(Please forward this to anyone you know if the Fukuoka area.)
Dear IFA Family in the west of Japan...
This it to let you know of In Jin Nim's coming to Fukuoka.
The concert will be held at Munakata Yurics in Fukuoka, June 10th Sunday 5 to 7 pm.
We don't know about size of venue, or if there are any tickets remaining. Please check with your local churches.
If you can go, it's a wonderful chance!
IFA Committee
Hi everyone,
There are tickets still available for In Jin Nim's Youth Concert being held at Nihon Seinenkan (Setagaya) tomorrow evening from 5:00 to 7:00 pm. Price is 2,000 per seat.
If you are interested in attending this exciting event, please contact Rev. Takemura, directly to arrange tickets.
IFA Committee
Wow--why is this information about the concert in Setagaya just getting to us now?
This is not to accuse the IFA staff in any way --I know that you guys didn't know anything about this either. Is the arrival of the True children in Japan a private event only for a chosen few? Is it not that important so the general membership doesn't need to be informed and have the choice to attend or not? This is confusing.
What is the thinking here?
Hi! It's a great chance, isn't it!
Actually, if I have it right...the story goes...
When In Jin Nim's 2 children, Shin Go Nim (Rexton) and Shin Son Nim (Ariana) were around 8 or 9 years old, They participated in a competition organized by a Japanese lady named Mrs. Davis (spelling I don't know.) She is (was) the 4th wife of the King of Indonesia. Mrs. Davis had an organization in Japan which educates and raises aspiring artists and they gave awards to those they felt deserving. Rexton participated in the competition and was noted as worthy and received an award from her at age 8. So, they came to Japan to receive the award. While they were here, In Jin Nim met with 2nd gen and others and her children played a small piano concert for those who would like to attend.
Then, she encouraged the 2nd gen up and coming artists. She came back the next year and now it is an annual event. Now, Not only do her children preform, but 2nd gen from all over Japan practice very hard and she encourages them as they perform in front of her and others.
So, in the Moon World magazine (2nd gen church monthly magazine in Japanese), we can find the article about where and when she is coming, and encouraging 2nd gen. This year She will not only be at Tokyo but also at Fukuoka or somewhere close.
So, Local Churches all have tickets to this and have known about it for years...
I'm sorry until this year, we haven't made it available to IFA list (often it has been sold out).
If anyone can go, it is really a wonderful chance to see excellence in action!!
So, that's why she is in Japan...for these concerts. She had some time on Saturday morning so we could arrange a time with her as international families.
I'll see many of you soon
Take care,
Nancy Nishi
In Jin Moon - September 11, 2011
Hi everyone,
The event on Saturday is confirmed. There has been some miscommunication, but it is confirmed.
Thank you to all those who have pre-registered for our meeting with In Jin Nim on Saturday; we have well over 150 names now on our list, plus those who have registered through their local churches.
In preparation to welcome In Jin Nim, our precious elder sister and a True Child, I would like to ask that we all make special conditions of heart, service, and unity in these next few days. We want to create the best spiritual atmosphere possible to greet In Jin Nim and her family.
I will leave the specifics of these conditions in the hands of each family, and trust that together we can create an special atmosphere that will embrace and uplift us all.
Please remember to come early on Saturday to ensure you have a good place to sit in the main auditorium. Mothers with small children are requested to use the rooms prepared for you, and we hope that In Jin Nim will be able to greet you on her way in.
Sincerely,
IFA President
1. Good morning brothers and sisters. Happy Sunday morning. Once again, happy birthday to Joe Young.
2. It also happens to be the birthday of the new grandchild in the true family. My younger brother Kook Jin and his wife welcomed a lovely boy; his name is Shin Joo, in Korea on June 30 at 5:15 AM in the morning. So congratulations. We are pushing almost 50 when it comes to the grandkids of the True Parents! So, he is a lovely and welcome addition to our community and our family.
3. And it just so happens that it's also the birthday of our musical director here, Joe Young. So we'll have a great deal of fun making fun of him all day long.
4. But it's really a wonderful Sunday to celebrate the completion of the District Pastors that have really given their hearts and their testimonies, sharing the pulpit together with me. I think it gives our country and our community a great taste of what the first generation was like and what it felt like or what the experience was of going through the conversion experience of discovering God and True Parents in our community. And having lived their life thus far, and I thought, how wonderful would it be if the whole country got to know these people, not just in name but also in terms of a face and in terms of their story, their testimony. And a chance for all of you to kind of get to know the people that I have had to work with for the last three years and counting.
5. I really want to thank the American movement for supporting them and really loving them because you know a lot of them were quite nervous about coming to New York. And they weren't really sure what the reception would be like. But you, the members, brothers and sisters were all so kind and supportive in your attendance to their testimonies. It gave them a great deal of strength.
6. Having gone through the Manhattan Center stage and the experience of the Lovin' Life pulpit, they can kind of experience a little more of what the production team goes through in preparation for service to really share with the country and the world now, the beauty of our community. And so I want to give the District pastors a round the applause.
7. The unsung heroes that really make loving life what it is, all the people you do not see onstage but are here many times awake all hours of the morning and through the night in preparation for all of you and for all different ministries in different districts. I would also like to give them a round of applause.
8. And then, for me, this kind of an experience of sharing together, with the District pastors sharing together, was an incredibly fulfilling experience. Because, you know, when I started Lovin' Life -- when you start something new, whenever you introduce a new concept or a new vision, it's usually met with a wall of defiance. "What is this crazy woman going to do now?" But the incredible thing is regardless of what people might have said about the ministry, you know, "she is building another mega-church, another cult of personality. She is promoting herself and only herself", and so on and so forth.
9. And many people said: "you know she is building the kind of pulpit that if something were to happen to her, you know, God forbid, and heaven calls her early and if something were to happen to her everything will fall apart". But during this time while the District pastors each took their turn you know, the American movement did not fall apart. In fact I thought the American movement grow a little bit more in this year. The motto happens to be the ownership, brothers and sisters, men and women of God, of infinite value, of divine value, truly owning the game, truly owning our lives, becoming responsible, becoming that adult. Not the dependent child that just knows how to follow, but really taking up the mantle, taking on the platform that, you know what, each and every one of us was is meant to be a leader.
10. We've been great followers, but you know, we have a senior pastor that's starting something new, that may seem to be, seemingly might be, might sound crazy. You know, holding Sunday Service, Sunday worship in a movie theater, of all things, God forbid.
11. But the incredible thing is, you know, the ministry is a kind of a medium through which we can reach people. And, during that time when each district pastor took the pulpit, we really proved to all the nay-sayers that this is something, this is a system in place. It's a medium, it's a powerful tool. It's a medium that has been implement and created. It's not dependent on a personality; it's not dependent on a person, but it's a way through which we can communicate with each other, with our community.
12. And it's something that's going to go on whether the senior pastor is here or not, whether the second generation gives way to the third generation, whether the third generation gives way to the fourth generation; is it is the system that is in place, that can work. And so, for me, as a senior pastor of Lovin' Life, it's an incredible feeling that we've accomplished something together as a movement.
13. In the short three years that we've worked together, and I really believe that, in this year of the Dragon, this is the time of the mythological creature that augers in great fortune. When we can expect great things to happen, things that we could not really envision could be taking place.
14. In terms of our real life, you know, we can always believe, we can always kind of have a vision of what could be, not what is. This is the year when we can start to see what is and so it's really not just about, you know, our ministry doing well; it's not just about inviting different people to hear the breaking news, but this is really the time when we ourselves need to become whole. We need to kind of wean away from a kind of dependency. You know, religion is not supposed to be an addiction; it's supposed to be a medium through which we can help people become more become healthy, become vibrant and empowered men and women of God. Through which we can gain the kind of life in which we are really loving life. That's what it's all about.
15. When I thought about the great news of a new addition to the True Family, a new grandchild -- and a big one at that: 3.5 kg, almost 8 pounds! Huge! It's like a huge bomb placed in my younger brother's family. But I was thinking; I was remembering the day that I had my last child, Paxton. And I remember the first thing I did after giving birth was call my father. And I telephoned my father and I said, you know I just gave birth to a son. And father said, do you have a name for him? And I said, no; I was kind of hoping that you could name him. Without missing a heartbeat, he said okay, Shin Hyung.
16. He was ready. But as the parents he wanted to make sure that he wasn't owning or seizing that moment. He wanted to make sure that he wanted to ask me did you or have you thinking about anime and of course with the daughter's heart you want your parents' involvement you want your parents to participate of this wonderful time. And I thought it was really cute when he said okay here it is and he gave the name Shin Pyung, which means faith and peace, so we always call him a peaceful one in the family. And he's really a kind of like a peacemaker and in a family of three other brothers and one sister there are lots of dynamics going on but Paxton is always consistently the peaceful one and he just quietly goes about his business.
Ariana Moon – December 11, 2011
17. And I was thinking, oh my goodness, it just seems like yesterday that he fell into our laps and now he's 15 years old and he just took the SATs last Saturday. And so you realize that time goes so quickly. I remember that, after talking to my parents, I called my kids. And I talked to Preston, I talked to Paxton, and I talked to Ariana. And Ariana had already heard that she has another brother. So she refused to come to the phone because she had made me promise that I was going to give her a sister.
18. So she was terribly upset and, you know, news travels fast in our community so even before I had a chance to inform her, she heard. At the minute I called my parents it's all over; everybody knows. So she already heard and she refused to come to the phone. So then I asked her nanny, you know you don't have to bring her to the phone, but could you bring her to the hospital. Thank goodness for this wonderful nanny she was successful to bring the girl to the hospital but I heard she had quite a bit of a struggle.
19. And when she got to the hospital, she refused to get into the elevator, so her daddy had to go get her and bring her to the maternity floor. And when she got to the maternity floor she refused to walk down the aisle to come to the room where I was, because she was not going to welcome another brother. She wanted a sister.
20. She was just six years old at that time. He said, please come, you have a beautiful brother. And she was just so adamant, in the typical Moon family tradition, very stubborn. So the nurses and the nanny literally had to drag her down the hallway.
21. And then she flung the door open and there she stood, this six-year-old girl. I said, Ariana, please come in and say hello to your brother." I don't want a brother". I said, "You know, I can't very well send him back to where he came from. So can you help mommy a little bit, can you help me welcome him to the family?" She said no. Then I said, "Ariana look, he's got puffy hair!"
22. When she was little she was made fun of quite a bit because she was going to the nursery in Korea, but she had the yellow hair. She had blonde hair and so people called her yellow hair and she was kind of pale skinned so everyone thought this is kind of strange, you know, an oriental girl with blond hair and pale skin.
23. And so I said "this one has puffy hair like you", so she slowly approached the bed. She just wanted to see. I said "But this one, unlike you, has really black hair. You know you have blond hair, but this one has really black hair. Do you want to come and touch him?" She came closer, and after some time, she came to touch his hair. Then I said, "Do you want to hold him?" And she said, "No". I said "Okay. Do you want to just touch his toes, see his hand?" " No." But I kind of put Paxton's hand on her hand and then, once they made contact, then it was a matter of a minute before she said "so what is his name?" And I said "well, your grandfather gave him the name Shin Hyung so I'm going to call him Paxton." Paxton in Latin means peace. And so she said "Okay. Paxton. So you can't send him back and ask for a refund and ask for a sister?" I said " no, he is here to stay and I really think it would mean a lot to him if you just gave him a hug". So that's how it started.
24. But now Ariana has graduated from college and is leading the ballroom ministry, really being a vibrant part of our community. And she is watching Paxton becoming 15 years old. It really makes me realize, "wow, life goes by so fast". And you know, it makes me ask myself "what do I want to leave behind, when I go, what do I want to leave behind for my descendants?"
25. And I thought it was quite interesting that, in a way, our True Father in all his wisdom, really gave us the answer. And, for those of us who read the autobiography, Father talks about how when we ask ourselves what do we want to leave to our descendants, there are two things that he says we need to leave behind. In his autobiography, he says: number one is tradition; it's the custom or beliefs that are handed down from one generation to another from our parents to us as children. And the second thing he said, is education.
26. And I thought it was kind of interesting how, in a way, True Father very much wants to leave tradition and education for the sake of his descendants. And he says education is incredibly important because education is really something through which we can gain wisdom for living.
27. You know, this is the way we gain experience. We need to be constantly growing; we need to be constantly learning, we need to be constantly open to opportunity so that we work together with life, we work together with our families in an integrated fashion, so that we're not just in a box or not just strong bones of tradition, not just handing things down to generations after generations. It becomes more of a reciprocal relationship; it becomes a system of give and take.
28. There is a strong foundation and roots of tradition that is handed down to us, but instead of it having to be something that is forced into us, in a way, Father emphasizes the importance of education in which, the ones that are handing down are also in the position of learning together with the ones that we're sharing with. So, in other words, the teacher also becomes the student and the student also becomes the teacher. And so, Father envisions a very dynamic relationship in the course of this journey called life.
29. And for me, I thought it was quite funny how all throughout my life, you know when I was growing up, the pejorative term of "Moonie" was quite rampant and widespread – in the 70s and 80s. And they used to call us the brainwashed zombies. And I thought it was so funny that the cult they said was full of brainwashed zombies – meaning totally force-fed, totally indoctrinated in the same kind of message, in which you never grow, you're literally petrified in the zombie like state – that in the church that seems as a bunch of zombies is actually a church and a movement that emphasizes the importance or the primacy of education.
30. Who, in their lifetime, has created and supported and empowered more schools? You know, ever since the beginning, Father has given incredible amounts of investment and donation to creating schools all around the world. We have the very famous Little Angels cultural arts school in Korea. We have the University of Bridgeport. Father just gave us permission for the Barrytown College which will be a four year program at UTS. And the numerous nursery schools, primary schools, middle schools and high schools and colleges and PhD programs and so on and so forth. In Korea we have the Sun Moon University. What kind of a leader has given this much investment to these schools?
Sun Myung Moon and Hak Ja Han circa 1971
31. So, in one sense, this is a man and this is a woman, our True Parents, who really encourage the divine human being – men and women – to be our best. They want us to continue to learn, to continually be that child, that incredibly excited child, that learns through every level of life. One of the things that we can always take as a constant is that the things that come with the passing of time always change. But certain things must remain the same. So they emphasize the importance of having that incredibly firm roots or traditions.
32. But, in terms of growing together, we must learn how to change our perspective, our opinions, because sometimes our loved ones, our parents, our spouse can be the most painful, but the most rewarding, lessons in life. And that's why Father talks about the family really being kind the place where a great deal of work needs to be done in order for all of us to become great human beings.
33. So when our True Parents and the great leaders of our movement have always told us that the goal of our lives is to create ideal families, I always joked to my friends. I said "gosh, our True Parents have given us lots of homework." Creating ideal families means I would have to deal with lots of different things that life puts in my path in order for me to achieve building this great house or this thing called an ideal family.
34. So when the Bible says, in Hosea, Chapter 2:15, "make the valley of Achor a door to hope", the way I understand it is, the way our True Father wrote in his autobiography, when he spoke about the importance of leaving tradition and education behind. He goes on further to say, when a new knowledge, for instance, can be well integrated in the course of our lives, it gives birth to an original culture. This is what True Father said in his autobiography. In a way, when the tradition and, through the process of education, a new knowledge, for instance, like the tradition of Christianity. Based on the tradition of Christianity, our True Parents bring the completed message. They bring the breaking news, they bring the news of the Blessing of the True Parents, of the need for humanity to become one family of God. In a way, that new knowledge can be seen as the Divine Principle, as the gift of the Divine Principle that our True Parents bestows upon the world.
35. So, when the tradition of all the religions, all the cultures, all religious traditions can really be integrated with this new knowledge or the new message or the breaking news or the divine principle that our True Parents are bringing, it gives birth to an original culture. And, I think the word 'culture' is incredibly important here because what we're trying to do here in Lovin' Life, in terms of re-branding our movement in terms of re-branding ourselves, is to create an inviting and healthy and empowering culture for our families to live in so that we can continue to educate ourselves, continue to grow together and become the kind of family that we would like to build – an ideal family, one family under God.
36. In a way, we have lot of work in front of us. But if we can do this together – understanding where we come from, but also realizing that the past needs to be transitioned through the present to the future in order to guarantee a world of peace for our future descendants and our children – then we realize that we have a great deal of work that needs to be done.
37. In creating a culture where we can truly love life, as that eternal and divine sons and daughters of God, really live out the original intention that our Heavenly Parents, our God up in Heaven had when He and She created all of us – you know, they created children because they wanted to experience a parental heart, they wanted to experience joy and they wanted to experience the kind of love that a parent has for a child when you see that child grow up – what does that original culture look like?
38. Well, to me, as a mother, if we think of ourselves in terms of a parental heart- people who have children, who want the best for our children, really want them to be happy and to do well in life – the parental heart of truly wanting to uplift not condemn, truly wanting to empower, not emphasizing the feelings of worthlessness or where we fall short, and really being able to be happy for the sake of our child – instead of feeling like " well, I certainly didn't have what you have now; You know, the first-generation was a life of sacrifice, was a life of suffering. How can I be happy for you?"
39. But a true parental heart is a heart that, regardless of what we went through in our lives, whether it was suffering, whether it was denial, whether it was incredible amounts of pain, regardless of the kind of a place that we've gone through or come from, a parental heart is always one in which we want our child to have better; we want our child to be happy and not feel the same kind of pain that we felt and therefore they should feel. A true parental heart is: you want that child to be better, you want your child to be happy, happier than we ever were.
40. And so, this kind of a parental heart, I think, is something that is incredibly necessary in terms of moving our movement forward. You know I often think talk about our movement having gone through the wilderness years, that the 40 and 50 years in the past. And I was just talking to a group of Japanese sisters yesterday and they were sharing with me how incredible a responsibility Japan had to bear. For many decades they kept up the responsibility of being financially responsible for our worldwide movement. So, a lot of things, a lot of pain, a lot of suffering has taken place in Japan. In really 'living for the sake of others', they understood that to mean 'dying for sake of others'. Many families were sacrificed for the sake of Providence and many parents sacrificed their children for the sake of Providence – in that they were never really there.
41. But, at this time, we're stressing the importance of loving life. Last week Rev. Francis talked about how in the beginning it was all so confusing because it felt like Lovin' Life was a party ministry. You know, we have galas, we have dancing, we have concerts, we have get-togethers. And I think, for a lot of the first-generation, hard-line, hard-core brothers and sisters, who have this kind of mentality, 'we are in the trenches, we're fighting this war, we are in this mission, we must be miserable. We have to feel the pain, you've got to feel it to our bones in order to realize we are really living for God. In a weird way, we're living a sacrificial life, but here comes in this crazy woman and this ministry that wants to celebrate life. You know, here we were in the trenches, living a celibate existence, a life of denial and here comes this crazy woman saying 'you know, we forgot that the word 'celibate' is actually 'celebrate'; we need to love life, we need to let our children know it's okay to be happy, it's okay to not feel the pain every day. And perhaps, because daddy and mommy felt the pain of digging the trenches, digging that strong and invincible foundation, you don't have to do it again.
42. You know, it's like each generation, just because we dug the trenches, we dug the foundation – through rat infested holes and through all the guck and quagmire – that we would expect the same of our child. If our children dug the same foundation again and then, our grandchild dug the same foundation again, we are never going to get there, in terms of building an ideal family – in that we become repetitive foundation- building ministry and we don't fulfill or complete the task at hand – by saying, "Whoops! Jesus Christ dying on the cross was not the completed picture. It's our True Parents, its Jesus together with his bride who were supposed to be the True Parents, that we have now."
43. So now is the time to build the house on the invincible and strong foundation that we've sacrificed, that we slaved over, that we painstakingly prepared for the future generation. So that we can continue to educate each other, learn from each other, grow together, and instead of saying "feel my pain in your life child." We say, "you know what you guys need to stand on our shoulders, build on top of what we've already built, run with it, go as far as you can go. Many of us have given up our education to serve and sacrifice for the Providence, but you, child, you take the foundation that is laid for you gratefully, with a grateful attitude, and standing on our shoulders, being that excellent internal and external child of God, run as far as you can go, jump as high as you can go, and touch the moon. Because, we've already introduced the Moon in your life."
44. So, brothers and sisters, as we transition from the wilderness mentality, or the trench warfare mentality, to this new life where God is really wanting all of his children, all of her children, to celebrate life, to really love life. This is the time when a lot of old skins are going to be shed. For those of us who feel very very comfortable in our own skin, it's going to feel a little bit uncomfortable. Because, it's going to be like an old grandma or grandpa in the sweltering heat of summer – and a grandchild comes up to the grandpa saying, "grandpa, it's time to take off your cardigan and feel the warmth of the sun on your back. It's okay, take off the cardigan." It's really the love and gesture of a young child wanting to participate and experience life together, the warmth of the sun, that allows the older generation to kind of turn around and say, "this is the cardigan I've had on all four seasons, all throughout my life. You're asking me to take it off? Well, I will do it for you. I will take off my cardigan for you and I will run with you and I will jump with you. Maybe not as high and not as fast but I want to do these things because I love you and I want to bring you joy, just as you have brought me joy." This is the kind of culture of heart that we need to develop.
45. Many times in the past, in the name of tradition we had lots of old habits. Habits are not the same as tradition. Habits are things that we kind of pickup along the way that have helped us through life and it's become a part of our lives. Habits and traditions are very different things. The older generation, or the moms and dads in the audience, have to be able to distinguish between the two.
46. As the senior pastor, I get a lot of SOS e-mails always asking me, "What is the best way to deal with my child? What is the best way to create a culture of heart in a family, so that the father and the child and the mother and the child can have a healthy relationship?" And I always remind the parents, it's our desire that we discover something new. You know, many of us kind of trampled upon it, trampled on the breaking news of our True Parents. Many of us were invited in, many of us were coaxed in, but because we understand the message of the breaking news to be so profound, so significant in our lives, we want so much to give that to our child.
47. I remember when I was little. Here we have True Parents for the first time, and here come a bunch of kids we call the True Children that make up the True Family, but you know, nobody had a manual. We did not come with a manual from God that told our parents or our caretakers, this is how you take care of this specimen called the True Child. Most of things that we buy in stores or any new development in electronics always comes with a manual – how you turn the power on, how you activate it, how you operate it, and how you use it efficiently to accommodate or to accomplish the goal that you need to accomplish, or that I need to accomplish. But we were not born with a manual. And most children are not born with a manual on how to raise perfect or good children.
48. And so the first generation did their best. And the first generation, out of their desire and enthusiasm for the new message, did what they really thought was the best thing. And, for me, that translated into – the minute I could start walking and talking and the minute I could start sitting, that Divine Principle lecture series started very early on. I don't remember a time when I was not sitting at a workshop. And I do not remember a time when I was not being taught the lectures, that really is college-level material.
49. You know, Divine Principle, the black book is college-level material stuff. But here I was being taught this when I was four, five, six, and all through my teenage years. So, you grow up hearing what seems to be mumbling. Because, you don't really understand it. You don't understand subject-object, 4 position foundation, foundation of faith, foundation of substance – what the heck does foundation mean when you're four years old? So, you know, sexual organ, the Fall of Man, Chapter 2 – Chapter 2 is the most important chapter. And so you're thinking, "what the heck is the Fall of Man?" So, it really becomes like a rote mumbling.
50. Some of my friends are really into the latest craze today, audio books. I know a lot of you love it, but I have something to tell you. Because I was raised on these lecture series – I remember when I was going through my teenage years and I discovered rock 'n roll and I discovered pop music – and any chance I had we were creating transistor radios – we made our own radios because many times we were not allowed to listen to these things. But, what we were allowed to listen to were Divine Principle lecture series in the car. And so, when we went for long drives, "Chapter 1, Principle of Creation." And it was never a beautiful woman's voice, it was always a patriarchal male voice, "Chapter 1, Principle of Creation, Chapter 2 – the Fall of Man."
51. We grew up listening to this, so we learned very early on how to sleep through these things. And so the minute it went on in the car we would fall asleep. So, fast forward 40 some years, and my friends, sometimes when we go on little trips they love to listen to audio tapes. And they find it amusing, the minute they start, "Chapter 1," I just cannot stay awake. The only thing I remember is "Chapter 2, Chapter 3, -- did we get to chapter 5?" But all the other stuff was like rambling and mumbling to me, because that's how I was raised.
52. So you realize that when you try to feed a child something when they are not ready, when they don't really have the capacity, or they don't have the mental capacity or the physical capacity – I think all of us who are parents we know that, regardless how well-meaning we are, if we tried to force feed or introduced a new fruit to a child before their body is ready – guess what? They develop allergies. Because we love them, because we love this cantaloupe, we really want to share this cantaloupe with our child. But we give that cantaloupe a little too early, before the stomach has a chance to mature, what it does is it actually repels it. It creates an allergic reaction in their bodies and the child can never experience the beauty or the deliciousness or the succulence of biting into a cantaloupe.
Cantaloupe (Musk Mellon)
53. And that's what it's like many times. We, out of our love for our children, want to share the best cantaloupe, we want to share the best news with our children, not realizing that we've conditioned them to fall asleep on Chapter 1 and to develop an allergic reaction to something that is so precious. I like to use the analogy, it's almost like throwing a bunch of diamonds to a pig sty and expecting the pigs to realize that this is a very very valuable thing, it's not just some sparkling things in the pigs sty, but its worth something.
54. In a way, when a child is not ready physically, emotionally, and mentally, then we realize that the parents actually help in creating an allergic reaction to something that we want to share. So, I think a lot of first-generation, a lot of parents are confused when – here we are wanting to share the breaking news with our family and the only thing that our children are going through and manifesting are allergic reactions to church, or allergic reactions to this new message. And whenever the parents are confronted with this kind of situation I always try to calm them down saying, "that's okay, you know every child is a handiwork of God. Every child is a gift from God. Every child has infinite and divine value. They do not come with a manual, and we all tried to be the best parents we can, but many times we fall short. And that's okay as long as we are willing to learn and educate ourselves through this journey called life, grow together and really gain the kind of wisdom for living that we will have at the end of our lives."
55. So, instead of getting panicky, and instead of thinking, "Oh my goodness, I want pure children, I want great children. But, here is my child going through an allergic reaction phase or a rebellion phase." I always like to remind the parents, before we were born into the world, before we came into being as that person that we know ourselves to be, you know our mother had to go through a period of contractions, and incredible pain and suffering. We have no idea that we are doing this to our mother. We just come into the world very happy to greet the first breath of air. And we're, "wow! This feels good." But we don't turn around and look at our mother and realized that she looks totally wasted, because she has gone through a life and death struggle. Because, that is what it takes to bring a new life into this world. And, in essence, that's what it takes for parents to help bring a child into a new level of consciousness and understanding who they are as Gods eternal sons and daughters. It's not a natural process. It's a very painful process.
56. And so, like giving birth in order to exist as me and you, in order for us to develop an identity of ourselves as something being independent of our parents, and yet very much a part of our parents – just like the way, when a child is born – we are born of our mothers, but the minute we come into being we are no longer attached to our umbilical cord. We breathed on our own, we learned to walk on our own, we learned to do things on our own. In a way, if the umbilical cord has never been cut, and there are a lot of families that I see in our community where the umbilical cord has never been cut, then the child never learns to read on their own, never learns to walk on their own, never gains a sense that they are their own person. Yes, we come from our parents, but we all need to be our own independent person. In a way, every child of God needs to own our own game, meaning we have to be the owners of our own life, to feel totally healthy, empowered, and worthy.
57. And so, when the old habits are being asked to be washed away in rain, because now we have our True Parents, the living waters of our time. And it is kind of interesting how they chose their primary residence in Las Vegas, the time of the desert, the town where it's just dying, it's thirsting for the living water. In a way, our True Parents put themselves down smack in the middle of sin city saying, "You know what, we've got to clean this town, we've got to bring leisure, good leisure, back into the lives of healthy families. We need to encourage everybody to have a great time. Spend time with your family, go out for dinner, go out and see the shows together." That's what our True Parents are encouraging us to do and I think a lot of our old generation are thinking, "have our True Parents gone senile? They want to celebrate life, what's the matter with them? We are supposed to live a life of celibacy or denial. We are supposed to be miserable. How can the Messiah be enjoying life?"
58. The Messiah is here to show us how to enjoy life because that was the original intention of God our Heavenly Parent. Every parent who has had a child wants our children to be healthy, vibrant, empowered individuals, and we want them to be happy above all else.
59. So, the living water comes to give us strength, to help us take root in our tradition. But they come to wash away a lot of old habits that are not healthy, towards a life of loving life. A lot of negative thinking that is not healthy, in order to create a loving and inviting and healthy family, a lot of judgmental attitudes that we have – you know, "you are a second gen, you are Jacob, you are first gen, you are a new member, you are whatever." How about concentrating on the fact that we are God's sons and daughters. And, how about concentrating on the fact that we are all divine infinite valuable human beings. And how about concentrating on the fact of not being so judgmental that we cannot progress into the next level and the levels thereafter. Despite what we go through in terms of the birthing pains or the growing pains – and my goodness our community and our families have gone through so much pain growing together – so much pain of parents realizing, no matter how well-meaning we are, our children are going to sometimes trip and fall, they are going to nick their knees, they're going to have to be taken to the emergency room every now and then.
60. You know, there might be a crisis point in every child's life, but instead of thinking, "Why is my child such a basket case?" many times God gives us a chance to experience a time of Cris–is. Because, this is the time when God is asking us to become seasoned sailors. You know, calm seas do not create seasoned sailors. It's the stormy weather, it's the backbreaking work on the seas as a sailor that gives a person, a man and a woman, a position called a seasoned sailor.
61. In a way, life, and different times of crisis in our life when we feel we are losing our children, our children are rebelling, our children are having an allergic reaction to our faith, "Oh my goodness! SOS Heavenly Father!" These are the times when God is asking all of us to be like what Christ is. Crisis, a time of crisis is when we should be asking ourselves, "What is Cris-is? You know, Christ – is what, at this time of cris-is?" How should we be like Christ? How should we be like our True Parents? How should we engender a culture of heart in this extraordinarily difficult and painful time?
62. In a way, the time of "Christ-is" (crisis) confronts us, helps us confront our own demons and pushes us to be more Christ like and more True Parents like, in developing that parental heart of uplifting, not condemning, of empowering – not belittling, and wanting the best for others, sincerely being happy for our children for what we have not gone through in our lives or what we don't enjoy in our lives.
63. And so, I don't know if you've heard the wonderful news that's been going around on Facebook. My dear elder son just got matched to a beautiful daughter of God Lym-Hwa It's kind of interesting because when I first met her I didn't realize that she was the daughter of my first?-teacher. Right before coming to America one of the first missionaries to Korea, this sister named Lynn Kim came to, quote-unquote, prepare the True Children for America. She taught us the simple things like "hello, thank you." And she taught us how to use a fork and knife because we had only been using spoon and chopsticks. I remember her being such a wonderful lady. She was very soft-spoken, very kind, and she remembers one of the first things that we asked her to do was to be our patient because I wanted to be her doctor. So she said that one of the first things that she did to help invite the child into the classroom was to allow me to use a stethoscope on her to take her heartbeat.
64. I realized that, in a way, life kind of comes in circles. God brings different people in your life for a different purpose. Nothing in life is coincidence. Nothing in life is serendipitous, but everything has meaning. There is the hand of God mysteriously working behind everything that happens. And so, just the way this child came into our community and just the fact that my son and now Lym-Hwa can be beautifully on their way to the Blessing – nothing makes us more happy.
65. I can remember talking to Lynn, telling her after I had spoken to my parents – Parents gave their grace and their blessing. Lynn said to me, "you know, the first generation, we went through so much, but what we want for our children is for them to be happy, it's for them to really want to take ownership of their lives, ownership of the blessing, and really be happy." And I said, "what, you're not one of these mothers that basically say, "we suffered, so you're going to suffer. We went through the picture matching and it was just awful so you're going to go through the same thing?" And Lynn said, "No, no, no that was just first generation." She still talked "indemnity and restoration." And I said, "Maybe we can introduce new words to the vocabulary like celebration and happiness and loving life." And she said, "Yes, yes that would be so lovely." And I said, "Lynn, show a little excitement here, it's okay!"
66. This is my memory of beautiful first generation brothers and sisters, totally having given up everything for the sake of the Providence, but still so beautiful, so calm, so poised, not negative, not complaining, not bitter, but still finding meaning in how God works through all of our lives, to realize, "you know what, we go through a lot of difficult things in our lives, but God never leaves us." If anybody left anybody, it's we having left God – for thinking that God was not there. But if we travel on a little longer we realize that life is a series of cycles and what we thought was just a burden of mystery, we realize that God had something right around the corner. As long as we kept on believing, as long as we kept on rooted in something as wonderful as our tradition.
67. As I go forward in building the kind of community that I would like for my kids, and I think what we all want for our kids, and I think in a way that three years that we've spent together in this ministry, we realize that our kids are incredibly precious. They have all that it takes for them to be great. You know, last Sunday you saw a clip of a valedictorian speech, but that was just one out of many second generation and first-generation really making waves in their lives. I just heard from Sammy Fleischer that she graduated the top of her class and gave a beautiful speech to her graduating class on the different people that have inspired her.
68. And so we realize that our kids, it's not that they were lacking in any way, they just needed to be reminded how incredible they are and how precious they are and how everything has been, in a way the work of foundation, that's why it looks so dark and gloomy and it looks so wet and damp. Building that basement foundation was awful hard work, but that was not what Heavenly Father envisioned for our future. Heavenly Father wants to see some really beautiful buildings go up, houses go up, skyscrapers go up. And we realize that once we remind our child, that once a blessed child – always a blessed child, once a divine son and a daughter of God – always a divine son and daughter of God. And despite all the nocks and nicks of life, you know what, we need to keep on going. We need to keep on being on track, we need to keep on the path that is going to ultimately lead us to a position where we owned the game.
69. As we swim through the past of old habits and let it lie, washed away in the rain, this is the time to also really think what our mission is. Mission, during the time of the wilderness, was survival, but our mission now is to not just survive, but it is to prosper, it is to substantiate, it is to make real, it is to feel love, not just teach about love, not just talk about love, but we need to experience love by rubbing up against each other.
70. But we also need to take the time out to think that our life is a little bit more than just going to Cheong Pyung for 40 days. Going to Cheong Pyung for 40 days is a luxury. Spending time with your family in the quagmire of difficulty and suffering, when your child is going through an allergic reaction or when our child is going through a rebellious phase, that's work! That's dealing with creating an ideal family. Running off for 40 days and not having to deal with our family is a luxury. And sometimes we need to do that. But instead of keeping ourselves somehow grounded by always seeking an escape route we need to, kind of, get ourselves in the groove, in the groove of being a family, which goes from one extreme of extreme exultation to experiencing utter devastation. Life encompasses it all. And that's what make us greater, richer, and deeper as human beings, and allows each of us at the end of our lives to have a certificate of wisdom of living, having gone through the education of life that many times is thrust upon us, whether we like it or not.
71. So, instead of concentrating on all the things that need to be done, that are way in the future, many times we are thinking of liberating our ancestors and we throw lots of money and investment of donations in liberating our ancestors while we forget our responsibility of liberating each other and liberating our children.
72. So, they need to go hand-in-hand. As much as we want to liberate our ancestors we must not be irresponsible in not realizing that in order to liberate our children, to really fully allow them to exercise all their God given talents they need our investment, they need the financial resources. We need to invest in our children, that is the way we invest in the future of the world. It is not being selfish. It is being responsible. It is actually owning our game. In a way it's not asking God to take care of our families, it's we as adults saying, "You know what, I'm going to be financially responsible. I'm going to be spiritually responsible. I'm going to take care of my family, I am going to build an ideal family by dealing with each and every day, no matter how difficult it is, all the things that need to be dealt with in order for us to grow together and educate ourselves in becoming that wise son and daughter of God."
73. So, think about where we come from. Think about our tradition. Think about liberating our ancestors, but do not neglect the present and the future by realizing that just as important as it is to liberate our dead ancestors, it is just as important to liberate our families, liberate our children, help them to become excellent internal and excellent external son and daughter of God. In that way, this is how we build a beautiful house, this is how we build a beautiful society, this is how we build a beautiful world that ultimately we can call one family under God.
74. So brothers and sisters, we are incredibly blessed to be living at this time with our True Parents. They are the living waters and through them, and looking at them and admiring them and learning from them, we can really educate ourselves to be True Parents ourselves and thereby become the tribal leaders that really can bring forth a new revolution of heart in each of our tribes, in each of our districts, in each of our communities.
75. So, Lovin' Life Ministry is a medium through which all of us can take delight in the active work of faith. And I use the word active with emphasis, because this is no longer just follow, just an inactive form of worship. God is asking us to participate. God is asking us to take ownership – be that legitimate and vibrant and a divine son and a daughter of God. We need to do more than be inactively following. We need to be our own leaders, we need to take charge of our own horns of destiny and make a difference. Because what you can contribute to the Ministry and to our community will be so different from what I can do. But if we put all of our strengths together – God have mercy!
76. I know that if one crazy woman can do what we have done together as a family, I know there are lots of you out there who are a little more crazy than me. And I'm always so inspired by so many outside of the box ideas that I get along my way, but that's what I love. I love weird people! I love people who are different, people who are willing to stick out their necks and say, "hey! We are different, we are strange, but hey, that's us."
77. I don't like following fashion. I don't like following what's already been done. I look to start what hasn't been done. And that's the weird thing about weird people, and in our movement we have so many. Every one of us is so wonderfully weird. So why not stress a little bit of that wonderful weirdness to the world and help create a dynamic and vibrant community that our children can thrive in and really engender and bring forth and invite the culture of heart where we can really be happy for one another.
78. A couple weeks ago I met a friend of mine. He grew up with this dear old friend. So many things are happening for my friend now, in terms of career and marriage and family. And the other friend that grew up together is going through kind of the doldrums of his life. And they are the best of friends, they've been through everything together. But it's so difficult for that friend to be happy for his friend, for his newfound life, that this friend has. And you realize that one of the most difficult things in life is really to be genuinely happy for another person when you are feeling quite miserable. But this is what I mean by the culture of heart. The parental heart is such that no matter how miserable we are, we always want the best, we always want our child to be happy and inspired and uplifted and great. And that's what a culture of heart is all about.
79. So brothers and sisters this is the culture of heart that God wants for all of us, that our True Parents want for all of us, that I certainly want for my child and I would think that you would want the same for all of your children. So, if we continue to work together in this incredible year of the Dragon there is nothing that we cannot accomplish.
80. So next week I will be going to Japan for the next youth concert and I will be taking the band with me. But please continue to worship together as a family. So, whether I am here or not, we are always working together to build this one family under God.
81. So, be the kind of a person that owns the game and knows that our movement is the most incredibly successful movement thus far in the history of religion in the time of the founder's life. So think about what can be accomplished if we continue on this track of building excellent children, excellent future, there is no limit to what we can do. So we've all been hit by the Moon, so let us continue to enjoy being in this embrace of the glorious moonlight together with our True Parents and let's show the world that we can reach the moon and go further.
82. So God bless!
Hosea, chapter 2
1: Say to your brother, "My people," and to your sister, "She has obtained pity."
2: "Plead with your mother, plead --
for she is not my wife,
and I am not her husband --
that she put away her harlotry from her face,
and her adultery from between her breasts;3: lest I strip her naked
and make her as in the day she was born,
and make her like a wilderness,
and set her like a parched land,
and slay her with thirst.4: Upon her children also I will have no pity,
because they are children of harlotry.5: For their mother has played the harlot;
she that conceived them has acted shamefully.
For she said, `I will go after my lovers,
who give me my bread and my water,
my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.'6: Therefore I will hedge up her way with thorns;
and I will build a wall against her,
so that she cannot find her paths.7: She shall pursue her lovers,
but not overtake them;
and she shall seek them,
but shall not find them.
Then she shall say, `I will go
and return to my first husband,
for it was better with me then than now.'8: And she did not know
that it was I who gave her
the grain, the wine, and the oil,
and who lavished upon her silver
and gold which they used for Ba'al.9: Therefore I will take back
my grain in its time,
and my wine in its season;
and I will take away my wool and my flax,
which were to cover her nakedness.10: Now I will uncover her lewdness
in the sight of her lovers,
and no one shall rescue her out of my hand.11: And I will put an end to all her mirth,
her feasts, her new moons, her sabbaths,
and all her appointed feasts.12: And I will lay waste her vines and her fig trees,
of which she said,
`These are my hire,
which my lovers have given me.'
I will make them a forest,
and the beasts of the field shall devour them.13: And I will punish her for the feast days of the Ba'als
when she burned incense to them
and decked herself with her ring and jewelry,
and went after her lovers,
and forgot me, says the LORD.14: "Therefore, behold, I will allure her,
and bring her into the wilderness,
and speak tenderly to her.15: And there I will give her her vineyards,
and make the Valley of Achor a door of hope.
And there she shall answer as in the days of her youth,
as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt.16: "And in that day, says the LORD, you will call me, `My husband,' and no longer will you call me, `My Ba'al.'
17: For I will remove the names of the Ba'als from her mouth, and they shall be mentioned by name no more.
18: And I will make for you a covenant on that day with the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the creeping things of the ground; and I will abolish the bow, the sword, and war from the land; and I will make you lie down in safety.
19: And I will betroth you to me for ever; I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love, and in mercy.
20: I will betroth you to me in faithfulness; and you shall know the LORD.
21: "And in that day, says the LORD,
I will answer the heavens
and they shall answer the earth;22: and the earth shall answer the grain, the wine, and the oil,
and they shall answer Jezreel;23: and I will sow him for myself in the land.
And I will have pity on Not pitied,
and I will say to Not my people, `You are my people';
and he shall say `Thou art my God.'"
Good morning, Brothers and Sisters. Happy Sunday morning, and happy birthday to Joe Young. It also happens to be the birthday of the new grandchild in the True Family. My younger brother Kook Jin and his wife welcomed a lovely boy whose name is Shin Ju in Korea at 5:15 in the morning. Congratulations! We're pushing almost 50 when it comes to the grandkids that True Parents have. He is a lovely and a welcome addition to our community and our family. I t just so happens that it's also the birthday of our musical director here, Joe Young, so we'll have a great deal of fun making fun of him all day long.
It's a wonderful Sunday when we can celebrate the completion of the district pastors, who have given their heart and their testimony, sharing the pulpit together with me. I think it gave our country and our community a great taste of what the first-generation was like: what they experienced going through the conversion of discovering God, True Parents and our community, and how they have led their life thus far. I thought, how wonderful would it be if the whole country got to know these people, not just in name but also in terms of their face and their testimony. I thought it would be, and indeed it has been, a good chance for all of you to get to know the people who I've been working with for the last three years and counting.
I want to thank the American movement for supporting and loving them because a lot of them were quite nervous about coming to New York. They weren't sure what the reception would be like. But you, the members, were all so kind and supportive in your attendance to their testimonies. It gave them a great deal of strength. By going through the Manhattan Center stage and experiencing the Lovin' Life pulpit, they could better understand what the production team goes through in preparing for the service. They became good voices to share the beauty of our community with the country and the world.
I want to give a round of applause for the district pastors, for our different ministries, our different districts, and also for the unsung heroes who make Lovin' Life what it is – all the people you do not see on stage but who are here at all hours of the morning and through the night preparing for all of you here. Let's give them all a round of applause.
This experience of hearing the district pastors sharing of themselves from the Manhattan Center pulpit was a richly fulfilling experience for me as I reflected on the opposition I met when I started the Lovin' Life Ministries. It's similar whenever you start something new, whenever you introduce a new concept or a new vision. It's usually met with a wall of defiance or a wall of, "What the heck is this crazy woman going to do now?" Initially they said things like, "Well, here she is building a mega church, building another cult of personality," " She's promoting herself and only herself," and so on and so forth. Many people said, "She's building the kind of a pulpit that if something were to happen to her – God forbid, maybe heaven comes knocking early, and if something were to happen to her – everything would fall apart."
But the amazing thing is that regardless of what people might have said in the beginning about the ministry, during this time while the district pastors each took their turn, the American movement did not fall apart. In fact, I felt the American movement grew a little bit more in this year when the motto happens to be the ownership – men and women of God – of infinite and divine value, truly owning the game, truly owning our lives and becoming a responsible adult. No longer are we to be dependent children who only know how to follow; we are to take up the mantle and the platform that every one of us was meant to be a leader in our own right.
We've been great followers, but we have a senior pastor who's starting something new that might sound crazy. Worship by holding our Sunday Service in a movie theater, of all things? God forbid. But the marvelous thing is that the ministry is a medium through which we can reach people, and during the time that each district pastor took the pulpit, we proved to all the naysayers that this system we have implemented and created is a powerful tool and medium.
And it's not dependent on a personality. It's not dependent on a person, but it's a way through which we can communicate with each other to our communities. It's something that's going to go on whether the senior pastor is here or not, whether the second-generation gives way to the third-generation, or whether the third-generation gives way to the fourth-generation. It is a system that is in place that can work.
So for me as the senior pastor of Lovin' Life, it's a marvelous feeling that we've accomplished something together as a movement in the short three years that we've worked together. I believe that, in this Year of the Dragon, that mythological creature augurs great fortune for our movement. It's a time when we can expect great things to happen, things that we could not earlier envision could be taking place in our real life.
We can always believe and have visions of what could be, but what about what is? This is a year when we can start to see what is. So it's not just about our ministry doing well; it's not just about inviting different people to receive the breaking news. This is the time when we ourselves need to become whole; we need to wean away from any unhealthy dependency we may have.
Religion is not supposed to be an addiction. Religion is a medium through which we can create and help people become whole, healthy, and vibrant. Lovin' Life Ministries is not and should not be an addiction. It is a medium through which we can gain the kind of life in which we're loving life, the kind of life that makes us healthy adults – young, vibrant, and empowered men and women of God. That's what it's all about.
Going back to the great news of having another addition to the True Family, another beautiful grandchild – and a big one at that, 3.5 kilograms or almost 8 pounds, which is like a huge bomb placed in my younger brother's family – I was thinking, "Wow!" I was remembering the day that I gave birth to my last child, Paxton, and I remember that the first thing I did after giving birth was call my father. I telephoned him, and I said, "Father, I just gave birth to a son." Father said, "Do you have a name for him?" I said, "No. I was kind of hoping that you could name him." And without missing a heartbeat he said, "Okay, Shin Pyung." So he was ready.
As a parent, he wanted to make sure that he wasn't owning or seizing that moment; he wanted to ask me, "Are you thinking of a name?" And of course, with a daughter's heart you want your parents' involvement, and you want your parents to partake of this wonderful time. I thought it was really cute the way he said, "Okay, here it is," and he gave the name Shin Pyung, which means faith and peace. So we always call him the peaceful one in the family, and he really is a kind of peacemaker. In a family with three other brothers and one sister, there are a whole lot of dynamics going on, but Paxton is the consistently peaceful one who just quietly goes about his business.
I was thinking, "Oh my goodness, it just seems like yesterday that he fell into our laps. But now he's 15 and he just took the SATs last Saturday." So you realize that time goes by so quickly. I remember that after talking to my parents, I called my kids. I talked to Preston and I talked to Rexton; then I talked to Ariana. She had already heard that she had another brother, so she refused to come to the phone because she had made me promise that I was going to give her a sister, and Mommy did not deliver, so she was terribly upset.
News travels fast in our community, so even before I had a chance to inform her, she heard that. The minute I called my parents, whoosh, it was all over. Everybody knew. So she had already heard, and she refused to come to the phone. Then I asked her nanny, "Okay, you don't have to bring her to the phone but could you please bring her to the hospital?" Thank goodness for this wonderful nanny. She was successful in bringing the girl to the hospital, but I heard she had quite a bit of a struggle.
Then when Ariana got to the hospital, she refused to get into the elevator. So her daddy had to go get her and bring her to the maternity floor. When she got to the maternity floor, she refused to walk down the aisle to come to the room where I was because she was not going to welcome another brother. She wanted a sister. So the nurses watching this, said, "Oh" – she was six years old at the time – "please come. You have a really beautiful brother." She was just so adamant. In the typical Moon family tradition, she was very stubborn.
So the nurses and the nanny literally had to drag her down the hallway. Then she flung the door open and there she stood, this six-year-old girl. I said, "Ariana, please come in." She was like – (makes a face). I said, "Please come in and say hello to your brother." "I don't want a brother." I said, "W ell, I can't very well send him back to where he came from, so can you help Mommy a little bit? Can you help me welcome him to the family?" She said, "No."
I said, Ariana, "Look, he's got poufy hair." When she was little she was made fun of quite a bit because she was going to a nursery in Korea, but she had yellow hair. She had blond hair, so people called her "Yellow Hair," and she was kind of pale skinned so everyone thought, "This was kind of strange, an Oriental girl having blond hair and pale skin." So I said, "Well, this one has poufy hair like you."
Then she slowly approached the bed, just wanting to see. "But this one, unlike you, has really black hair. You had blond hair but this one has really black hair. You want to come and touch?" She came closer. After some time she came to touch his hair. I said, "Do you want to hold him?" She said, "No." I said, "Okay, do you want to just touch his toes, do you want to see his hands?" She was like, "No."
But I kind of put Paxton's hand on her hand, and then once they made contact, it was a matter of minutes before she said, "So what is his name?" I said, " Your grandfather gave him the name Shin Pyung. So I am going to call him Paxton, pax in Latin meaning 'peace.'"
So she said, "Okay, Paxton. So you can't send him back and ask for a refund and ask for a sister?" I said, "No, he is here to stay, and I really think it would mean a lot to him if you just gave him a hug." So that's how it started. But now Ariana has graduated from college and leading the ballroom ministry and being a vibrant part of our community – and watching Paxton becoming 15 years old makes me realize, "Wow, life goes by so fast."
This makes me ask myself, "What do I want to leave behind? When I go, what do I want to leave behind for my descendants?" I thought it was quite interesting that our True Father in all his wisdom gave us the answer. For those of us who read his autobiography, we know that Father talks about how, when we ask ourselves "What do we want to leave to our descendants," there are two things that we need to leave behind. In his autobiography he says, "Number One is tradition. It's the custom or belief that's handed down from one generation to another or from our parents to us, the children. And second," he says, "is education."
I thought it was interesting how True Father very much wants to leave tradition and education for the sake of his descendants. He says education is extremely important because education is something through which we gain wisdom for living. This is the way we gain experience. We need to be constantly growing and learning. We need to be constantly open to opportunity so we can work together with life and with our families in an integrated fashion so we're not like just a box or strong bones of tradition, handing things down unchanged to generation after generation, but it becomes more of a reciprocal relationship. It becomes a system of give and take.
There's a strong foundation of the roots of the tradition that is handed down to us, but instead of it having to be something that's force-fed to us, Father emphasizes the importance of education in that the ones who are handing down are also in the position of learning together with the ones we're sharing with. In other words, the teacher also becomes the student, and the student also becomes the teacher.
Father envisions a very dynamic relationship in the course of this journey called life. Throughout my life, when I was growing up in the 1970s and 1980s, the pejorative term of "Moonie" was quite rampant and widespread. I thought it was quite funny how they used to call us the brainwashed zombies. I thought it was so funny that the cult – they used to call us a cult – that they said was full of brainwashed zombies – meaning totally force-fed and indoctrinated with the same kind of message so that you never grow, you're totally petrified in this zombie-like state – is actually a church and a movement that emphasize the importance or the primacy of education.
I mean, who in his or her lifetime has created, supported, and empowered more schools? Ever since the beginning Father has given an immense amount of investment and donations to creating schools all around the world. We have the very famous Little Angels cultural arts school in Korea; we have given huge financial support to the University of Bridgeport; and Father just gave us permission for the Barrytown College on the Hudson, which will be a four-year college program at UTS. Then there are numerous nursery school, primary school, middle school, high school, college, and Ph.D. programs. In Korea we have the Sun Moon University.
What kind of a leader has given this much investment and funding to these schools? So in one sense this is a man and this is a woman, our True Parents, who really encourage the divine human beings, men and women, to be our best. They want us to continually learn, to continually be that wonderfully excited child who learns and grows through every level of life.
Sun Myung Moon, Hak Ja Han, Won Pok Choi and early followers at the launching of the Unification Church's first fishing boat – circa 1962
What we can always take as a constant in our lives are the changes that come with the passing of time. Things always change. But certain things must remain the same. So True Parents emphasize the importance of having powerfully firm roots, or the tradition, while in terms of growing together, we must learn how to change our perspective and our opinions because sometimes our loved ones, our children, or our spouse can give us most painful but the most rewarding lessons in life.
That's why Father talks about the family being a place where a great deal of work needs to be done in order for all of us to become better human beings. When our True Parents and the great leaders of our movement were always telling us that the goal of our lives is to create ideal families, I used to joke with my friends, saying, "Gosh, our True Parents have given us quite a homework assignment because creating an ideal family means I would have to deal with a lot of different things that life puts in my path in order for me to build this great thing called an ideal family."
When the Bible says in Hosea 2:15 "Make the valley of Achor a door of hope," I think of the way True Father wrote in his autobiography about the importance of leaving tradition and education behind. He goes on to say that when tradition and new knowledge through education can be well integrated in the course of our lives, that will give birth to original culture.
We can understand the tradition as being Christianity and the new knowledge brought by our True Parents as being the completed message, based on the tradition of Christianity, of the breaking news of the Blessing, of the True Parents, and of the need for humanity to become one family of God.
The new knowledge can be seen as a divine principle, the gift of the Divine Principle that our True Parents bestow upon the world. So when the tradition of all the religious cultures can be integrated with this new knowledge – the new message or the breaking news or the Divine Principle – that our True Parents are bringing, it gives birth to original culture.
I think the word culture is immensely important here at Lovin' Life because we are trying to rebrand our movement, our lives, and ourselves, by creating an inviting, healthy, and empowering culture for our families to live in so we can continue to educate ourselves, grow together, and become the kind of a family that we would like to build – an ideal family, one family under God.
To guarantee a world of peace for our future descendants and our children, we need to understand where we come from while also transitioning the past through the present to the future. As we pursue this goal together, we soon realize that a great deal of work needs to be done if we are to create a culture in which we can love life as eternal and divine sons and daughters of God living out the original intention that our Heavenly Parent, our God, had when he and she created all of us.
They created children because they wanted to experience a parental heart, they wanted to experience joy, and they wanted to experience the love that a parent feels in seeing his or her child grow up. When we talk about creating original culture, what do we expect that original culture to look like? As a mother thinking in terms of the parental heart of people who have children, who want the best for their children and want them to do well and succeed in life, I expect the parental heart to be one that wants to uplift but not to condemn, and that wants to empower but not to emphasize the feelings of worthlessness or where the child falls short. I expect the parental heart to be able to be happy for the sake of the child, instead of feeling like, "W ell, I certainly didn't have what you have now. The first-generation was a life of sacrifice and suffering; how can I be happy for you?"
Regardless of the place we came from or what we went through in our life – whether it was suffering or denial or enormous amounts of pain – a true parental heart always wants our child to have better, to be happy, even happier than we ever were and not to feel the same kind of pain that we felt.
This kind of a parental heart, I think, is particularly necessary for moving our movement forward. I often talk about our movement having gone through the wilderness years for the last 40- or 50 years, and I was just talking about this to a group of Japanese sisters yesterday. They were sharing with me the tremendous responsibility Japan had to bear for many decades. They held and they kept up the financial responsibility for our worldwide movement. So a lot of pain and a lot of suffering have taken place in Japan.
They understood that living for the sake of others meant dying for the sake of others, and many families were sacrificed for the sake of providence. Many parents sacrificed their children for the sake of providence in that the parents were never really there for the children. But at this time, when we're stressing the importance of loving life – and last week Reverend Francis talked about how in the beginning it was all so confusing because it felt like Lovin' Life was a party ministry because we had galas, dances, concerts, and get-togethers.
I think a lot of first-generation, hard-line core brothers and sisters, had the trench mentality: "We are in the trenches; we're fighting this war; we're in this mission; we must be miserable; we have to feel the pain; we've got to feel it to our bones in order to realize we're really living for God, we're really living a sacrificial life."
But here comes this crazy woman and this ministry that wants to celebrate life. H ere we were in the trench mentality of living a celibate existence, a life of denial, and here comes this crazy woman saying, "We forgot the R in the word celibate, it's actually celebrate. We need to love life; we need to let our children know it is okay to be happy and not to feel the pain every day. And perhaps because Daddy and Mommy felt the pain of digging that strong and invincible foundation, you don't have to do it again."
It's like each generation could end up saying, "We dug the trenches, we dug the foundation through rat-infested halls and through all this gunk and quagmire, and we expect the same of our child." Well, if our children dig the same foundation again and then our grandchildren dig the same foundation again, we are never going to get there in terms of building an ideal family. Instead, we would become a repetitive foundation-building ministry. We can't fulfill or complete the task at hand by simply saying, "Whoops, Jesus Christ dying on the cross was not the completed picture. It's our True Parents; it's Jesus together with his bride that was supposed to be the True Parents that we have now."
Now is the time to build the house on that invincible and strong foundation that we've sacrificed and slaved over, that we've painstakingly prepared for the future generation so we can continue to educate each other, learn from each other, and grow together. Instead of saying, "F eel my pain in your life, child," we can say, "You know what? You guys need to stand on our shoulders, build on top of what we've already built. Run with it. Go as far as you can go.
"Many of us have given up our educations in order to serve and sacrifice for the providence. But you, child, you take the foundation that is laid for you gratefully, with a grateful attitude and, standing on our shoulders, be that externally and internally excellent child of God. Run as far as you can go. Jump as high as you can go, and touch the moon because we've already introduced the Moon in your life."
As we transition from the wilderness mentality or the trench warfare mentality to this new life in which God wants all of his children, all of her children, to celebrate and love life, a lot of old skins are going to be shed. And for those of us who feel very comfortable in our own old skin, it's going to feel a little bit uncomfortable because it's going to be like a grandma or a grandpa in the sweltering heat of summer and a grandchild comes up to the grandpa saying, "Grandpa, it's time to take off your cardigan and feel the warmth of the sun on your back. It's okay, take off the cardigan."
That's really the loving gesture of a young child wanting to participate in and experience life and the warmth of the sun together with the grandparent. That's the loving gesture that allows the older generation to turn around and say, "Hmm, but this is the cardigan I had on all four seasons, all throughout my life. You're asking me to take it off? Well, I'll do it for you. I will take off my cardigan for you and I will run with you, I will jump with you. Maybe not as high and not as fast, but I want to do these things because I love you and I want to bring you joy, just as you have brought me joy." This is the kind of culture of heart that we need to develop.
So many times in the past, in the name of tradition we've held onto a lot of old habits. But habits are not the same as tradition. Habits are things that we pick up along the way that have helped us through life and they've become a part of our lives. But habits and tradition are very different things. So the older generation, or the moms and dads in the audience, have to be able to distinguish the difference between the two.
As the senior pastor I get a lot of SOS e-mails asking me, "What is the best way to deal with my child? What is the best way to create a culture of heart in a family so that the father and the child and the mother and the child can have a healthy relationship?" Speaking on behalf of the second-generation, I always remind the parents, "It's our desire that we discover something new. Many of us may have trampled upon the breaking news of our True Parents. Many of us were invited in. Many of us were coaxed in. But because we understand the message of the breaking news to be so profound and significant in our lives, we want so much to give that to our own children."
I remember when I was little. Here we have True Parents for the first time, and then here come a bunch of kids that we call the True Children who make up the True Family. But nobody had a manual. We were not born with a manual from God that told our parents or our caretakers, "This is how you take care of this specimen called a True Child."
Most of the things we buy in stores, or any new products such as electronics, always come with a manual about how you turn the power on, how you activate it, how you operate it, and how you use it efficiently to accomplish the goal it is designed to help you achieve.
But we were not born with a manual, and most children do not come with a manual on how to raise perfect or good children. So the first -generation did their best, and the first-generation, out of their desire and enthusiasm for the new message, did what they thought was the best thing. For me, that translated into the minute I could start walking and talking and sitting, the Divine-Principle lecture series started – very early on.
I don't remember a time when I was not sitting at a workshop, and I do not remember a time when I was not in a lecture hall being taught the lectures that really were college-level material. The Divine Principle is college-level material. But here I was being taught this when I was four, five, six years old – all the way through my teenage years. So I grew up hearing what seemed to be mumbling because I didn't understand it. I didn't understand subject and object, four-position foundation, foundation of faith, and foundation of substance. What the heck does foundation mean when you're four years old? "Sexual organ, the Fall of Man, Chapter Two. Chapter Two is the most important chapter." I'm thinking, "What the heck is the Fall of Man?" So it really became like rote mumbling.
Some of my friends are really into the latest craze – audio books, books on audio. I know a lot of you love it, but I have something to tell you. My siblings and I were raised on these lecture series, but when we were going through our teenage years and we discovered rock 'n roll and pop music, any chance we had we made our own radios because many times we were not allowed to listen to these things.
What we were allowed to listen to were Divine Principle lecture series in the car. So when we went for a long drive, "Chapter One, Principle of Creation." And it was never a beautiful woman's voice. It was always a patriarchal male voice, "Chapter One, Principle of Creation. Chapter Two, the Fall of Man." We grew up listening to this and we learned very early on how to sleep through these things, so the minute it went on in the car, we would fall asleep.
Now, fast-forward 40-some years. Sometimes when I go on little trips with my friends they love to listen to audio tapes and they find it amusing that the minute they start the tape and it comes, "Chapter One," I just cannot stay awake. "Chapter One " and the only thing I remember is "Chapter Two" – "D id we get to Chapter Five?" But all the other stuff is like rambling and mumbling to me, because that's how I was raised.
This illustrates the futility of trying to communicate something to children when they're not ready: when they don't have the vocabulary or they don't have the necessary mental or physical capacity. All of us who are parents know that regardless of how well-meaning we are, if we try to force-feed or introduce a new fruit to children before their bodies are ready they develop allergies. Because we love them and we love this cantaloupe, we really want to share this cantaloupe with our children. But if we give that cantaloupe a little too early, before the stomach has a chance to mature, the child's body may repel the cantaloupe, and we may create an allergic reaction in the body so the child can never experience the beauty or the deliciousness or the succulence of biting into a cantaloupe.
That's what it's like many times. We, out of our love for our children, want to share the best cantaloupe. We want to share the best news with our children, not realizing that we've conditioned them to fall asleep in Chapter One and to develop an allergic reaction to something that is so precious.
I like to use this analogy: It's like throwing a bunch of diamonds into a pigsty and expecting the pig to realize that this is a very valuable thing. They are not just some sparkling things in the pigsty, but they are worth something.
Similarly, when a child is not ready physically, emotionally, or mentally for what we as parents share with the child, we may actually help in creating an allergic reaction to something that we want to share. I think a lot of first-generation, a lot of parents, are confused when you are wanting to share the breaking news with your family and the only thing that your children are going through or are manifesting are allergic reactions to church or this new message.
Whenever the parents are confronted with this kind of situation, I like to calm them down, saying, "That's okay. Every child is a handiwork of God, a gift from God. Every child has infinite and divine value. They do not come with a manual, and we all try our best to be the best parents we can, but many times we fall short. But that's okay, as long as through this journey called life we're willing to learn and educate ourselves, to grow together, and to gain the kind of wisdom for living that we would want to have at the end of our lives. So let's not get panicky and think, 'Oh my goodness, I want pure children; I want great children, but here is my child going through an allergic reaction phase or a rebellious phase.'"
I like to remind the parents, "Before we were born into the world, before we came into being as the person we know ourselves to be, our mother had to go through a period of contractions and excruciating pain and suffering. When we are being born, we have no idea that we are doing this to our mother. We just come into the world very happy to breathe the first breath of air. And we're thinking, 'Wow, this feels good.' But we don't turn around and look at our mother and realize she looks totally wasted because she's gone through a life-and-death struggle."
But that's what it takes to bring a new life into this world. And in essence, that's what it takes for parents to help bring children into a new level of consciousness in understanding who they are as God's eternal sons and daughters. In our world today, it's not a natural process. It's a very painful process. Just as it is a painful process for the mother to give birth to the child, there can be another painful process for each of us to develop an identity of ourselves as something independent of our parents yet very much a part of our parents. Developing this independence is similar to the way a child is born connected to its mother through the umbilical cord, but for the child to begin growing as an individual being, that cord must be cut.
We learn to breathe on our own. We learn to walk on our own. We learn to do things on our own. I f the umbilical cord has never been cut – and a lot of families I see in our community have never cut the umbilical cords – then the children never learn to breathe or walk on their own, never gain a sense that they are their own person. Yes, we come from the parent but we all need to be our own independent person. E very child of God needs to own our own game, meaning we have to be the owners of our own life if we are to feel totally healthy, empowered, and worthy.
At this time we are being asked to let our old habits be washed away in rain because now we have our True Parents, the living water of our time. It's interesting how they took up their primary residence in Las Vegas, the town in the desert that is just dying and thirsty for the living water. It is as though our True Parents put themselves down smack in the middle of Sin City, saying, "You know what? We have got to clean up this town and turn it around. We've got to bring leisure, good leisure back into the lives of healthy families. We need to encourage everybody to have a great time – spend time with your family, go out to dinners, go out and see the shows together."
That's what our True Parents are encouraging us to do, and I think a lot of the older generation are thinking, "Have our True Parents gone senile? They want to celebrate life? What's the matter with them? We're supposed to live a life of celibacy or denial. We're supposed to be miserable. How can the messiah be enjoying life?"
The messiah is here to show us how to enjoy life because that was the original intention of God, our Heavenly Parent. Every parent who has had a child wants our children to be healthy, vibrant, and empowered individuals and we want them to be happy above all else. So the living water comes to give us strength, to help us take root in our tradition. But it also comes to wash away a lot of old habits that are not healthy toward a lifestyle of loving life. This includes a lot of negative thinking that is not healthy for creating a loving, inviting, and healthy family. It also includes a lot of judgmental attitudes that we've had: "You are second-gen." "You are Jacob's Child." "You are first-gen." "You are a new member." "You are": whatever.
How about concentrating on the fact that we are God's sons and daughters; we are all divine human beings with infinite value and we need to stop being so judgmental that we cannot progress into the next level and the level thereafter?
Our community and our families have gone through so many birthing pains or growing pains as we have been growing together. We have had so much pain of parents realizing no matter how well-meaning we are, our children are going to sometimes trip and fall. They're going to nick their knees. They're going to have to be taken to the emergency room every now and then.
There might be a crisis point in every child's life, but instead of thinking "Why is my child such a basket case," many times God wants us to realize that we are being given a chance to experience a time of crisis so we can become seasoned sailors. Calm seas do not create seasoned sailors. It's the stormy weather, the back-breaking work on the seas as a sailor that qualifies a person, a man or a woman, to be called a seasoned sailor.
Those different times of crisis in our lives when we feel like we're losing our children, our children are rebelling, our children are having an allergic reaction to our faith – "Oh, my goodness, SOS, Heavenly Father" – are the times when God is asking all of us to be like Christ or like our True Parents. A time of crisis is when we should be asking ourselves, "What is Christ?" How should we be like Christ? How should we be like our True Parents? How should we engender a culture of heart in this extraordinarily difficult and painful time?"
The time of crisis helps us confront our own demons and pushes us to be more Christ-like and more True Parent-like in developing that parental heart of uplifting while not condemning, and empowering while not belittling. The time of crisis pushes us to develop the parental heart that wants the best for others, and is sincerely happy for our children to be able to do what we could not do in our lives, or to enjoy what we couldn't enjoy in our lives.
I don't know if you've heard the wonderful news that's been going around on Facebook, but my dear second-eldest son, Rexton, just got matched to a beautiful daughter of God, Lymhwa. It's kind of interesting because when I first met her, I didn't realize that she was the daughter of my first etiquette teacher. Right before coming to America, one of the first missionaries to Korea, a sister named Lynne Kim, came to "prepare" the True Children for America. She taught us the simple things like, "Hello" and "Thank you." Then she taught us how to use a knife and fork because we'd only been using a spoon and chopsticks.
I remember her being such a wonderful lady who was very soft-spoken, very kind. She remembers one of the first things that we asked her to do was to be our patient because I wanted to be her doctor. So she said one of the first things she did to help invite the child into the classroom was to allow me to use a stethoscope on her to take her heartbeat.
I realized that life comes in circles. God brings different people into your life for different purposes, and nothing in life is coincidence. Nothing in life is serendipitous, but everything has meaning. T here's a hand of God mysteriously working behind everything that happens. Nothing makes us happier today than the way this child came in to our community and now my son and Lymhwa can be beautifully on their way to the Blessing.
I remember talking to Lynne after I had spoken to my parents and they gave their grace and blessing. Lynne said to me, "You know, as the first-generation we went through so much, but what we want for our children is for them to be happy, for them to take ownership of their lives and the Blessing and really be happy.
And I said, "What? You're not one of these mothers who basically said, 'We suffered, so you're going to suffer? We went through the picture matching and, you know, it was just awful, so you're going to go through the same thing.'" And Lynne said, "No, no, that was just the first-generation." She still talks about indemnity and restoration. And I said, "Yes, all those lovely words, but maybe we can introduce new words to the vocabulary, like celebration, happiness, loving life. She said, "Yes, yes, that would be so lovely." I said, "Lynne, show a little excitement here. It's okay."
This is my memory of beautiful first-generation brothers and sisters – totally having given up everything for the sake of providence, but still so beautiful, so calm, so poised. Not negative, not complaining, not bitter, but still finding meaning in how God works through all of our lives, to realize that, " You know what? We go through a lot of difficult things in our lives but God never leaves us. If anybody left anybody, it's we having left God, or thinking God was not there.
"But if we travel on a little longer, we realize that life is a series of cycles, and what we thought was just a burden of misery was leading us to something right around the corner that God had waiting for us as long as we kept on believing and kept ourselves rooted in something as wonderful as our tradition."
As I go forward in building the kind of a community that I would like for my kids, and I think that we all want for our kids I am so encouraged that in the three years we've spent together in this ministry, our kids have shown us clearly how precious they really are. They have all that it takes for them to be great. Last Sunday you saw a clip of a valedictorian speech, but that's just one out many of our second-generation, and first-generation, who are making waves in their lives. I just heard from Sammi Fleisher (Vanderstok) that she graduated also at top of her class and gave a beautiful speech to her graduating class on the different people who have inspired her.
So we realize it's not that our kids were lacking in any way, they just needed to be reminded how incredible and precious they are, and how everything has been the work of foundation building. That's why it has looked so dark and gloomy and it looks so wet and damp. Building that basement foundation was awfully hard work, but that was not what Heavenly Father envisioned for our future. Heavenly Father wants to see some beautiful buildings, houses, and skyscrapers go up.
We need to remind our child that once a Blessed Child, always a Blessed Child, once a divine son or daughter of God, always a divine son or daughter of God – and despite all the knocks and nicks of life, we need to keep on going. We need to keep on being on track. We need to keep on the path that will ultimately lead us to a position where we own the game.
So as we swim through the path of old habits and let them lie, washed away in rain, this is a time also to re-think what our mission is. Our mission during the time of the wilderness was survival, but our mission now is not just to survive but to prosper. It is to substantiate, to make real. It is to feel love, not just teach about and talk about love, but to experience love by rubbing up against each other. But we also need to take the time out to think that our life is a little bit more than just going to Chung Pyung for 40 days.
Going to Chung Pyung for 40 days is a luxury. Spending time with our family in the quagmire of difficulty and suffering when our child is going through an allergic reaction, or a rebellious phase – that's work. That's dealing with creating an ideal family. Running off for 40 days and not having to deal with our family is a luxury – and sometimes we need to do that.
But instead of keeping ourselves grounded by always seeking an escape route, we need to get ourselves back in the groove – in the rhythm of being a family that can go from one extreme of extreme exaltation to the other extreme of utter devastation. Life encompasses it all, and that's what makes us greater, richer, and deeper as human beings, and allows each of us at the end of our lives to have a certificate of wisdom of living, having gone through the education of life that many times is thrust upon us, whether we like it or not.
Many times we are thinking of liberating our ancestors and we throw a lot of money and investment and donations into liberating our ancestors while we forget our responsibility for liberating each other and liberating our children.
The work needs to go hand in hand. As much as we want to liberate our ancestors, we must not be irresponsible in not realizing that liberating our children to allow them to fully exercise all of their God-given talents requires our investment; they need financial resources. We need to invest in our children. That is the way we invest in the future of the world. It is not being selfish. It is being responsible. It is actually owning our game.
It's not asking God to take care of our families. It's we as adults saying, "You know what, I'm going to be financially responsible; I'm going to be spiritually responsible. I'm going to take care of my family. I am going to build an ideal family by dealing every day, no matter how difficult it is, with all the things that need to be dealt with in order for us to grow together and educate ourselves in becoming a wise son or daughter of God."
So think about where we come from. Think about our tradition. Think about liberating our ancestors, but do not neglect the present and the future, by realizing that just as it is important to liberate our dead ancestors, it is equally important to liberate our families – our spouse and our children – to help them become internally and externally excellent sons and daughters of God. This is how we build a beautiful house or a beautiful society. This is how we build a beautiful world that ultimately we can call one family under God.
We are profoundly blessed to be living at this time with our True Parents. They are the living waters, and through them – by looking at them, admiring them, and learning from them – we can educate ourselves to be true parents and thereby become the tribal leaders who can bring forth a new revolution of heart in each of our tribes, our districts, and our communities. And Lovin' Life is a medium through which all of us can take delight in all the active work of our faith.
And I use the word active with emphasis because this is no longer just about following, as an inactive form of worship. God is asking us to participate. God is asking us to take ownership, to be the legitimate, vibrant, and divine son or daughter of God. We need to do more than be inactively following. We need to be our own leaders. We need to take charge of the horns of our own destiny and make a difference because what each person can contribute to the ministry and to our community will be so different from what I can do. But if we put all of our strength together, God have mercy.
I know that if one crazy woman can bring us to achieve what we've done together as a family, much more can be achieved because I know there are a lot of you out there that are a little crazier than me. I'm always so inspired by so many outside-of-the-box ideas that are thrown my way, that's what I love. I love weird people. I love people who are different, who are willing to stick out their necks, and hey, we are different, we are strange, but hey, that's us.
I don't like following fashion. I don't like following what's already been done. I look to start what hasn't been done. That's the weird thing about weird people – and in our movement we have so many. Every one of us is so wonderfully weird, so why not express a little bit of that wonderful weirdness to the world and help create a dynamic and vibrant community that our children can thrive in, a community that can engender, bring forth, and invite a culture of heart in which we can really be happy for one another.
A couple of weeks ago I met a friend of mine who has many positive things happening for him now in terms of career, marriage, and family. He grew up with a dear old friend, and that friend is going through a doldrums phase of his life. They are the best of friends; they've been through everything together; but it's so difficult for the one in the doldrums to be happy for the new-found life of his friend.
This reminds us that one of the most difficult things in life is to be genuinely happy for another person when you're feeling quite miserable. But this is what I mean by the culture of heart. The parental heart is such that no matter how miserable we are, we always want the best for others. We always want our child to be happy, inspired, uplifted, and great. That's what a culture of heart is all about.
This is the culture of heart that God and our True Parents want for all of us, and that I certainly want for my child. And I would think that you would want the same for your children. So if we continue to work together in this fantastic Year of the Dragon, there is nothing that we cannot accomplish.
Next week I will be going to Japan for the upcoming youth concert, and I will be taking the band with me. But please continue to worship together as a family, so whether I am here or not, we're always working together to build this one family under God. Let's be the kind of a person who owns the game and knows that our movement is the most successful movement thus far in the history of religion in the time of our founder's life.
Let's think about what can be accomplished if we continue on this track of building excellent children for an excellent future. There's no limit to what we can do. We've all been hit by the moon. Let us continue to enjoy being in this embrace of the glorious moonlight, together with our True Parents, and let's show the world that we can reach the moon and go further. God bless.
Hosea, chapter 2
1: Say to your brother, "My people," and to your sister, "She has obtained pity."
2: "Plead with your mother, plead --
for she is not my wife,
and I am not her husband --
that she put away her harlotry from her face,
and her adultery from between her breasts;3: lest I strip her naked
and make her as in the day she was born,
and make her like a wilderness,
and set her like a parched land,
and slay her with thirst.4: Upon her children also I will have no pity,
because they are children of harlotry.5: For their mother has played the harlot;
she that conceived them has acted shamefully.
For she said, `I will go after my lovers,
who give me my bread and my water,
my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.'6: Therefore I will hedge up her way with thorns;
and I will build a wall against her,
so that she cannot find her paths.7: She shall pursue her lovers,
but not overtake them;
and she shall seek them,
but shall not find them.
Then she shall say, `I will go
and return to my first husband,
for it was better with me then than now.'8: And she did not know
that it was I who gave her
the grain, the wine, and the oil,
and who lavished upon her silver
and gold which they used for Ba'al.9: Therefore I will take back
my grain in its time,
and my wine in its season;
and I will take away my wool and my flax,
which were to cover her nakedness.10: Now I will uncover her lewdness
in the sight of her lovers,
and no one shall rescue her out of my hand.11: And I will put an end to all her mirth,
her feasts, her new moons, her sabbaths,
and all her appointed feasts.12: And I will lay waste her vines and her fig trees,
of which she said,
`These are my hire,
which my lovers have given me.'
I will make them a forest,
and the beasts of the field shall devour them.13: And I will punish her for the feast days of the Ba'als
when she burned incense to them
and decked herself with her ring and jewelry,
and went after her lovers,
and forgot me, says the LORD.14: "Therefore, behold, I will allure her,
and bring her into the wilderness,
and speak tenderly to her.15: And there I will give her her vineyards,
and make the Valley of Achor a door of hope.
And there she shall answer as in the days of her youth,
as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt.16: "And in that day, says the LORD, you will call me, `My husband,' and no longer will you call me, `My Ba'al.'
17: For I will remove the names of the Ba'als from her mouth, and they shall be mentioned by name no more.
18: And I will make for you a covenant on that day with the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the creeping things of the ground; and I will abolish the bow, the sword, and war from the land; and I will make you lie down in safety.
19: And I will betroth you to me for ever; I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love, and in mercy.
20: I will betroth you to me in faithfulness; and you shall know the LORD.
21: "And in that day, says the LORD,
I will answer the heavens
and they shall answer the earth;22: and the earth shall answer the grain, the wine, and the oil,
and they shall answer Jezreel;23: and I will sow him for myself in the land.
And I will have pity on Not pitied,
and I will say to Not my people, `You are my people';
and he shall say `Thou art my God.'"
Dear all, nearly there!
We received news today that In Jin Nim has confirmed our meeting on the 9th, so we are now only waiting for the official announcement to be sent from HQ to all local churches in Japan about the event. That announcement will include a request for local churches to submit a list of their international Blessed families who will be attending the event to HQ.
Please note that pre-registration is required and that names will be checked against a list at reception on the 9th.
You can pre-register with IFA or you local church (or both:-)
To register with IFA, please send the full names of each person who will attend to us.
Venue: Isshin Tokubetsu Kenshuin (Special Training Center) Address Chiba-ken, Urayasu-shi, Higashino 2-chome, 25-ban, 30-go.
Access: Tokyo Metro Urayasu Station T-18 on the Tozai line.
You will need to share a taxi ride to training center (Isshin Tokubetsu Kenshuin) with your family or other International Families waiting at the station (about 10 min around 1000 yen). Taxies will be plentiful from the training center after the event as well.
Please spread the word. This is a precious opportunity to spend time with In Jin Nim. We want to show our attendance to True Family by mobilizing everyone who can possibly attend to do so.
More later...
IFA committee
I have just received notification that the following has been approved, but is pending official confirmation of exact times and other particulars. We hope to send the official announcement soon!
IFA is very happy to inform you that In Jin Nim, the second daughter of our beloved True Parents will be in Japan next month for just a few days and would like to meet with you. Rev. Sam Nakasaka made a request on our behalf, and In Jin Nim has graciously left a time open on her schedule for us to meet with her during her visit.
We know many of you are in Japan, either newly or for a long time. Some of you are waiting for matching, some of you are just starting family, some are already grandparents!
Some are first gen, others are second or third gen.
Some of you found a home in the Japanese Church, others are finding it incredibly hard to fit in.
Some were raised in Japan with an international parent, others maybe experiencing culture shock!
Whatever your situation, we invite you and your family to the Urayasu Training Center on Saturday June 9, at 10:00 am to attend this special meeting with In Jin Nim.
As many of you know, In Jin Nim has brought a great revival to our Second Generation in the USA and has a keen interest in them where ever she goes. We want to ask that you make a special effort to bring your children, even if they are busy with club activities, study, or jobs. This is precious opportunity that we want to mobilize everyone who can possibly attend to do so.
Details of the event will be sent out with the official announcement soon. Urayasu training center is located near Disneyland in Chiba, station T-18 on the Tozai line.
Once you receive the official invitation and would like to attend, please email with names so we can reserve your place.
See you there!
IFA President
1. Good morning Washington DC! Happy, happy Mother's Day to all of you. To the special woman seated next to you in the audience. I'm surely delighted to be with all of you here this morning.
Rev. Mark Tengan giving the Lovin' Life unday sermon May 20, 2012
2. You know we have two more district pastors to go (to give sermons for Lovin' Life Ministries), Rev. Tengan and Rev Francis. I asked Rev. Francis if he could allow me to speak this morning, because it would be a wonderful opportunity to really congratulate all the mothers in the audience and to wish all women, all across the country, a happy Mother's Day. So, Rev. Francis graciously allowed me to take the pulpit this morning.
3. Whenever I am getting ready to come up on stage, and I am listening to the wonderful music by the Lovin' Life Band. Today in particular we had a little taste of the Ballroom Dance Ministry – Ariana, my daughter, has really been investing her heart and soul into. She said to me, "Mommy, I am so nervous." I said, "Why are you so nervous, you're not dancing." "Yes, but I have never been so nervous, because those are my babies out there!" So I said, "wow, you haven't found the one yet that you are going to go to the Blessing with, and you have yet to embark on the next level of your life as a blessed couple and hopefully build a beautiful ideal family so that mommy can be a grandma real soon, but for her to express to me how much she loves her babies – she is just every ounce, every cell in her body, and every prayer in her soul is out there with her children on stage. I said, "You know, someday you are going to make a very lucky man really happy and you are going to be an awesome mom someday."
4. But you know, for those of us who've had children, that is exactly how we feel. When I think about this and when I think about our Heavenly Parent up in heaven I realize that this is how much our Heavenly Father and our Heavenly Mother truly love us. Because, each and every one of us, is like this precious and unique and divine creation of their love. And so all of us have infinite value, and all of us have divine value, and truly this life, this gift of life that we've been given is an opportunity to really make something beautiful out of it – and to, in a way, give back to our wonderful Heavenly Parent, thanking them in an attitude of gratitude for a life well lived.
5. When I think about what a fantastic community we have, and you know, as the senior pastor, as the mother figure for the country, nothing makes me more proud than to see my team, or my children, doing so well. I was so tickled pink when GPA came back from the choir competition after four months of practicing, thanks to Mrs. Tombo, and also the investment that Mitsuro and also the Lovin' Life band made, the kids came back with the number one gold medal. It's amazing!
6. And I know that there were moments of difficulty, there were moments of great rumblings, because we had to practice and persevere, and really work towards the goal, but once these kids decided that they are representing America, they are representing all of you, and they as the representatives are going to put up a really good fight to the different choirs that have been doing this for a very, very long time – I thought that they really went with the right spirit. My philosophy when it comes to the arts is that technique is the bare minimum. So a lot of the other choirs had great technique, and perhaps better technique. But the thing about music and the arts is that it's a medium through which we channel the Divine, we channel the spirit, so that we can feel imbued with what God wants to share, or partake with all of us.
7. And so they had, not the best technique, but the best attitude and a great spirit. They knocked the socks off of a really, really tough Korean audience, and came back with a gold medal. This is truly the case of things to come in America. If we can truly inspire the younger generation to excel, to be that externally excellent and internally excellent human being, then, once they have been bitten by their passions and their desire to really make life worthwhile, there is no limit to what our children can accomplish. Therefore, there is no limit to what we can expect for the future of this great movement and this great community.
8. I was so delighted, when we got together after the district pastors meeting at the beginning of the year and the Lovin' Life Ministries that we have every Sunday, that we share every Sunday, was truly a work in progress for the last three years. And when I first unveiled the vision I think a lot of people were not too happy, were not too excited, or did not quite understand what we wanted to accomplish, together with our membership here in the United States. But, the beginning of this year was truly an inspiring month for me, because this year was the first time that all the District Pastors said, "I get it now, I get what you're trying to do, and we are all in."
Catherine Booth, wife of William Booth founder of the Salvation Army
9. And once that foundation has been laid, we came back from Korea with our Father's motto for this year, basically asking all of us to take ownership of our faith, to take ownership of our lives. So I said, "One of the things, one of my favorite quotes, is by this lady called Catherine Booth. She is the founder of the Salvation Army and she has done so many great works all across, not just her own country where she started, but she has touched numerous people all around the world. And one of the things that she used to say is that, "in order to better the world we must disturb the present." In fact, we must make people uncomfortable, we must challenge them, we must provoke them – we must provoke them to respond in order to better the world.
Sun Myung Moon and Hak Ja Han – April 6, 2012
10. This has been one of my favorite quotes. And so, when my father as the Messiah, as the anointed one, as the Lord of lords – and the beautiful thing about our True Father is that he doesn't come alone. He comes together with our True Mother as the True Parents of all mankind. The Messiah comes, not to make us comfortable in our own skins, not to make us comfortable with familiar things, but he comes with the breaking news. He comes to, in a way, challenge us to do better, challenge us to win the gold medal in each part of our lives, to provoke us to think, to provoke us to re-imagine a world where we can live as one family under God.
11. Messiah, comes to disturb our preconceived notions of how, for instance, a man and a woman should relate to each other. So, in a sense, when our Father asked us to take ownership in this year of the Black Dragon, this is the year in the East when all great enterprises can come to great fruition and great success. There is tremendous fortune that comes with this year. And the great thing about our True Parents is they're seizing upon this heavenly fortune saying, "Here take it, own it, make it yours, be all that you can be, be that empowered individual, that empowered couple, that inspired family that is going to connect the world and contribute something to the world that will make lives for all of humanity that much better."
12. When you look at our True Father he really has a finger on the pulse of providential history. He knows what's going to happen. And when Father asked us to take ownership, then it is time for the district pastors to not just be familiar in their seats, not just have the senior pastor do the job, and actually own up, and not just say that they are all in but to act upon, so that we are not one pastor administering to the flock, but we are a family, we are a team, we are one family under God working together in the process of building a better world and a better future for our community, for our children, and for the sake of the world.
Ariana Moon giving the Lovin' Life Sunday Sermon December 11, 2011
13. And I say, for those of us who thought that love and life Ministry is all about building the pulpit, or is all about building just one mega-church, I say nay. We have to disturb our preconceived notions of what a ministry is. This is not the building up of one charismatic figure, or one senior pastor, but Lovin' Life Ministries is about building the future. It's about building a family. A mother's job is not to always be the mother for the rest of her life, but for her to raise her young children, just like the way Ariana has done, to make them better then she is. That's the mother's heart, and to have them go forward and represent their community and their faith better than she did. That's the mother's job.
14. And so we must disturb our notion of what the ministry of our senior pastor is. In a way it's making a lot of people uncomfortable. But at the same time this is the way we make a better community, a better team, and a better family – and I want to thank all of you for supporting the district pastors as they have come and taken the pulpit and have experienced the burden of the pulpit at the Manhattan Center. And I feel that once they have come across the Manhattan Center pulpit, they can even understand it that much better as to how much work goes in to building a ministry, to putting together a worship like this. There is a whole group of people that we must thank each and every day for their hard work, behind the scenes. It's a family effort. And that's the most important thing in our lives, our family, our community, our movement, and our humanity.
15. I think, in a way, the foundation that we are laying at the beginning of the year, with all the district pastors being all in and all of you being so supportive – and it's a wonderful opportunity for a lot of the second gen who have never really gone through the conversion experience in their own lives – to hear about how these different district pastors came into their faith, or found God, or found our True Parents.
Michael Lamson giving the Lovin' Life Sunday Sermon on May 6, 2012
16. I want to thank all the district pastors that have spoken, but the last three that I would like to mention – Rev. Takami, Rev Krishnek, and also Rev Lamson. You know, I didn't know that Rev. Takami had this wonderful story about an oversized sweater. I had no idea that he was so inspired by his wife knitting him an oversized sweater, that he was so overcome with the spirit that he wanted to immediately start family life – which resulted in five kids much later. But it's those kinds of stories that tell you a little bit about the man. So, whenever I think about Rev. Takami, I'm thinking, maybe perhaps other wives in the audience might think about knitting their husband an oversized sweater.
Larry Krishnek giving the Lovin' Life Sunday Sermon on April 29,, 2012
17. Or Rev. Krishnek – he had a wonderful show and tell about Alaska, pictures that he shared with our community, and Rev. Lamson really making a plea to our community to really be that Lovin' Life community, really opening up ourselves to not being judgmental, allowing the prodigals to come back to the family, to the fold – reaching out and bringing a friend to church. It was a wonderful, wonderful message, and I must say that I am incredibly, incredibly proud of all of them and I want to thank all of them thus far.
18. So when I think about the job that I have here at headquarters, I really feel so lucky to be part of this American team. And so lucky to be living at this time with our True Parents. And when I think about all the men and women of history, that have gone before and will come after, I really feel that all of us seated here are lottery winners in that we get to live, and walk and breathe together with our True Parents doing the good work that we are doing.
19. Our True Parents are incredibly important to our lives and to the world, because they come bearing the breaking news. It is the teachings of our Father, Dr Rev Sun Myung Moon that have taught us that Jesus did not come to die on the cross. You know Jesus dying on the cross is just half the story. In a way, Jesus was supposed to live and find that beautiful wife so that he could be the True Parents of all mankind and help the children of God graft on to the heavenly lineage through the process of the Blessing. In essence what Jesus Christ should have done 2000 years ago is exactly what our True Parents are very well known for all across the world, and that is mass weddings. It is the portal through which the sinful children of the world can become divine, holy, purified children of the world. This is the gift that our True Parents bring.
20. When you think about it, the fact that we have a True Mother in place – for me as a woman is an incredibly inspiring fact for me, each and every day. When I was a student of theology at the Divinity school I often thought and I often looked at our movement, "you know our movement started in the East, in Korea, and a lot of the cultural baggage, the good and the bad, remain with us in our community, so when will women finally find equal footing in terms of their internal value and when will mother's be recognized as that crucial ingredient that makes a parent? And when will woman be supported and nurtured to be the incredible leaders that they can be?" These are the questions I often thought about.
21. But the great thing about indemnity and restoration and the work of providential history is that Father is taking, together with our True Mother, the providential history forward. Father started as the Messiah coming to deliver the breaking news, coming to find that wife, to find that beautiful daughter of God that he can stand together with as the True Parents of all mankind. But once they started working together, in a way our True Mother, our beautiful True Mother, also started the work of restoration. Her suffering and her determination to really see victory in her lifetime has truly resulted in her ability to stand as that victorious Eve, next to that victorious Adam, our True Father.
22. And so in a way, she has cleansed the way for all of us women to, in a way, break away from the burdens of sin, from the burdens of misunderstanding, the burdens of being regulated as second-class citizens – in our lives and in our world. Because she can stand so victoriously as that original, and that divine daughter of God, together with our True Father – women can find renewed value in themselves. We can lift our heads up high as that divine daughter of God. And in a way we can be propelled, be supported, and nurtured to do many many great works – an active work in the life of faith together with our fathers, our brothers, and our sons.
23. This is the amazing thing about our True Parents. In a way, they have come to tell us that the story, the half story of Jesus' crucifixion – and the paradigm of piety being that life of sacrifice, that life of denial – was not the true intention of our Heavenly Parent when He created Adam and Eve, His son and daughter. The true intention, the true wish that our Heavenly Parent had for all of us – is not to live our lives in denial, all alone like Jesus Christ, but what they really intended, what they had hoped for, what they had wished for – was for Jesus to be married, to have the blessing, to build an ideal family, to be that parent so that he could fully experience exactly the feeling that our Heavenly Parent felt when he created all of us. That's what God had wanted for Jesus and that's what God had wanted for all of us.
24. Had Jesus married 2000 years ago all the good Christians, all those good pious people, would not have had to waste away in an aesthetic lifestyle, or in a life of denial, many times self flagellating themselves because they were seen as sinful, they were seen as worthless, they were seen as creatures crawling on the earth not worthy to lift up their heads to the Lord. But that we were meant to be much much greater, we were meant to be that empowered and inspired son and daughter of God.
25. Had Jesus married we would have seen families instead of these single men and women who have given their lives for the faith, forgoing the true intention that God desired for all of them, which is marriage and family and the ability to experience parental love through having children of their own.
26. In a way, had Jesus married, our world would be a very, very different place. We would have understood that it's not really a life of denial that our Heavenly Parent is wanting for all of us, but what our Heavenly Parent is wanting for all of us is truly a life of fulfillment, being fulfilled in our lives, being fulfilled in our life of faith, being fulfilled building this ideal family.
27. And so, our True Father comes and says, "Jesus was not supposed to be crucified, he was supposed to have a family. The Messiah comes with an incredible gift of the blessing."
28. And whenever I think of the gift of the blessing, I often like to think back about this cartoon that I saw quite a few months ago. It was a cartoon about these pious brothers working deep, deep, deep in the earth in a dark and desolate cave, many many miles below the surface. And these brothers, under the light of a flickering candle were all huddled together on a wooden table constantly transcribing and translating these manuscripts, words from our Heavenly Father and from our dear brother Jesus Christ. And this is how they lived their lives, all crouched over, all wrinkled, they looked miserable. They looked like they had not eaten a decent meal for weeks. Their eyes are googly and bloodshot. They are so tired. They are so absolutely determined that they are going to translate and transcribe these precious words.
29. And these pious brothers are writing down the word celibate. God is asking us, all of us, to live a life of celibacy. And they are writing these words and these letters as if it's the most precious thing.
30. Then, in the midst of this solemn occasion, a young upstart brother, who doesn't quite have the right haircut, comes running down into the cave and says, "Brothers! Brothers! We have been wrong!" And the brothers look up in the cartoon and they say, "What are you talking about?" And all these older men are solemn and serious, these half starved miserable men, "What are you talking about?" And this young upstart is saying, "Brothers! Brothers! We are transcribing and translating it wrong." And these old brothers go, "What are you talking about, we've been here at work for decades. We are doing this good and great work. What are you talking?" And this young upstart says, "Brothers, you have translated and transcribed the word celibate wrong. It's not celibate, but God is commanding us to celebrate!"
31. So the young upstart says, "we forgot the 'R'" and so all of human history has been stressing the importance of celibacy, a life of denial, an ascetic lifestyle, a life in which we forgo the most precious gift in our lives, the blessing. But God, the word that he spoke, is not for us to be celibate but for us to celebrate.
32. So we forgot the 'R'. The 'R' that stands for relationship, brothers and sisters. And the reason why we need True Parents in our lives is that they bring us the breaking news, to tell us, "Look, the greatest gift that God is giving to all of us is the Blessing."
33. And Blessing means, not to just waste away as a single person, miles and miles down in some dark cave for decades, but to celebrate our lives by taking that step forward, to find that beautiful wife, or that handsome husband, and to take that step forward into actually building something beautiful and awesome, not just wishing for it in our dreams. I often think, I wonder how many of these solemn and starved brothers, miles and miles down into the earth, have often dreamed about a beautiful dance like the one we saw with the (young couples – who danced before the sermon) up here. I am sure, even if they are transcribing these solemn words, their innate desire is to experience love – something as beautiful and glorious as those two dancers whirling around on stage, truly expressing the beauty of being alive with every cell in their body. I'm sure, just like you and me, those brothers often dreamed about these things.
34. Now, with our True Parents we actually have the chance to turn it into reality and to experience it in our own lives. And the beauty of the Divine Principle is that, when you pick up a magazine anywhere – airport, at the mall, at the bookstore, and you kind of peruse through the different magazines that exist – and one of the favorite topics that they always come back to is how to make a relationship better, how to improve a relationship, "these are the tools to make your relationship work."
35. In a way the R word, relationship, is a loaded word. And nobody really knew how to go about having a great relationship in the context of a family or in the context of a relationship between a husband and wife, or in the context between siblings and colleagues and friends that we have. Nobody really knew how we need to treat each other, and be kind to each other, and be generous to each other.
36. But our True Parents come to really give us the tools on how to work these things out, by going through the experience of building ideal families of our own. Our True Father has often mentioned that the family is the textbook of love. That's where you learn about all the different relationships – the vertical and the horizontal, the relationship between husband and wife, the relationship between parent and child, the relationship between siblings. This is how we work on ourselves, by truly rubbing up against each other, by honing our skills to be that better human being. This is the gift our True Parents bring.
37. When we think about our lives, and when they realize that, for those of us who have lived with this understanding that we need to live for the sake of others, and have somehow misunderstood living for the sake of others as dying for the sake of others, we realize that God's intention, when he tells us to celebrate our lives, is not to be that shriveled up human being, the kind – like a lightbulb that is not plugged into the circuit on the wall – but what Heavenly Father wants us to do is to become that luminous light truly channeling that magical electric current that is coming through the circuit so that we can really share our light with the rest of the world. That is what our Heavenly Father wants us to do when he asks us to celebrate.
38. When you really think about it, the work of Lovin' Life has a couple things that we need to think about. Lovin' Life Ministries comes to really help us reposition our understanding of our lives as something that many of us, of the first generation, thought that it had to be a life of denial, had to be mission and nothing else, mission and no family, mission and no kids, mission above all else – and many of us were burned out along the way.
39. We need to reposition our thinking to understand that in order to celebrate our lives, in order to celebrate our faith in our community, we need to understand that God's original intention is for us, not to be living a life of denial to the extent that we can no longer function as healthy, normal, emotional, spiritual human beings – but that we need to live a life of fulfillment. We need to be alive. We need to be joyful. We need to be happy. We need to share laughter.
40. And you know when I was much younger and we had many, many Divine Principle workshops that all these second generation were asked to go to – many times the teachers looked at me and said, "That girl is truly hopeless, because she's too happy. She's not serious." In Korea, if you smile too much in a classroom setting you are seen as lightweight, you're seen as lacking gravitas, you're seen as somebody who is not serious about the matter at hand.
41. But you know, when I was younger I was truly happy. And I was happy to be alive, happy to be learning something new. But if you are not sitting there gravely, concentrating on the message at hand – your face had to be constricted, your body had to be scrunched over, you had to have clenched fists each time to show your faith, and if you didn't you were seen as someone that doesn't understand.
In Jin Moon and Jin Sung Pak with their first child Preston Shin Myung (a son born October 11, 1986)
42. But I realized that, when I became a mother, if you want to raise healthy competent children you cannot be a mother constantly looking with furrowed brows, constantly with clenched fists and constantly being serious all the time. We're going to scare our children away. I realized that in order to be an effective teacher, because I home-schooled my kids – in order to be an effective mother guiding and nurturing these kids, I had to be fun, I had to laugh, I had to attract them into the classroom to want to learn, and I had to make it interesting. I had to make it interactive. I could not just lecture, but I had to make it interactive – give them a chance to respond and a chance to contribute.
43. And I realized that the greatest learning took place when the kids were having fun. So, in a way, when we think about re-branding our church or repositioning our concepts from what it was, to what it needs to be, from that of denial to that of fulfillment – laughter and fun and excitement, interactive relationships, are crucial to the work that we need to do in terms of building healthy families, communities, and world. And Lovin' Life Ministries is here to help us re-think – a lot of the old concepts that were stifling, and to really help us liberate ourselves from the old concepts or the old models – "we cannot do this. We cannot have rock music as a part of our worship" – why not? "We cannot have people that don't look quite right on stage." Why not? Why? Does the rock band have to all be in three-piece suits brothers and sisters? "We can't have a church in a movie theater." Why not? Lovin' Life Ministries is a music ministry. In a movie theater you get Dolby surround sound, you get the best sound possible and the visuals are pretty good too. And there is a lobby there and there is an extra room for Lovin' Life kids. It's different and it's new, but why not?
44. It helps us re-think all the no's that we've had in our lives. To say, why not? Perhaps three-piece suits might be great behind the pulpit, but perhaps jeans on stage on the singers might be more natural, might be more comfortable, might be more cutting edge. These are the things that Lovin' Life Ministries is wanting to share with all of you.
45. The thing that I am so grateful for is that, despite your reservations and despite your apprehensions, all of us and all of you have given it a go. And I think after three years we can see the difference, in that in our church community we have lots of young people. When you go to other churches you will realize that there aren't that many young people in other churches – and that's what we want. We want our future to be supported and nurtured in this beautiful thing called our community, so that the future can be that much brighter.
46. Lovin' Life Ministries is here to help us restructure our concepts of the wilderness mentality which was mere survival. We were merely trying to survive for the last four or five decades out in the wilderness. We were like these little platoons going out to combat, going out under strong male leadership, a sergeant, a colonel, or a general. Its command and control in the wilderness mentality.
47. But right now we are in the settlement age. The settlement mentality has to be different. The settlement age calls for more of a compassionate leadership. Instead of that male aggressive command and control leadership that we have become accustomed to, in this age of settlement we need a different kind of leadership, a compassionate kind of leadership that is nurturing, that is caring, that is supportive, that allows the people to be inspired and empowered, wanting to connect, wanting to contribute, wanting to inherit the true love of God.
48. In a way that compassionate leadership is more feminine. And so when we think about the advent of True Parents in our lives and in our time, you realize how incredibly important that we have the masculine and the feminine truly encapsulated in this beautiful partnership called Father and Mother. They worked together. Sometimes Father goes forward and sometimes Mother goes forward. They rely on each other. They are their best friends, the best confidents. And they work together because they have a common goal, they want to build a beautiful family, they want to build a beautiful family of God.
49. This male leadership that we've been so accustomed to, is something that our True Parents basically said, "you know, a lot of you loved those old CARP leaders that told you and commanded you and all you had to do is obey, all you had to do is obey." But leaders, our next spiritual leader that our True Parents have prepared for us, who is Dr. Hyung Jin Moon – he is truly a symbol of a passionate leader. His stand is very different from the old models of MFT captains or CARP leadership. It's not like a great aggressive revolution, but his leadership style is a compassionate one. He listens, he is not afraid to care, he is not afraid to go down onto his knees to lift his brothers and sisters up, and he is not afraid to be kind. He is not afraid to be a kind of inspiration that's like the Zephyr, like the calm soothing northern winds, the kind of wind that helps to lift, gives you the airlift so that we can extend our wings and truly soar.
50. That's the kind of leadership that is required at this time. When Father comes as the Messiah, and Father and Mother come as the True Parents, they are here to make the world better, they are here to disturb the present. So, what do they do with the old model of the church? Well, I don't think 40 or 50 years ago anyone ever dreamed that a woman would be standing at the pulpit or that a woman would be leading this country. But there you go, guess what? It disturbed a lot of us, including me. But, that's how they work. They come to provoke. They come to move us forward. They come to tell us, "Have no fear, because True Parents are here!"
51. The Bible says in 1 John 4:18 "there is no fear in love. Perfect love casts out fear." And if we really honestly ask ourselves, what are the greatest struggles in our life? I think, honestly, all of us would have to say, many times when we feel inhibited, many times when we feel there are obstacles we cannot overcome, it is because we are paralyzed by fear. Because we are paralyzed in thinking that we are worthless, were not good enough, we just can't do it. But the great thing about our True Parents is that they are here telling us, "You can absolutely do it! There is nothing you cannot accomplish, because you are a divine son and a daughter of God. It doesn't matter what you've done before. It's about here and now. It's about what you can do now, and what you will do later." They give us the hope to believe in ourselves.
52. And just as every successful child usually has a dedicated father or a mother behind them. We've all had children, for those of us who have families of our own, and when a child starts to walk – what is the single thing that a child always likes to do? When they are struggling trying to find their footing and they are putting one foot above the other and trying to take those first precious steps forward – the child is not looking down at their feet. They are not looking at how much progress or what they are going to trip over, they are looking into your eyes. They are looking into the eyes of the father or the mother or the parent or whoever happens to be there – and they know that as long as you are there watching them, they have no fear. They know that because you are there we can do it, they can do it. It is having you there that gives them the courage to have no fear. And even if they fall over, even if they tumbled, even if they nick their knees, they get up and do it again – because they're looking into your face and saying, "mommy and daddy are telling me I can walk, I can walk." And that is how a child learns to walk.
53. But if we are one of these, too scared parents, basically not giving the child the latitude or the room to maneuver and make their own mistakes, to give up on their own, knowing that we are always there – if we are to helpful, if we are too much there, if we are always holding their hand, the child will never learn to walk. So, in a way, what our True Parents are doing is saying, "America, True Parents will be spending more and more time in Asia and elsewhere – but you guys can learn how to walk, because we are here. We are here. Have no fear, because True Parents are here."
54. And as long as True Parents are here there is nothing that we cannot accomplish, there is nothing that we cannot do. The only thing is fear itself. So brothers and sisters the great thing about our community is that we are not just Korean, were not just Japanese. You go to a Korean church and everybody is Korean. You go to churches in Harlem and everybody is black. You go to church in Crystal City and everybody is white. But at Lovin' Life the great thing, and that beautiful thing about our community is that we have all races. We have all cultures represented here.
55. As we go through the process, together with Lovin' Life Ministries in each district around the country, more than 100 churches altogether, repositioning our thinking, re-thinking about the old concepts that we've had, that have kept us petrified over the years – to welcome in more creativity, innovative ways of doing things, and as we think about restructuring our mentality from that of survival under the wilderness mentality – to that of prosperity and growth in the settlement age, the settlement mentality that we need to adopt and we need to make our own.
56. We realize that in this community we have the added benefit of not just having all different races but also different generations. We have grandparents all the way down to grandchildren. You never know, you might be seated next to a beautiful, beautiful Japanese lady who might turn to you after service and say, "let's 'walk' hard."
57. And when a Japanese person says let's walk hard – my brain is thinking, "What did she mean? What does walk mean?" I'm sure she is trying to say "let's work hard." But I kind of like that. I kind of dig that, brothers and sisters. Because, what they are saying, if you really listen carefully, if you listen to her heart and you listen to what she's really saying – she is giving us three messages.
58. She's not just telling us to work hard – just work, work, work. She's saying, "Wok on." Maybe she is saying that she wants us to be beautiful vegetables sautéing in a beautiful wok somewhere. So that we can be creative with our cooking, creative with our ingredients. Let's wok hard, and feed our families, give them the nutrition they need so that they can do great things.
59. Or maybe she might be saying, "Let's walk hard." Maybe she's asking us, "don't forget to take that moment to enjoy the sunshine, to enjoy the blue sky, to have a moment when you have this special time with God – to say "Thank you God, thank you for this life, thank you for this ability to walk together hand-in-hand with all the beautiful children, your children of the world, that I can call my brothers and sisters." And if we have that kind of a heart, if we have that kind of mentality – then work becomes walk, and also becomes wok, altogether.
60. And that's what Lovin' Life Ministries is all about. We are here to do the good work. We are here to do the good work of sharing the breaking news. But we've got to do some walking don't we? And we have to wok every now and then to make sure we have the substance to go on.
61. Brothers and sisters, this is an incredible time and this is an incredible place – in that America has been specially prepared as one of the greatest superpowers of the world to really exercise its ability to influence.
62. So, as we go about our daily business we must not forget about our Japanese brothers and sisters in Japan who are still fighting to exercise their religious freedom under a constitution that guarantees religious freedom. We must continue to work the good fight. And work together as one family, all of our brothers and sisters from different nations and different countries so that we can truly, not just dream about it and talk about it, but actually do the hard work of building that one family under God.
Randy Francis giving the Lovin' Life Sunday Sermon on May 27, 2012
63. So brothers and sisters please continue your ardent support for Rev. Francis who has been kind of nudged back. And last but not least Rev. Tengan, so that we can really have a great East-West unity, America unified under a united ministry where we share the same message.
64. So here in Washington, brothers and sisters, it's important to have a united ministry. Not just for ourselves. A united ministry is important for our kids. You can watch the service in the confines of your bedroom, in your jam-jams and in your slippers with a nice cup of cocoa, but if you really want to invest in the future, invest in your community and invest in your kids – you know, no successful family can be an island unto itself. If you want a successful family you need the help of a successful community. Community is a natural and essential ingredient for you and me to have healthy kids. Kids need to interact with each other to be inspired and empowered – and want to connect and want to contribute and want to inherit.
65. So, even if you have to trek a good hour or two to make it to Sunday service each and every Sunday, it's the least that we can do as mothers and fathers. When I was a mother taking care of classical pianists up in Boston, my two kids Rexton and Ariana, I did whatever was necessary to get them the best music lessons possible. We drove hours each and every day for their lessons, for their master classes. We drove down to New York City, six or seven hours of driving, for one or two hour lessons every other week – or whatever was required. This was the least that most mothers are willing to do for their classical music education.
66. Now think about, what about their moral, spiritual, emotional growth education. Don't you think we as parents can do much better than some of the parents who spend six, seven hours in the car every week to drive their child down from Boston to New York City, or from Boston to Philadelphia so that they can take master classes at Curtis, or master classes at Juilliard School. Don't you think the lessons learned in the context of a community and a context of worshiping together as a family is a much more valuable lesson, than just music lessons?
67. So this is the reason why in Washington I need your support, I need the support of you mothers out there and you fathers out there, to basically go the extra mile for the sake of your kids and for the sake of your community.
68. And so this is a Mother's Day when mothers can really kind of sit back and say, "Okay Dad, husband, serve me." But in the true Lovin' Life Ministries fashion, this is also the time when the mothers can be re-energized, and re-insentivized, empowered to say, "Hey, usually the backbone of every ministry are the sisters."
69. And so imagine if the mothers are inspired to go that extra mile for their child. Imagine what that child will be in the future. There is no reason why our children cannot be the president of the United States. There's no reason why our children should not be winning the Nobel Peace Prize in the future. There is no reason why our children cannot be Yo-Yo Ma, or give Bono a run for his money. There is nothing our children cannot do as long as we are here and as long as we are investing in them. That's the way we can assure the future of the world. That's the way we can leave the world in better hands than we found it.
Tom Cutts giving the Lovin' Life Sunday Sermon on April 22, 2012
70. For those of you who were awake for Rev. Cutts, you know, when he gave a couple of points remember, "Leave the plus" leave the world better than we found it.
71. So brothers and sisters I wish you once again a wonderful and a beautiful Mother's Day. Go inspired, go empowered. Please connect to your ministries, to your districts, work with your Lovin' Life Ministries youth pastors and your District Pastors to make magic happen. United ministry is just the backbone, it's just the core – but you are the flesh that makes it real, that makes it alive, that makes it inviting and invigorating!
72. So brothers and sisters as we continue the good work of building this ministry I wish you the greatest love from our True Parents. God bless!
1 John, chapter 4
1: Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are of God; for many false prophets have gone out into the world.
2: By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit which confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God,
3: and every spirit which does not confess Jesus is not of God. This is the spirit of antichrist, of which you heard that it was coming, and now it is in the world already.
4: Little children, you are of God, and have overcome them; for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.
5: They are of the world, therefore what they say is of the world, and the world listens to them.
6: We are of God. Whoever knows God listens to us, and he who is not of God does not listen to us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.
7: Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God, and he who loves is born of God and knows God.
8: He who does not love does not know God; for God is love.
9: In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.
10: In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the expiation for our sins.
11: Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
12: No man has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
13: By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his own Spirit.
14: And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world.
15: Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.
16: So we know and believe the love God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.
17: In this is love perfected with us, that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so are we in this world.
18: There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and he who fears is not perfected in love.
19: We love, because he first loved us.
20: If any one says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.
21: And this commandment we have from him, that he who loves God should love his brother