapshot, on the quality of a person. When you are engaged in really testifying to our True Parents, it tests you in many, many different ways. It has not always been easy in our movement to testify about being a proud Unificationist because there was so much persecution. But for those who wear their name, like In Jin Nim and her brothers and sisters and cousins – they were the name, Moon, and they have nowhere to go.

34. But the blessed children have their own name – you might be Smith, Jackson, or Schmidt – in a way, blessed children have a choice to make. You were born and raised in this movement, but just as your parents, the first generation, made the choice to become that eternal son and daughter of God, sooner or later in your life you have to own up to who you want to be. You have to own up and really ask yourself, "Will I, can I., wear the Moon name proudly as one family under God? Can I be Schmidt Moon, can I be Jason Moon, can I be Nakai Moon? Can I proudly wear my father and mother's name and be the kind of living testament that testifies to the quality of what kind of character these two people have, what kind of a person our True Father and True Mother are, how they have lived a life of commitment?" Our True Mother for almost 70 years. On her next birthday she will be 70. And our True Father for almost 93 years. They have never wavered. They stood in the face of opposition and all different kinds of pressure, our True Father – thrown into prison more than six times, and our True Mother has always been by his side – never ever leaving his side as his wonderful partner, support, and wife. These two people are a man and woman of commitment. And regardless of how difficult their lives have been they have never ever wavered. They have taken their responsibility as the True Parents of all mankind seriously, but with an incredibly grateful heart. And each and every day, every new day, they tackle the new day with the same kind of attitude, with the same heart of gratitude, with the same determination to work a little harder, to persevere a little longer – so that they can make the world a better place for their children.

35. Another quality of our True Parents that we need to inherit, if we really want to testify, as a living testament of what our True Parents are all about – is this word called courage. Sometimes it takes courage to stand strong in our faith.

36. One of the things that In Jin Nim recognize growing up in this movement is – because we have been through 40 years of wilderness life where our mentality has been a survival mentality – we have had to fight the long and hard battle of trying to establish our presence in the world, hold our communities together, raise families at the same time, and hopefully do our best in raising up inspired and decent young children.

37. But it has not always been easy. Sometimes it was far easier to go undercover and not even deal with the fact of who we are. Hide the fact that we are Gods sons and daughters, hide that we are True Parents' sons and daughters. In Jin Nim remembers when she was starting out at the Divinity school – there were different opportunities to take courses and seminars with your favorite professors. One of the courses In Jin Nim wanted to take was taught by a very famous feminist scholar – and In Jin Nim new that she was not too thrilled about some of the teachings of In Jin Nim's father and she knew that her view on our church was not 100% favorable. When In Jin Nim was in her class, her colloquium in the fall term there was an opportunity for In Jin Nim to own up to who she was. In Jin Nim's name is Moon so there is always the question – is she is related to Rev. Sun Myung Moon? But In Jin Nim did not like that question. She wanted to go to school incognito – study, do research, be free to study different ideas, explore, and discuss things in the classroom without having to always be a representative of her faith and her parents.

38. She remembers having to go through an incredible struggle in her life. When this thing is heaped on you – "oh my God! You're the daughter of Rev. Sun Myung Moon?" All these questions come your way and you become the focal point, the center of all the discussions, and you feel that you can't really learn, you can't navigate the intellectual field – asking the questions you want to ask, discussing the things you want to discuss, because everything is being heard and checked because they see you as a living testament of your faith.

39. After going through this struggle for some time, and in the beginning when asked In Jin Nim answered, "maybe and maybe not." In Jin Nim kept them guessing trying to figure out how to deal with this. Colloquiums are usually just for five students – they picked the best students to participate in a small setting so that there is a lot of one on one with the professor. And every time the question came up the answer was, "maybe and maybe not." But during one class they were discussing the importance of marriage and the conversation became heated and they were throwing around all the pros and cons of marriage – and the conversation was compelling and exciting and In Jin Nim felt that one of the most important gifts that God gives to humanity through our True Parents is the Blessing, it is one of our most viable sacraments – and In Jin Nim wanted to share about this breaking news. But perhaps her environment would not be too conducive to sharing, but nevertheless she did. It took a tremendous amount of courage – every day she told herself, "stop dissing courage. Be blunt about who you are and tell the people about the breaking news and True Parents." And even though the struggle up to that point was incredibly intense – once she decided – "you know what, my name is Moon. Yes I would like to be a quiet student doing my thing, but I can't escape the fact that I was born to be a living testament of True Parents."

40. Once In Jin Nim made up her mind to testify, to share in her character, to be that character of integrity – in letting people know who she really is and in being committed to her community and her faith – in being willing to persevere through any persecution that may come her way and to have the courage to face her fears … and she asked herself, what is the worst thing that could happen. Her professor could give her an 'F' but she could put up a good fight if that happened.

41. Once she decided in her mind, "I am going to testify because I am a living witness of God, our Heavenly Parent, and our True Parents" it was almost as if the floodgates opened. She felt incredibly liberated. "I don't have to hide, I don't have to be undercover, I don't have to fight with myself, battle in my mind, dissing courage every morning." "If people like it, great, if they don't – tough nuggies." Hopefully they will like it a little better a few years down the line when they really think about what she has to share with them.

42. It was incredibly liberating for In Jin Nim. And she realized that the more she became that confident person, the more people listened, and even the professor listened. And In Jin Nim had read all of her work so she knew where she stood, but because she was so confident in being that living testament of our True Parents, her teacher was incredibly intrigued. She and In Jin Nim ended up having more conversations and they discussed things more deeply, more profoundly, and In Jin Nim left the school with a much more rewarding experience and relationship with this teacher – than had she just kept to herself, being a quiet nobody in a sea of students.

43. She realized the power of being proud of who we are. Now, there is no stopping her. When people meet In Jin Nim, and the same goes for her brothers – Lovie, the spiritual heir of our movement, the first thing he does is to testify to our True Parents, because he realizes that he is a living testament of these three incredible things called character (1), the quality of the character in a person that is acquired in order to be that living testament of our True Parents. Commitment (2), that is required in order to have the strength to persevere and to overcome and to finally complete our destiny that are Heavenly Father and Mother set out for us when they thought about creating our blueprint, for each and every one of us. And for having the courage (3) to look fear in the face – face fear and instead of dissing courage, "I am going to take the easy way out," be bold and righteous and loving – that through the gift of our ability and our willingness to testify about our True Parents we are giving all of humanity an invitation to become one family under God. Not just enjoy true love and true life but to really substantiate the true lineage of God and become one family.

44. The Bible says in 1 Peter 4:12 "Beloved, do not be amazed and bewildered by the fiery ordeal that will test what you are all about." -- The fiery ordeal that will test what you are all about, "as if something strange has befallen on you" – because we are kind of strange, we are weirdly wonderful. We are different. But we are proud sons and daughters of God, each and every one of us.

45. So, yes, there is going to be that difficulty, that fiery ordeal. And one time or two or three times in the course of our lives, but do not think of it as being something strange befallen us, because we realize that when we are here, when we have been given the responsibility to be that living testament of our True Parents, we realize that we have been given a great blueprint. But just like in building a house, we can have the greatest blueprint available to mankind, the most beautiful house we can possibly imagine, and we can visualize what the house is going to look like – now that we have 3-D graphics – so we can get a good idea of how it is going to be, even navigating through the rooms with a computer, but we know that in order to get from the blueprint to the final product of the house there is going to be a lot of fiery ordeal that will test us, just like the way the fiery ordeal tests us when we own up to the fact that it is our responsibility to really testify at this time to the breaking news about the glories of our Heavenly Parent and about the need to graft on to one family under God for the Blessing that are True Parents give.

46. The fiery ordeal is just the process. The suffering and the difficulties that we all share, that we have gone through, and will continue to go through – is the fiery ordeal that will test us along the way. But the fiery ordeal is just a test. It's not the completion. It's not the end. It's not the completed picture of what we are supposed to be all about.

47. Just as when you construct a house, you start from a blueprint and build up the frames, and there is a lot of hammering and plastering and painting and cementing – a whole lot of work. But when we go through that, realizing that it is a process, because we are on our way to building this beautiful house or this beautiful family – then we realize that the fiery ordeal is a time of testing that will help us accomplish a life where we can truly love life, truly be those fulfilled men and women of God

48. One of the things In Jin Nim realized when she spent a lot of time with her father (the big fish mascot at the Sports Festival reminded her of her fishing days) – not only was her mother a fantastic cook, but her father was a fantastic cook. In Jin Nim loves the section in her father's autobiography when he talks about what a great knitter he was. He knitted a hat that was so fashionable. He was very much a man – a fashion designer. "Can you imagine Father, a fashion designer?" But he knitted his own hat and he was proud of the fashion statement that he had made – because it was unique, handcrafted and lovingly made with his own hands.

49. One of the things In Jin Nim's father used to say is that you can tell a lot about a person by just watching the way they cook – by watching how they prepare and by what is finally put upon the table. Just as Ariana was incredibly different running around in a Batman suit, In Jin Nim's father tested or surprised her in many ways. In Jin Nim was the only daughter who did not get sea sick and so her father always asked her to man the kitchen. Before her fishing days started at the age of 11 In Jin Nim did not really know how to cook and so she learned on the job. And one thing In Jin Nim noticed about her father is that – many people can only cook with a cookbook, but great chefs – they have cooked all the recipes from the cookbooks – but the true artistry of being a fantastic chef is to not copycat someone's recipe, but to come out with your own awesome recipe. And so one of the things In Jin Nim's father opened up her mind to is to look at the different ingredients as almost pieces of a jigsaw puzzle she can play around with to create a whole new picture.

50. And so, when In Jin Nim got ready for fishing the kitchen sisters would tell her, "you have to prepare miso soup and they would write out exactly what she must do." But In Jin Nim's father would treat each ingredient as something unique, something you should highlight, not just stuff into a dish, but that you should appreciate.

51. And one of the moments In Jin Nim had with her father on the New Hope was – she had brought some sandwiches and rice balls, but Mother had prepared delicious chocolate bars from Switzerland. So, In Jin Nim put the chocolate in a nice bowl and took it up to her father along with a plate of rice balls and hot kimchi paste, kochichan, some kimchi and some dried seaweed. And father looked at the plate – there was a rice ball, kochichan, kimchi, and seaweed, and a bowl of chocolate. The bowl of chocolate was meant to be a desert, but Father started out unwrapping the chocolate. And In Jin Nim told him "Daddy, that's the desert." And he went "mmmm" and he continued to open the chocolate bar. It was a bar that could be divided into bite-size pieces, but he didn't do that, he dipped the whole thing into the kochichan. And In Jin Nim screamed out, "Father! What are you doing?!" And he said, "mmmmm" He dipped the chocolate into the hot sauce and he took a bite – and In Jin Nim thought in her mind that he must be mad. "What are you doing putting chocolate in the hot sauce?" Then he took a bite, looked at the chocolate again, and put it again into the hot sauce, and he ate it again. And In Jin Nim said, "Father you are not supposed to do that!" And she remembers him smiling and saying to her, "says whom? It's delicious."

Mole sauce

52. And so, fast forward 20 years, and In Jin Nim has children of her own and she is developing her own divine cheesecake recipe. She has traveled around the world and tasted different cuisines – and in South America they have something called 'Mole.' In which they grind cooked pepper into the chocolate sauce and they create an incredible concoction that is sweet when you bite into it, but leaves your throat burning. It's a divine experience – once you have it you have to have more. And so, what In Jin Nim thought was incredibly weird, somehow 20 years later was weirdly wonderful. In memory of her father dipping his huge Switzerland chocolate bar into the hot sauce – In Jin Nim thought she would create a chocolate cheesecake, but in honor of her father she was going to make a 'Molle' cheesecake – where, when people eat it, they will say that it tastes like chocolate but burns like pepper. And so, In Jin Nim realized as she was playing around with these ingredients and creating her own recipe – her father was always challenging her to think outside the box, to think outside of what we are accustomed to.

53. Just as our church is moving from the wilderness mentality of just surviving into the time of settlement when we really must think about how we are not going to just survive, but how are we going to prosper and thrive and start loving life. There has got to be a lot of thinking outside of the box. There have got to be young little girls wanting to dress up like Batman every once in a while, and beautiful young ladies who are not afraid of their own femininity, not afraid to wear high heels and do it competently and in a healthy way. There is going to be a lot of challenges to the rocks that we were accustomed to. Our True Father is going to take all of us to Las Vegas and take us on a tour of the slot tournament and really change the mentality of Las Vegas from a town of sin to a town of giving – where it can really give life to different charities and organizations and inspire others to do the same.

54. Father, through his empowerment of our members to enjoy leisure time with families – we in our movement have the best ski resort in Korea. And when the Winter Olympics will be held the next time around, guess where they are going to have the ski tournaments? In our ski resort.

Family leisure

55. We are talking about reclaiming leisure, reclaiming fun – that Satan took away, that the history of mankind, the history of indemnification and restoration took away from humankind – we are talking about reclaiming our lives as something that we should celebrate, something that we should be wild about, something that should not hold ourselves back. The big banner for the sport Festival was "All In!" This is not the time to be wondering, "am I, or am I not? Do I, or do I not? Should I, or should I not?" This is the time of the breaking news, the time when we should be 'All In'.

56. "As that living testament be proud that we own our game. We have the blueprint that God gave us, in our care, and the only thing we need to do is to be a living testament through the fiery ordeal that will test us along the way. But if we can be true to who we are, true to our divine purpose and our responsibility of being that living testament, we are going to do much better than traveling at the speed of sound – we are going to be traveling at the speed of love. And that is instantaneous, it is more powerful, and has the ability to transform ourselves in the process, and to transform our environment and our world. And if we can do that, brothers and sisters, if we can truly be that son and daughter that really lives together with God in our lives, each and every day, and really dedicate everything that we are about, to being that son and daughter, that inspired individual, and truly understand the importance of the time we are living in, to share the news with the rest of the world, share the good news that our True Parents come with an incredible gift of the Blessing, an incredible invitation to join and come together as one family under God, to go beyond our race, beyond our color, beyond our faith, beyond our cultural backgrounds – this is an exciting time."

57. "So brothers and sisters congratulations once again to BCSF for an incredible week in showing and exercising great sportsmanship and attitude throughout the whole festival – and this is really a time when we should say to ourselves I am 'All In!' Because I am proud to be an Unificationist!"

58. God bless and have a wonderful Sunday!

Notes:

1 Peter, chapter 4

1: Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same thought, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin,

2: so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer by human passions but by the will of God.

3: Let the time that is past suffice for doing what the Gentiles like to do, living in licentiousness, passions, drunkenness, revels, carousing, and lawless idolatry.

4: They are surprised that you do not now join them in the same wild profligacy, and they abuse you;

5: but they will give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.

6: For this is why the gospel was preached even to the dead, that though judged in the flesh like men, they might live in the spirit like God.

7: The end of all things is at hand; therefore keep sane and sober for your prayers.

8: Above all hold unfailing your love for one another, since love covers a multitude of sins.

9: Practice hospitality ungrudgingly to one another.

10: As each has received a gift, employ it for one another, as good stewards of God's varied grace:

11: whoever speaks, as one who utters oracles of God; whoever renders service, as one who renders it by the strength which God supplies; in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.

12: Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal which comes upon you to prove you, as though something strange were happening to you.

13: But rejoice in so far as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.

14: If you are reproached for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.

15: But let none of you suffer as a murderer, or a thief, or a wrongdoer, or a mischief-maker;

16: yet if one suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but under that name let him glorify God.

17: For the time has come for judgment to begin with the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God?

18: And "If the righteous man is scarcely saved,
where will the impious and sinner appear?"

19: Therefore let those who suffer according to God's will do right and entrust their souls to a faithful Creator.  

Challenging Convention: Becoming Batman

In Jin Moon
August 14, 2011

[Cheering and singing "Happy Birthday In Jin Nim.] Good morning. You sure know how to put your senior pastor on the spot and embarrass the living bejesus out of me. But thank you.

I've been trying to convince my team at Lovin' Life and those of you who work with me at Headquarters that I have stopped celebrating my birthday. I have stopped counting since I was 21, and I've been going backwards ever since. But every year without fail these brothers and sisters won't let me forget that I'm a year younger, and hopefully wiser, so thank you very much.

Today I bring you greetings from our True Parents in Las Vegas once again. I so wanted to be a part of BCSF, the sports festival, and I've been getting reports from my kids as well as different leaders who were there. They were saying that this was an event not to be missed, that there were 400 or 500 people gathered, having a great time, engaging in healthy, competitive sports, and that everybody was coming with a great attitude, just thrilled to be there. So I very much wanted to attend, but because I could not attend, Koko on the Lovin' Life team gave me a wonderful visual on how much fun everybody had.

As your senior pastor, nothing makes me more proud to be a Unificationist than to see the beautiful faces of all these bright-eyed and bushy-tailed young men and women enjoying each other in the celebration of our community and our life, truly loving life. So it was very moving for me to hear the reports about all the different activities – not only athletics, but also the talent show, the art show, and the fashion show. Boy, they really kept you busy over there! And with the different kinds of people who came, the great athletes and the great showmanship, I was terribly happy to hear about it and also to finally get a visual on the event itself.

Mr. Fish and friend

When I think about our new CARP mascot Mr. Fish, who graced the sports festival this year, and when I look at our brothers and sisters and our blessed children's community, I have to say, "Yes, we are a little bit different." We are different in that we have been inspired by this vision of creating one family under God. We have been nurtured under the philosophy of living for the sake of others, and we truly believe that our life is a gift or an opportunity to make something wonderful of ourselves, to fulfill our destinies because we have been blessed and anointed by God to be His and Her eternal sons and daughters.

Accepting the Uniqueness in Ourselves and Others

We don't take life lightly. We take it seriously in that we realize that our lives have a divine purpose and plan. But at the same time we go about it with a grateful attitude, and an attitude that's fun filled, excited, and inspired. That's what Lovin' Life Ministries is trying to do. It's trying to infuse our community with the spirit of how exciting it is to be living at the time of the breaking news when our True Parents are here. And, yes, we should celebrate our uniqueness and differences, and we should realize that to be standing, walking, and working together with our True Parents, living at the same time when they are living, is an incredible blessing for all of us.

When I think about our community and our blessed children being different, I often like to think about, "What is our purpose in life as sons and daughters of God?" Before we build a house, we have to have a blueprint. We have to know what kind of house we're going to build – whether we're going to build an apartment, a single-family house, a house for two or three families, or a mansion. We have to have an idea of what we want to build.

Likewise, I believe that when God created every one of us, he and she also had an idea, a blueprint, of what kind of son or daughter God wanted to create and to see actualized when Heavenly Father and Mother gazed into every one of us.

So we were raised as blessed children in a community that celebrated our differences, our uniqueness. I remember growing up in a family of seven brothers and seven sisters. I remember my father very much encouraging the daughters not to let the brothers beat us. In other words, there's a time to be a graceful, elegant young Asian lady, but there is also a time to get muddy and dirty, beating your brothers in a bike race.

I grew up with the mentality that my life before me is truly an oyster and there is nothing that I cannot accomplish, that I cannot fulfill or complete, as long as I have a clear vision or blueprint in my mind of what I would like to accomplish and as long as I am willing to persevere and discipline myself, to train myself to be the best that I can be. I knew there was nothing in my way.

So, yes, there were times when my brothers beat me, but yes, there were glorious moments when I beat my brothers. This took place not only in terms of sports and extracurricular activities, but also, in terms of encouragement from both my father and my mother for all the daughters to do un-Asian-ladylike things – like knowing how to ride a horse, how to shoot a bow and arrow, and how to hit a target with whatever you're holding in your hands.

These were the different ways that our parents encouraged us to get rid of all the obstacles or mental barriers that we place in our minds. When I had children of my own, I wanted to do the same thing. I started out hoping for a girl, but Heavenly Father gave me Preston. For the second one I was hoping for a girl, and then Heavenly Father and Mother gave me Rexton. The third time I really, really prayed hard. I said, "You know, I've grown up with seven brothers, I grew up like a tomboy. I really would like to go toward the pink side of the department store when I visit the children's corner. I really want a little daughter."

I did 21-day prayer conditions, and then something told me I need to do something more, so I did a 40-day prayer condition, and I did a 120-day prayer condition, asking Heavenly Father and Mother, "I want to experience not just the masculine but also the feminine. Please, please, can I be worthy of having a daughter?" And finally I got Ariana.

Then I thought, "You know, we need to try for symmetry here." I grew up in a family with seven brothers and seven sisters, so I wanted symmetry in my kids. So maybe, one more girl would make it perfect – two boys and two girls. Neither sex would feel totally alone. Then I waited for the fourth one and Heavenly Father and Mother gave me Truston. I thought, "Okay, does this mean I'll have to shoot for three boys and three girls?" So I tried one more and then Heavenly Father and Mother gave me Paxton. Then I thought, "This is way more than expected. This is enough. Let's go for quality, not quantity." So I put all my effort into raising the kids to the best of my abilities.

I must say that probably one of the most fulfilling and rewarding, but at the same time most difficult and challenging things, was being a mom, a stay-at-home mom for a good chunk of the years when my children were growing up. I remember there was a time when my parents were traveling around the world, and because we were so busy taking care of a lot of different things and at the same time I was going to school, my parents said, "Well, let us take your children and educate them for you." So they took Rexton and Ariana to Korea for their nursery and kindergarten years.

When I had the opportunity to visit them, I would spend some time and go to the school to participate in all the different activities. I remember there was one dress-up party for the school – and that was when The Little Mermaid, Cinderella, and Snow White stories were all the rage. Oriental and Korean moms don't want to raise tomboys; they want to raise elegant, sublime, quiet Asian young ladies.

So when we got to the party, I was walking in with my daughter. When we walked in, everybody was staring at us. When we walked into the room, I realized that the boys were Superman or Transformers – different robot-type of characters. Some pretended they were the Concorde or the Space Shuttle. On the other side of the room were these beautiful girls dressed up like Cinderella, Snow White, Little Mermaid – beautiful princesses and fairy godmothers, all in dresses. And I realized that the whole class, including the teacher, was staring at my daughter and me because I was very proud of what my daughter was wearing, she was very proud of what she was wearing, and we were going to have a great time.

Bat-humans and Robin

But the response that we got from the classroom was something we did not expect, because they didn't know what to do with a four-year-old girl coming as Batman. She had the full cape on, the mask, and she wasn't wearing a dress. It was Spandex. She had a glorious cape, and she was ready to party, but the girls looked at her as if she were an alien, something very different – too different to allow in their circle.

There was a moment of hesitation and awkward silence, a moment of the adults trying to figure out what to do. I said, "Well, she's from America." I said, "Ariana, why don't you greet your classmates, give them a nice Batman handshake, the boys and the girls." She was very happy, shaking everybody's hand. You could see that the girls didn't really know what to do, getting a handshake from this little girl pretending to be Batman. And the boys – when Ariana came over to them, they just shied away and stepped back, not knowing exactly what to do.

It was at moments like that when I realized, "Here is my daughter. She's four years old, and she's very different, obviously not quite fitting into this classroom and not quite fitting into the culture of what is taught at a very young age: Girls are supposed to be this way; boys are supposed to be this way." But Ariana was very free, and happy and excited about being Batman.

Even though there was an awkward moment where we transitioned into a festive atmosphere – and of course in the end everybody had a good laugh and ended up having a good time – I must say that as a mom I was extremely proud of my daughter because she had no concept, no barrier, that she could not be Batman. She was there to have fun. Her favorite play dolls were a dog and a Batman figure. She grew up in a family where people didn't make her feel that she was stranger, different or weird.

When I think about that, I am reminded and grateful that my daughter feels comfortable in her own skin, not afraid to go confidently wherever she needs to go because she's a living testament of our Heavenly Parent. She's not going to be defined in a certain way. God has a reason for why she is here, and, perhaps through her, God will teach or share with the world something new, wonderful, and exciting. I remember being terribly proud.

Allowing Our Young Brothers and Sisters to Be Beautiful

As senior pastor I get a lot of e-mails from brothers and sisters – a lot of congratulatory e-mails, a lot of constructive criticism e-mails, a lot of supportive e-mails, and a lot of beseeching e-mails asking for help. Just last week we had a successful 19th annual conference of the Women's Federation for World Peace with a beautiful gala. All the young men and women were dressed beautifully. The young men looked dashing, and the young ladies looked so beautiful.

The thing about our community is that we're trying to raise a new generation of young men and women who are confident in their skin, knowing who they are as eternal sons and daughters. They are not afraid to be handsome; they're not afraid to be beautiful. I am so proud when I see these young men and women enjoying a healthy brother-and-sister relationship, having a great time on the dance floor. For me I see it as great preparation for going into the professions, into their future careers.

The policy of our church and community has too often been to separate the boys and girls, to keep them almost under lock and key – so much so that many of our young people never really knew how to integrate properly into society. They were socially handicapped. But through our different projects and through activities like ballroom dancing, young men and women have a chance to practice a healthy kind of relationship that will give them some social advantage when they enter the professional market.

Of course there were a lot of congratulatory e-mails about the Women's Federation conference and gala. But there were other e-mails reminding me that when we try something new, when we try to move or push our movement forward, there are going to be a lot of different segments of the population in our community that will feel very uncomfortable. For instance, I received an e-mail in which a brother was basically chastising me for encouraging young ladies to be beautiful, to be proud of their femininity. He was commenting about how short their dresses were and how he did not like their high heels because it accentuated their legs. So he was basically getting on my case, asking me to stop it.

There was another e-mail from a brother who said women should not wear pants; women should wear only skirts because when women wear pants, it distracts all the brothers.

When I got these e-mails I realized that this is the older generation of men whom we have to help move along. They are thinking about their youth and their past, when they were distracted by high heels, short skirts, and beautiful women. They realize that they have a problem and maybe are still trying to overcome the problem in looking at a woman wearing pants because it's distracting for them.

But I would answer those brothers, "Why should we say basically that women cannot express themselves in a beautiful way for the gala?" And this was for the gala. They weren't dressed to go to church or to something else. They were dressed to go to a dance and have a good time. If young women are made to feel so repressed that the only thing they can wear to the gala is a pair of sneakers and a burka, I don't think that's going to be too inspiring for the young ladies – or to myself.

Instead of looking toward trying to confine a woman to be a certain way because it is distracting for brothers, I think it's high time in this Pacific Rim Era for the brothers to ask themselves, "How do we train ourselves so we can have a healthy relationship with our beautiful sisters?" Covering the distraction is not going to solve your problem, brothers. Putting women in sneakers and burkas is not going to solve your problem. If you cannot learn to control your own sexuality, if you cannot learn to appreciate women as beautiful masterpieces of God's creation, then you need to work on that.

So the young people of our movement are going to embrace beauty and fun in our culture. They are going to embrace a healthy competitive spirit in our culture because we are not living lives of suffering or denial. That was not God's blueprint or plan for all his and her children.

Our Blueprint in Life

When we grow up and come together in holy matrimony through the Blessing, we are given an amazing opportunity to build an ideal family and have children of our own. In the moment we hold that child in our hands, we are going to realize that the first and the last wish we have for this child is for the child to be happy, healthy, wise, prosperous, and successful. We will wish for that child to grow to become the completed picture that Jesus was supposed to show us, if he would have had the opportunity to fulfill his mission of finding his beautiful wife and creating a beautiful family by raising beautiful children.

There is a reason why the blueprint for Lovin' Life Ministries is loving life. Jesus came to love life 2,000 years ago, but he never had that opportunity because his disciples were not there, his people were not there, and he had to suffer a lonely death on the cross. His destiny was not to live the life of a miserable and suffering servant. He was born to be the king of kings. He was born to be the true parent of all humankind.

Sun Myung Moon and Hak Ja Han, May 15, 2011

Brothers and sisters, fast-forward 2,000 years and here we have our True Parents with us. They are here completing the final picture. They are here completing the picture that Jesus was not able to complete. In our True Parents and in our own families, we have in our lifetime the great opportunity of building these ideal families one at a time. I like to joke that building an ideal family is never a walk in the park. It's a lot of work. You have to deal with a lot of issues, obstacles, and barriers to build that ideal family. But if we can do that one family at a time, we can build a beautiful world, a harmonious world, a peaceful world, a loving world. That's what we are trying to do.

So when our True Parents come, they come to crush a lot of rocks in our lives. A lot of these rocks are preconceived notions of what a faithful and religious servant of God is supposed to be like. Yes, it's extremely important to understand the suffering life of Jesus Christ and the suffering course of our True Parents in qualifying themselves to stand as the perfected Adam and Eve and the True Parents of humankind. In order to achieve their position, True Parents have had to create the foundation for grafting all of humanity onto the heavenly lineage so we can truly call ourselves one family under God. Yes, a lot of sweat, tears, and blood were shed along the way. But that was a process. It was not an end in and of itself.

Every parent holding his or her child wants that child to be happy, to love and to be loved, and to fulfill his or her destiny. God is no different. God had a loving life waiting for Jesus. God has a loving life waiting for our True Parents, and therefore it's our responsibility to make their lives worthwhile, inspired, and truly loving so they know that their children love them.

Every child born and touched by God, our Heavenly Parent, and our True Parents is meant to love life. Every child is born to fulfill a destiny, to be confident – not arrogant – but a confident son or daughter of God. We were meant to be loving life, living testaments of God and our True Parents. That's our purpose in life; that's our blueprint.

If we think about it, brothers and sisters, especially those of us who have been handpicked to be born at this time of the breaking news when we can serve and work together with our True Parents, we realize that we were born with a special purpose and responsibility. And that responsibility is to testify to brothers and sisters all around the world about our True Parents, that God is our Heavenly Parent, and that we are his and her eternal sons and daughters who have a duty to be compassionate individuals, living for the sake of others with an altruistic lifestyle, while being internally and externally excellent sons and daughters of God.

The Test and the Courage

We understand also that our life has to be a living testament of what God and our True Parents are all about. When we look at the word testify, we notice that the first four letters spell the word test. When I am, or you are, or we are, engaged at this time of the breaking news in testifying about our True Parents, it's going to require a couple of things. We are going to meet a test that will check our character, our commitment, and our courage. It's going to check whether we have what it takes to be an eternal son or daughter of God.

When you are going to school, you take the SATs in preparation for being admitted to college. The SATs are a good litmus test that gives admissions officers who are looking at recruiting you for their college a good idea what kind of student you are. If you get 800s on your SATs, obviously you are smart, and you must have worked hard. Obviously you must have been diligent in all the things that a student is responsible for in the high school years. Therefore, the admissions officer knows that you are well prepared for the next stage of your life, which is college.

For those who do not do so well, that could be an invitation for them to study another year, to review all the learning that took place in the last four years of high school so when they take the test again they can be better prepared for college and hopefully do better. But a test is a good way to get a snapshot of the quality of the person.

When you are engaged in testifying about True Parents, you may be tested in many different ways. It has not always been easy in our movement to testify about being a proud Unificationist because there was so much persecution. Some of us, like my brothers and sisters and my children and their cousins, wear the name Moon and we've got no place to go.

But a lot of the Blessed Children have different names. You might be Smith, Jackson, or Schmidt. Blessed Children have a choice to make. You are born and raised in this movement, but just as your parents in the first generation made the choice to become an eternal son or daughter of God, sooner or later in your life you have to own up to who you want to be.

You have to choose to ask yourself, "Can I wear the Moon name proudly as a member of the one family under God?" "Can I be Schmidt-Moon?" "Can I be Jackson-Moon?" "Can I be Nakai-Moon?" "Can I proudly wear my father and mother's name and be the kind of living testament that testifies to the quality of character these two people have, to the kind of a people our True Father and Mother are? Does my own life stand as a living testament to how they have lived lives of commitment, our True Mother for almost 70 years – on her next birthday, she will be 70 – and our True Father for 93 years on his next birthday.

They have never wavered. They have stood in the face of opposition in all different kinds of pressures, with our Father being thrown into prison more than six times. Our True Mother, through more than 50 years of marriage, has always been by his side, never leaving his side as his wonderful wife and support. These two people are a man and woman of commitment.

Regardless of how difficult their lives have been, they have never wavered. They have taken their responsibility as the True Parents of all humankind seriously, but with a marvelously grateful heart. They tackle every new day with the same kind of an attitude – a heart of gratitude and a determination to work a little harder, to persevere a little longer so they can make the world a better place for their children.

Another quality of our True Parents that we need to inherit if we really want to be the living testament of what our True Parents are all about is courage. Sometimes it takes courage to stand strong in our faith. One of the things that I recognized growing up in the movement is that our thinking and self-image have been affected as we've gone through the time of the wilderness – 40 years of wilderness life during which our mentality was basically a survival mentality. We've had to fight the long and hard battle of trying to establish our presence in the world, hold our communities together, and at the same time raise families, hopefully doing our best to raise inspired and decent young children.

But it has not always been easy. Sometimes it was far easier basically to go undercover and not even deal with who we are, to hide the fact that we are God's sons and daughters and we are True Parents' sons and daughters. I remember when I was studying at the divinity school where there were different colloquiums and seminars and the students could choose to take courses with our favorite professors. One of the courses I wanted to take was taught by a very famous feminist scholar. I knew that she was not too thrilled about some of the teachings of my father, and I knew that her view on our church was not 100 percent favorable.

When I was in her colloquium in the fall term, there was an opportunity for me to own up to who I was. My name is Moon, so there's always the question, "Are you related to Rev. Sun Myung Moon?" But sometimes I really didn't like that question. I just wanted to go incognito, to study, research, write papers, learn about different religions and ideas, and be free to explore and say or discuss things in the classroom without having to be a representative all the time of my faith or my parents.

I remember going through this intense struggle in my mind because whenever this thing was heaped on me – "You're the daughter of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon!" – all these questions would come my way. I would become the focal point of all these questions and discussions. Sometimes I felt like I couldn't learn, I couldn't navigate the intellectual field, asking the questions I wanted to ask, discussing the things I wanted to discuss, because everything was being heard and checked. They saw me as a living testament of my faith, whether or not I wanted it to be that way.

In the beginning when they asked, I said, "Maybe, maybe not." I kept the class guessing because I was trying to figure out how to deal with this. Colloquiums are usually four or five students. They pick the best students in a small seminar type of setting so that you have a lot of one-on-one discussions with the professor. Every time the Moon name came up, my response was, "Maybe, maybe not."

But in one class we were discussing the importance of marriage. The conversation got quite heated as we were throwing around the pros and cons of marriage: "Marriage is great because of this," a whole list; "Marriage is not good because of" dot, dot, dot. And the conversation was really heated and compelling. It was exciting. But I felt like one of the most important gifts God gives to all of humanity through our True Parents is the Blessing. It's our most valuable sacrament. I wanted to explain and share about the breaking news, and I knew that perhaps my environment would not be too conducive to my sharing, but nevertheless I did speak up. It took a tremendous amount of courage, every day telling myself, "Stop dissing courage. You should just come out and say it. You should just be blunt about who you are and tell the people the breaking news of our True Parents."

Even though the struggle up to that point was extremely intense, once I decided, "You know what, yes, my name is Moon. Yes, I want to be a quiet student doing my own thing, but I can't escape the fact that I was born to be a living testament of True Parents." Once I made up my mind to testify – to manifest that character of integrity by letting people know who I really am, by being committed to my community and my faith, by being willing to persevere through any additional persecution coming my way, and by deciding to have the courage to face my fears – I asked myself, "What's the worst thing that could happen to me? My professor could give me an F. But if my professor gives me an F, I could put up a really good fight as to why it should be an A, not an F."

Once I decided, "I am going to testify because I am a living witness of God, our Heavenly Parent, and our True Parents," it was almost as if the floodgates opened up. I felt supremely liberated. "I don't have to hide. I don't have to be undercover. I don't have to fight with myself, battle my mind, dissing courage every morning going to class. If people like it, great; if they don't, well, tough noogies. Hopefully they'll like it a little better a couple of years down the line when they think about what I would like to share with them." It was wonderfully liberating for me.

The more I became a confident person, the more people listened. Even the professor listened. I'd been reading all her work so I knew exactly where she stood. But because I was so confident in being the living testament of our True Parents, she was highly intrigued. So we ended up having more conversations and discussing things more deeply, more profoundly. As a result of my choice to testify, I left the school with a much more rewarding experience and a much more significant relationship with this teacher than I would have had if I had just kept to myself, being basically a quiet nobody in a sea of students.

The Power of Being Proud

I realized the power of being proud of who we are. Now there's no stopping me – and the same goes for my brothers. Lovey [Hyung Jin Moon], the spiritual heir of our movement, whenever he meets new people the first thing he does is to testify about True Parents. He knows that he's a living testament of these three incredible things called character, commitment, and courage.

Character is the quality of character in a person that is required in order to be the living testament of our True Parents. Commitment is required in order to have the strength to persevere, overcome, and finally complete the destinies our Heavenly Father and Mother set out for us when God thought about creating the blueprint for every one of us. Courage is what we need in order to look fear in the face and instead of dissing courage by hiding, buckling under, and taking the easy way out, to choose to be bold, righteous, and loving by offering the gift of our ability and willingness to testify about our True Parents. In this way, we are giving all of humanity an invitation not just to enjoy true love and true life but also to substantiate the true lineage of God and become a part of the one family under God.

The Bible says in I Peter 4:12, "Beloved, do not be amazed and bewildered by the fiery ordeal that will test what you're all about, as if it is something strange that has befallen you." Let's be proud that we are kind of strange. We are weirdly wonderful. We are unique. We are different. But we are proud eternal sons and daughters of God, each and every one of us. So, yes, there is going to be difficulty, there is going to be the fiery ordeal at one, or two, or three times in the course of our lives. But do not think of it as being strange that it is befalling us, says I Peter.

Knowing that at this time when we are here, we have been given the responsibility of being the living testament of our True Parents, we realize that we have been given a great blueprint. But just like in building a house, we may have the greatest blueprint available to humankind for the most beautiful house we could possibly imagine and we can visualize what the house is going to look like. Now we can do that in 3D graphics, so we can pretty much get a clear idea of how it's going to be by navigating through the computer.

But we know that in order to go from the blueprint to the final product of the house, there are going to be a lot of fiery ordeals that will test us, just like the fiery ordeals that will test us when we own up to the fact that it's our responsibility to testify at this time of the breaking news about the glories of our Heavenly Parent and about the need to graft onto one family under God through the Blessing that our True Parents give.

The fiery ordeals are just the process. The suffering and the difficulties that we've all shared, that we've gone through and that we will continue to go through are the fiery ordeals that will test us along the way. But the fiery ordeals are just a test; they are not the conclusion. It's not the end. It's not the completed picture of what we are supposed to be all about.

Raising a beautiful family is similar to constructing a house. We start from a blueprint, but then we raise the frame and there's a whole lot of hammering, plastering, and painting, and a whole lot of other work. But when we go through all that, we can see that it is a process we go through on our way to building a beautiful house – or a beautiful family. In this perspective we can see that the fiery ordeal is a test that will help us accomplish a life of truly loving life, of being a fulfilled man or woman of God.

Thinking Outside the Box

When I saw the big CARP fish mascot, it reminded me of my fishing days and of my realization from spending a lot of time with my Father that not only was my mother a fantastic cook, but also my father was a fantastic cook.

I love the section in one of the chapters of my father's autobiography where he talks about what a fine knitter he was. He knitted a cap that was so fashionable. He was very much a man, and he imagined himself as a fashion designer. Can you imagine Father as a fashion designer? He knitted his own cap, and he was so proud of the fashion statement he was making because it was unique, handcrafted, and lovingly made with his own hands.

One of the things my father taught me early on was that you can tell a lot about people just by watching the way they cook, just by watching how they prepare and what is finally put upon the table. And so, just as Ariana was decidedly different running around in a Batman suit, there were moments when my father really surprised me with his approach to food. One of those moments was when I was just beginning to be a novice cook. I was the only daughter who did not get seasick when my father went deep-sea fishing, so he asked me to cook in the kitchen all the time. Before my fishing days started at age 11, I really didn't know how to cook, but then I learned on the job.

One of the things my father opened my eyes to is the possibility of playing around with different ingredients, looking at them as puzzle pieces that I could play around with to create a whole new picture. He helped me understand that although many of us can cook only if we have a cookbook, the great and fantastic chefs, who have already cooked all the recipes in a lot of cookbooks on the market, practice the true artistry of cooking by not just copying somebody's recipe but by coming up with their own awesome recipe.

When I got ready to go fishing, the kitchen sisters would tell me, "Okay, In Jin Nim, you need to prepare miso soup. This is what you need to do." And they would write out exactly what I needed to do. But my father would treat each ingredient as something unique to be highlighted, not just stuffed into a dish but something to be appreciated.

One of my moments with Father on top of New Hope was when I had brought some sandwiches and rice balls for him to eat. But Mother had sent along a delicious chocolate bar from Switzerland that had been given by brothers and sisters. So I put the chocolate on its own really nice plate and took it up to my father, along with a plate of rice balls, and of course kochujang and some kimchee and dried seaweed.

Father looked at the plate. The chocolate was meant to be dessert, but he unwrapped the chocolate and started with that. I was watching him and said, "Daddy, that's dessert." He said, "Um, hmm." He continued to have more of the neat squares that the chocolate bar was marked with. He took the whole chocolate and dipped it in kochujang. I screamed out, "Father, what are you doing?" He said, "Um, hmm." He dipped the chocolate in the hot sauce and took a bite. I was thinking in my mind, "What are you doing putting chocolate in the hot sauce?!"

He took a bite, looked at the chocolate, dipped it again in the hot sauce, and then he took another bite. I said, "Father, You're not supposed to do that." And I remember him looking at me, smiling and saying, "Says who? It's delicious."

Fast forward 20 years and I have children of my own. I'm in my kitchen developing my divine cheesecake recipes. By then I have traveled around the world, tasted different cuisines, and I have experienced the South American delicacy called molé, for which they actually grind cooked pepper and mix it into the chocolate sauce. It's a fantastic concoction that's sweet when you first bite into it, but it leaves your throat burning. It's a divine experience, and once you have it, you've got to have more.

What I had thought was extremely weird somehow 20 years later became weirdly wonderful. Remembering my Father dipping his huge Lindt chocolate bar into hot sauce, I thought, "I want to create a chocolate cheesecake, but in honor of my father I'm going to create a molé-like cheesecake that tastes like chocolate but burns like pepper.

I remembered as I was playing around with these ingredients and creating my own recipe that Father was always challenging me to think outside the box, to think outside of what we are accustomed to. Now, as our church is moving from the wilderness mentality of just surviving into the time of settlement, we must think not only about how we are going to survive but about how we are going to prosper, thrive, and start loving life. We've got to have a lot of thinking outside the box. There have got to be little girls wanting to dress up like Batman every once in a while, or beautiful young ladies who are not afraid of their own femininity, not afraid to wear high heels and do it confidently and in a healthy way. There are going to be a lot of challenges to the rocks that we were accustomed to.

Our True Father is going to take all of us to Las Vegas for a tour of the slots tournament and change the mentality of Las Vegas from a town of sin to a town of giving. He plans to give and breathe new life to different charities and organizations that are already in play and inspire others to do the same. Father is empowering our members to enjoy leisure time with our families. We have the best ski resort in Korea, and when the Winter Olympics will be held in 2018, guess where they're going to have the ski tournament? In our ski resort.

Own the Game

We're talking about reclaiming leisure, reclaiming the fun that Satan took away, that the history of indemnification and restoration took away from humankind. We're talking about reclaiming our lives as something we should celebrate, something we should be wild about, something for which we should not hold ourselves back.

The big banner for the sports festival was "All In." This is not the time to be wondering, "Am I? Am I not? Do I? Do I not? Should I? Should I not?" This is the time of the breaking news when we should be all in, brothers and sisters.

As a living testament, be proud that we own our game. We have in our care the blueprint that God gave us, and the only thing we need to do is to be a living testament through the fiery ordeals that will test us along the way. If we can be true to who we are, true to our divine purpose and our responsibility to be a living testament, we are going to do much better than traveling at the speed of sound. We are going to be traveling at the speed of love, and that is instantaneous. It is more powerful than anything else, and it has the ability in the process to transform ourselves, our environment, and our world.

We can do that, brothers and sisters, if we can truly be sons and daughters who fully live together with God in our lives every day and fully dedicate everything that we're about to being his and her sons and daughters, to being inspired individuals who understand the importance of the time we are living in. This is an exciting time. Let's share with the rest of the world the breaking news that our True Parents come with the incredible gift of the Blessing as an invitation to join together in one family under God, going beyond our race, color, faith, and cultural background.

So brothers and sisters, let's congratulate the BCSF once again for an awesome week, showing and exercising great sportsmanship and great attitude throughout the whole festival. This is really a time when we should say to ourselves, "I am all in because I am proud to be a Unificationist." God bless, and have a wonderful Sunday.

Notes:

1 Peter, chapter 4

1: Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same thought, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin,

2: so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer by human passions but by the will of God.

3: Let the time that is past suffice for doing what the Gentiles like to do, living in licentiousness, passions, drunkenness, revels, carousing, and lawless idolatry.

4: They are surprised that you do not now join them in the same wild profligacy, and they abuse you;

5: but they will give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.

6: For this is why the gospel was preached even to the dead, that though judged in the flesh like men, they might live in the spirit like God.

7: The end of all things is at hand; therefore keep sane and sober for your prayers.

8: Above all hold unfailing your love for one another, since love covers a multitude of sins.

9: Practice hospitality ungrudgingly to one another.

10: As each has received a gift, employ it for one another, as good stewards of God's varied grace:

11: whoever speaks, as one who utters oracles of God; whoever renders service, as one who renders it by the strength which God supplies; in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.

12: Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal which comes upon you to prove you, as though something strange were happening to you.

13: But rejoice in so far as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.

14: If you are reproached for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.

15: But let none of you suffer as a murderer, or a thief, or a wrongdoer, or a mischief-maker;

16: yet if one suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but under that name let him glorify God.

17: For the time has come for judgment to begin with the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God?

18: And "If the righteous man is scarcely saved,
where will the impious and sinner appear?"

19: Therefore let those who suffer according to God's will do right and entrust their souls to a faithful Creator.