Dear Readers,
I'm from Burkina Faso in West Africa and I'm 23 years old. I'm a participant of the "Mouvement Reverend Sun Myung Moon" 3 years ago. But unluckily, I haven't got married yet.
I'm waiting because I like so much this true love.
I read Unification News and I was glad with this newspaper.
Then I decide to write to ask for a penfriend of U.S.A.
Nombre Zakaria
s/c Nombre Momini
01 BP 170 Ouaga 01
Burkina Faso, West Africa
by Sarah I. Davati-Ontario, CA
On July 27, Mayor of Rancho Cucamonga William Alexander hosted the first annual Parents' Day Awards Ceremony in the Inland Empire section of Southern California. The generous contribution of Ontario, CA Mayor Gus Skropos and Mayor Pro-Tem Gary Ovitt covered the use fee for the community center.
Two local churches, the Water of Life Community Church and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, co-sponsored the event. The two pastors mobilized 50 volunteers who exhibited much love and service. It was truly a testimony to their faith: love your God with all your heart and soul, and love your neighbor as yourself.
The program started with the national anthem and opening remarks by Mayor Alexander, who said: "Healthy families are the foundation of strong communities. Through National Parents' Day we can celebrate and reflect on the importance of parents and recognize the significant role they play in the lives of children, families and individuals."
The ceremony followed with presentation of a city proclamation to National Parents' Day Coalition representative In Hoi Lee. The nominees for exemplary parents received certificates from the mayor. We had nominees from different cities in the Inland Empire section of Southern California. Each family took a picture with the mayor as he presented them with their certificate.
There were four different categories of parents, organizations, and individuals with outstanding standards of service and devotion to their family and community being recognized.
Congressman Jay Kim's remarks were presented by his representative. He said: "At a time when we see more families where both parents are forced to work, we need to remind ourselves that it is not the government's role to raise our children. Nor is it a teacher's responsibility. Parents need to take the primary responsibility for raising their children-instilling morals and teaching those values which we want our nation to represent in the next century. Through active participation in all facets of their children's lives, parents can mold and shape their children into the type of citizens who can lead the United States into the 21st century."
After the Adult Choir sang, Judge Linda Wild spoke, followed by my remarks as event organizer: "The call to parenthood is a lifelong commitment and responsibility. We hope that through National Parents' Day we can empower and strengthen individuals and parents to meet the challenges to create effective school-church-family partnership for learning to serve the needs of America's diverse families."
More than 300 parents and children participated. The audience was very attentive and friendly and the children very well behaved. There were public officials from all across the Inland Empire. The program ended with the audience singing hand-in-hand together, "My Country 'Tis of Thee."
It was a memorable and wonderful event. The NPDC has been recognized by many public officials and dignitaries. It is my desire to establish a local chapter of NPDC and elect officers among those who participated. We want to carry on seminars and workshops on a monthly basis in order to restore the culture and renew the community.
This event was the first step. It was a great victory for True Parents, founders of National Parents' Day.
Congratulations to all the sacrificial volunteers of the NPDC.
Saturday, July 26, 1997 at Japan America Theater (1,000 seat capacity) in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles. The first festival, one of the largest National Parents' Day events, impressed so many Japanese and Japanese American people that the second one was supported by many community leaders. The event was chaired by former Long Beach Mayor Eunice N. Sato. The consul general of Japan came to deliver a congratulatory speech. The Nisei Week Queen came to present flowers to the final candidates for Nikkei Parents of the Year. The Nikkei Parents' Day Festival was held as a participating event for Nisei Week Japanese Festival, the largest Japanese American festival in America. The mayor of Los Angeles issued a congratulatory message for this Second festival. Various Japanese businesses and Japanese and American corporations donated about $25,000 to fund this big event.
The Nikkei Parents' Day Festival was created to celebrate National Parents' Day by holding a Japanese speech contest on the topic of "Parents" and by bestowing the Nikkei Parents of the Year award. In addition to family values-conscious entertainment, the art contest on the theme of Parents and Family was held this year. From about 400 entries, 120 were selected and exhibited at the Japan America Theater. Although most community VIPs had been invited to the Miss Nikkei Dinner Show, many of them chose to attend the Nikkei Parents' Day Festival, which began at 5pm.
As for the Parents of the Year Award, profiles of three couples in the 70s, 80s and 90s were introduced with slides and English narration. Then, three of their daughters presented testimonies about their precious loving parents, giving gratitude for the awards. Each presentation moved the parents to tears. The Parents of the Year Award, Consul General of Japan Award, and UTB Award were given respectively to the three couples.
During the reception following the three-hour program, the former president of the Japanese Chamber of Commerce of Southern California praised this event and made an appeal to extend Parents' Day to become a universal holiday around the world.
Funding is critical for this big event. It cost $20,000 last year. This year, seven Japanese Kodan sisters worked hard to raise funds by selling ads for the program book. Over 200 corporations and businesses bought ads or donated to support the event. The amount topped $25,000. Two of the seven sisters are 7-8 months pregnant. They phoned corporations from a list to contact the right person. In some cases, a sister called ten times and left messages to complete the ads or donation agreement. The responsible person finally took the message and sent a check for $100. They raised funds during the two months from mid-April through mid-June. Right after this fundraising, they started the Blessing campaign. Most of them Blessed 185 couples by the end of July. One pregnant sister Blessed 185 by July 15. Those sisters showed absolute faith.
Because of the Blessing campaign, a very limited number of members were involved in the preparations. So some of the members, like expectant sister Aya Kitamura, had to sacrifice many things to carry out their heavy duties. However, one non-member volunteered to help make this big event possible. A local Japanese TV company (UTB) was interested in this volunteer group, the Nikkei Parents' Day Festival Committee, and made a 15-minute TV program, which aired July 23, three days before the event. The largest Japanese American local newspaper, Rafu Shimpo, carried substantial articles in several issues.
The event was made possible with moral support from our regional director Rev. In Hoi Lee, our Japanese church leader Mr. Hiroshi Inose, and many others. Los Angeles is moving the West Coast and America ahead!
At a ceremony in Seoul on August 9-July 7 in the lunar calendar-Father declared a new Holy Day and announced the engagement of two of his sons.
The new Holy Day is called "Declaration of the Cosmic Resting Realm (Place) for the True Parents in Heaven and Earth."
True Parents announced the engagement of two sons:
Young Jin Nim is engaged to Hwa Jung Yoo (1800-couple daughter of Jong-So Yoo and Sang-Nan Lee).
Hyun Jin Nim is engaged to Yun Ah Lee (777-couple daughter of Seung Dae Lee and Eun Jung Joo).
In his speech, Father acknowledged of those nations which had accomplished the most result in preparation for the 3.6 million Blessing in November: 1st Korea--over one million, 2nd Philippines 950,000, 3rd Nigeria 750,000, 4th Ghana 660,000. He also spoke about the Blessing of 36 million couples to be held in 1998 as the foundation for God to go freely to all levels--back and forth, vertically, horizontally, beyond race, nation.
Volume 1 part 6
Obviously the world we know is hardly the world of God's ideal; indeed, the proverbial description of our earth as a "vale of tears" is not far from the mark. Let us inquire how this could come to be the case.
Observing different earthly phenomenon, we note they all exist within the realm of time. Chemists recognize that in any chemical process, for example, time must elapse before a result can occur. All backyard gardeners know a summer must pass before their tomatoes can be harvested. In the case of the formation of the earth, geologists believe it took as long as four billion years to develop to its present state.
Time is also needed for movement. Each movement has a point that it starts from, a path that it follows, and a concluding point. In the natural world, a lightening bolt reaching a speed of 87,000 miles per second still needs a beginning and an ending point, a path to follow and time to occur.
"Days" as epochs
According to the Bible it took six days for God to complete His work. While indicating that time was integrated into God's creation, this teaching appears contradictory to the discoveries of modern sciences which emphasize the evolution of the earth over eons of time. Reconciling the two understandings, Divine Principle teaches the six days in Genesis does not mean a literal 144 hours. As we are told by the Second Letter of Peter that "with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day" (II Peter 3:8), so we may perhaps best understand the "six days" of creation as the ages or epochs through which God completed His creative work.
They correspond roughly to the successive ages many scientists say the earth has passed through in its development.
The French Jesuit Teilhard de Chardin, who is well-known for his paleontological work in China, notes that when observed in terms of millions of years, life can easily be seen to move in a definite direction. While anti-religious scientists maintain that development takes place randomly, Teilhard argues that from the lowest to the highest level of the organic world there is a persistent and clearly defined thrust of animal forms toward species with more sensitive nervous systems. For both Teilhard and Divine Principle, the divine mind behind creation is working according to a plan.
States Of Growth
"But you can, Jonathan. For you have learned. One school is finished, and the time has come for another to begin." -Jonathan Livingston Seagull.
Since no one or no thing becomes mature in an instant, growth is a vital dynamic in human life. If one is to fulfill his destiny, if one is to come to full maturity in the eyes of God, he must grow through time. As with all living things, to cease to grow is to die.
While the phenomenon of growth is widely recognized, it is recently coming to be understood in new ways. What Harvard's Erik Erikson did for children, and apparently what Richard Bach did for seagulls, Gail Sheehey has now done for adults; in her bestseller `Passages' she had pointed out that growth never stops: There are different phases of human growth, even in adulthood, and then emergence of advanced phases depends on the successful completion of earlier ones. While Erikson has identified these phases for children and adolescents, Sheehey has begun the task of identifying them for adults. As she points out, the phenomenon of growth is a lifelong process, often precipitated by crises and difficulties.
While recognizing that there are innumerable phases of human development, Divine Principle nevertheless suggests a three-stage model as descriptive of this process. One's movement toward maturity may be thought of in terms of formation, growth and completion. During the first years of his life a child learns how to walk and talk and how to use his personality as a self-concept are established during these formative years.
As he grows older he attains most of his physical size, develops a greater measure of independence from his parents and cultivates his own circle of friends. Thus he actualizes the growth stage of his life. Reaching adulthood he not only becomes mature physically, but, ideally speaking, during this completion stage he also gains an autonomous personality and develops a mature capacity to love and work.
Since every being develops through these three general stages, Divine Principle teaches that the number three represents the state of completion.
The Dominion of God.
Although most Christians tend to claim that from birth to death man is guided and governed by the strong love of a kind Heavenly Father, they also affirm, on the other hand, that man is the master of his state and the captain of his soul. There is thus a considerable tension for Christian believers between the faith that God rules -- and the equally strong belief that man possesses free will. Resolving this paradox has been no easy task.
Divine Principle addresses this question by reference to the direct and indirect dominions of God. According to Divine Principle, God's rule over man before he reaches maturity is indirect, a relationship which can be explained by analogy to the natural world. During the period of growth each thing of the material creation operates by the autonomous power of natural law.
The snow and rain come, the seasons change and day dawns and night falls, all because of the prearranged law of nature, created by God.
God relates to immature man in a comparable way. We may say that men and women who have not reached a spiritually mature state are guided by spiritual law. Thus, the period of growth is the time of God's indirect dominion of mankind.
We should note that this indirect dominion can often be a period of difficulty and instability. Physically, if we do not live in accordance with the rules of good health we may injure or destroy our bodies. Likewise spiritually, if we ignore the principles of God, or if we engage in spiritually unhealthy activities, we are likely to suffer as a result. By aligning ourselves with God's principles and laws, we can grow to full maturity and health, both spiritually and physically. In this way our growth beyond the indirect dominion becomes possible. On the other side of the indirect dominion, we enter the direct dominion of God's love.
My daughter Hana Lyn just turned fourteen. She just graduated from middle school and in the fall will enter Glen Burnie High School. A few weeks before school ended, I came home to an excited young lady waving a leaflet for a national bus tour - Pure Love '97.
"Can I go? Can I go?" she pleaded. The leaflet explained that there would be a national bus tour going to 23 cities promoting the following ideals: • A strong family is the center of an enduring and prosperous community and nation • The bond of love and trust between husband and wife is the basis for a strong family • Chastity before marriage is the best foundation for marital love and trust.
In response to her urgent pleas I replied, "First, we'll have to contact them and see if you can go. The tour is for high school and college kids and your just entering high school. Second, you'll have to raise the money yourself."
Well, the folks from the Pure Love Alliance were happy to have her, and Hana Lyn bustled around for the next few weeks to raise the money for the trip. The last Friday of June, we put her on an airplane with about 30 other young adults bound for LA and the beginning of the tour.
Since then, we've gotten excited calls from LA, San Francisco, Sacramento, Missoula, Montana, Salt Lake City, and Boulder, Colorado. She's been gone about three weeks and the tour has four weeks left to go.
We've also heard reports from other sources. The Pure Love '97 "Absolute Sex National Tour" has been creating a stir on the national news and the late night talk shows.
A friend of mine told me that he had seen on "Politically Incorrect" a segment in which the host commented on the Pure Love Alliance. He thought that it was a terrible thing that young people were out demonstrating against sex. From my friends report, the panelists unanimously united against the host in saying that it was an admirable thing that there were young people out there who wanted to stay pure until marriage.
Next, I received an e-mail that Jay Leno had included material on the Pure love Alliance in his monologue on the Tonight Show. He represented the tour as supporting virginity. His punch line was questioning whether or not they would find any virgins in Los Angeles.
Then, last night I got faxes of articles on the Pure Love Tour that had appeared in USA Today and other papers. Of particular interest to me was the front page story in the Deseret News from Salt Lake:
"For thirty years, free sex has run amok. It's this runaway train of immorality," said Hana Lyn Colvin, 14, of Glen Burnie, Md. "We're bringing people hope and the idea of world peace through ideal families."
Wow! There's my little girl speaking out for what she believes on the front page of the newspaper!
Needless to say, I'm proud and grateful that she can play a part campaigning for righteousness, serving as an example for other young people. The cause that these young people are championing strikes to the root of America's problems. In fact, it strikes to the root of mankind's problems.
As usual, the comedians, and the pundits haven't quite got the message that this group is trying to convey. They're not campaigning against sex. What they are proclaiming is the ideal of Absolute Sex.
Absolute Sex?
Absolute Sex is a term that was coined by Rev. Moon. In this concept, the sexual union between a man and a woman is a sacred gift from God. In God-centered marriage, there is total sexual freedom and man and woman can enjoy the full ecstasy of joyfully sharing their love through their physical relationship. In a God-centered marriage, a man's sexual organs belong to his wife, and a woman's sexual organs belong to her husband. It is through this joyful relationship that conjugal love can bear fruit in the creation of new life in the image of the parents. Children born through the union of the absolute love of God, husband and wife are a joy to God, a joy to man, a joy to woman, and a precious gift to the world. This gift of love and joy is meant to be shared in marriage. That is the proper God-given purpose of the sexual organs.
Before marriage, young men and woman should remain pure. Once married they should be eternally faithful to their spouses. Men and women are responsible for how they use their sexual organs.
In fact, the proper use of the sexual organs is the key to either heaven or hell. If people are chaste until marriage; if they enter into marriage with the love and blessing of God; if they are faithful and loving to their spouse; then, they can experience the love of God through their union with their spouse. If they fail in developing self-control; if they let their sexual desire lead them into premature relationships of selfish love prior to marriage; if they engage in acts of infidelity after they are married; they will find their lack of chastity to be their Achilles heel. Just as the legendary age of Camelot was destroyed by the adulterous relationship of Lancelot and Guenevere, people who do not control their sexual organs shall see their castles crumble and their lives shaking on seas of shifting sand. Absolute God-centered marriage is the foundation for God's love and a stable society.
This is the message of absolute sex. In layman's terms it is the virtue of chastity - purity before marriage, and fidelity in marriage. This is the cause for which my daughter, Hana Lyn, and her friends are touring the country.
Isn't it a great message? I think that this should be the core of any sex education that we teach in the schools. The biggest responsibility and the greatest challenge that any person faces in their life is to control their sexual organs. If they develop self-control in their teen-age years and develop a good character, they will have the foundation for a stable marriage and an invincible family life. They will have the kind of self-control and stability that will lead to success in other areas of their life. If they violate the ideal of chastity and absolute sex, they will find that it reaps painful rewards.
The free sex movement of the '60s taught just the opposite. Many young people felt that they should experience multiple sexual partners. It was popular for young people to live together without the commitment of marriage. Casual sex came into vogue. In the '70's we even saw for a period of time a fad of wife-swapping.
A generation later we see the miserable harvest of these misguided ideas. America is plagued with AIDS, teen-pregnancy, pornography, and family breakdown. The decline of the family is seen to be a root cause for an increasing cycle of poverty, crime, and abuse in our society. Moreover, just as in the book of Genesis, a generation after Adam and Eve broke their bond of love with God, the sin of murder entered the world with the murder of Abel; so also, a generation after the sexual revolution we are witnessing the generation of murder on the streets of our towns and cities across America.
It is time to heal our land. The healing must come through the love of God. Strong God-centered families are the prisms through which God's love can flow into our communities. The message of Absolute Sex is the medicine for the soul of America. The work of the Pure Love Alliance and Pure love '97 strikes to the root of our national ills.
God Bless these young people. Let us help them to proclaim their ideal, to restore our land, and to help our nation and the world enter a new millennium of peace, love, and unity.
uViews: September 97
Let us search for the one principle that unifies us all. Why should we value such a principle? We value it because it is the key to peace and unification. Peace is a negative term, meaning absence of war. Unification is a positive term, meaning becoming one body. So we need a principle for peace and unification, by which we can not just stop fighting but also become one. Ceasing to fight brings an end to pain and destruction. Be becoming one, we feel joy, and something greater is created.
That principle cannot abide in heaven or in an ivory tower, but here on earth. It must be tangible and real to everyone. In fact, it must be a principle lodged deep in each heart, into which religion enters only in its most sacred precincts. And it cannot be a principle external to the object for which we are striving, like a wrench with which we fix an engine. The principle must be intrinsic to the object for which we are striving; it must be a renewal of the engine from within itself. The means and the ends must be one. That principle for which we are searching is marriage.
Marriage unites the two kinds of human beings: man and woman. These two kinds are made for each other. Gloria Steinam coined the expression that a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle. That saying is wicked in its cleverness but also absurd in its comparing women to fish (Now, men are similar in many ways to bicycles. They keep their balance as long as they are moving forward at an adequate pace, but that's beside the point.) Actually, in the fallen world, men and women do cause each other pain and suffering. "Women," the men's saying goes, "You can't live with'em and you can't live without'em." In other words, in the world of men and women, you can't live at all. This has been true for the fallen world. But we need not erect this as our guiding principle, as per Steinam, because such a principle does indeed befit a world in which no one can live and no one essentially needs each other.
Then the principle we are seeking is the principle by which men and women can live together and not cause each other pain and suffering. That principle of marriage, therefore, must presuppose a more internal principle, that of true love, i.e., life for the sake of others. And life for the sake of others in turn presupposes the principle of "mind over body," or "spirit over flesh." This is not to erase or reduce the value of the body, but just to put it in its proper relationship to mind and spirit.
So our principle would be that the mind guides the body to a life for the sake of others for the purpose of marriage.
Now, when we say the word, "marriage," we naturally think of a man and woman. But I will suggest we apply this term to the unification of greater wholes, for example, differing religions, races and nations. But this comes only through completion or perfection within the most essential realm, which is that of the individual man and woman.
Marriage and Religion
I am not talking of a marriage of religions based upon agreement about doctrine and ritual. I am talking about a marriage of religions based upon, well, marriage itself. Marriage is a connecting point of all religions. All religions oversee the institution of marriage within the culture or society. All religions concur in general, and even in the most important specifics, about the content and purpose of marriage. Marriage is a public ceremony bringing together one man and one woman into a lifetime relationship of living together, mutual ownership, mutual comfort and support; and shared responsibility for the purpose of creating lineage and supporting the larger community. Therefore, the institution of marriage in its content actually unites the many very distinct kinds of religions.
The way the leaders or representatives of the world's religions can unite is by agreement on a common cause. The most available common cause is that of the sanctity and importance of marriage. Marriage stands at the nexus of social policy, personal spirituality and political urgency. Beginning with marriage, one can move into the realms of education, morality, economy, health and human services, culture and entertainment.
Sociality of Nations
Marriage is also a great celebration. It is a time of dance and song, of renewing friendships and affirming the solidarity of the clan. It connects clans one to another. It has been a means of building peace between nations. If a marriage between a Spaniard and an Englander was strong, then the bond between the nations was strong. As marriage has become legalistic, so too has the bond between nations.
Marriage is also the ground or wellspring of righteousness in men. Ask any employer; employers would far rather hire a married man than a single man. Marriage begets stability, responsibility and maturity. The creation of children, in other words, is the creation of parents, and parents are what society needs. Married men settle down and tend to quit or at least reduce their selfish habits (drinking, whoring, running in gangs). Note that this behavioral effect is NOT brought about by cohabiting with a woman; it comes only through legal marriage.
A Crusade for Marriage
While the marriage ceremony itself is a time of great celebration, for most couples, the celebration stops after the honeymoon is over. It is time, however, to keep the marriage celebration ongoing. "It's great to be married!" should become the rallying cry of the new generation. Indeed, there will be no other generation besides that which celebrates marriage. Homosexuals, lesbians and single swingers are the grasshoppers of the world. They make no plans for the future because they create no future. Faithful, pure married people are the ants, creating a future. The next thirty years are the howling north winds.
To walk the walk and talk the talk to the various religions equally, the leadering must be undertaken within the realm of a world civil religion. A civil religion provides a broad umbrella for all the world's various faiths, not attempting to replace them. The theme of each religion is that we advocate true families; Muslims advocate true families; Christians advocate true families, Buddhists advocate true families, etc. Within the marriage vows of all traditions there surely are common threads, nay, planks upon which marriage is blessed.
Godism and Deism
About three hundred years ago, a movement called "deism" sprang up, first in England, spreading to Germany, turning anti-clerical in France, and having major influence in the formation of the United States. Deism arose in response to the bloody wars of religion of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Armies were slaughtering each other over questions of theology, over whether we are saved by grace or by works. Many felt that no one was getting saved at all by the mass carnage of these wars.
Lord Herbert of Cherbury, a man who felt himself guided by the Holy Spirit, called for an end to hostilities based upon agreement upon universal religious principles: the existence of God, that God ought to be worshipped; that virtue is the chief element in this worship; that repentance for sin is a duty, and that there is another life of rewards and punishments. Beyond that, he said, everyone can believe what they want to believe in private.
This deism failed not so much in what it affirmed but in what it rejected. Deism rejected that assertion that God is involved in the human realm, through miracles, revelation and providence. This rejection of God's mysterious hand in the world grew out of deism's marriage to the optimistic science of the age, and to the scientific agenda to explain all reality without recourse to supernatural forces. Deism eventually was used, in France in particular, to drive God out of the world. It became an anti-God system of belief, which undergirded the French Revolution. Today's secular humanism is a legacy of Lord Herbert's deism.
But deism took another path in the English colonies of the Atlantic coast. A moderate deism with a sentimental friendliness to God provided an ideological environment for the marriage of politics, science, economy and religion in the newborn United States. Franklin, Jefferson, Madison, Washington and others were Christian deists, comfortable in the church pew or at the Whitefield revival, but also comfortable in the congresses of revolutionalry France and in their Masonic halls. Their calm and tolerant deism provided the foundation for a "cool" public square in which the various "hot" religions could jostle for the attention of the public.
The contemporary pro-family movement is a fruit of this Americanized, late-eighteenth-century spirit of deism. The pro-family movement is almost entirely a product of Christianity, but there is ample space for conservative Jews and secular psychologists. Jesus' role as savior is not intrinsic to the pro-family message. Rather, he is a model of true love, which we all should emulate in order to become good husbands and wives, fathers and mothers. Christian bookstores are full of pro-family books, but, of the dozens I have read or reviewed, few if any make an evangelical appeal. None state that you must be a born-again Christian in order to have a good family. In fact, content which is specifically Christian is virtually non-existent. These books could be written on the foundation of any of the great religions of this world.
This has a good and bad side. On the bad side, it means that this pro-family movement has nothing to do, in terms of its ideas, with the God of revelation and providence. In other words, the books could have been written 100, 500 or 1,000 years ago; they are not time-specific. It matters not whether you are Catholic or Protestant, or what doctrine of the Trinity you hold, or whether you allow instruments in your church. These pro-family messages are not tied to particular revelations of God, but rather on eternal verities.
Well, what's wrong with that? you ask. What is wrong is that God is involved with the world and is disclosing new truth, new revelations. The weakness of 16th century deism was that it blocked the living God out of the world; so too, believe it or not, can the pro-family movement. Look at John the Baptist. He was totally in tune with God's providence, until that providence stared him in the face through Jesus Christ. Then John disconnected from the providence, failed to become Jesus' disciple, and lost everything, dying over a matter of political intrigue.
It is always better to emphasize the good side, however. The good side of the "deism of the pro-family movement" is its manifestation of the family as the common ground upon which all religions can finally meet, without denying their own inherent meaning. In other words, a Muslim can affirm the family because it is consistent with the Qur'an; a Christian can affirm the family because it is consistent with the New Testament; a Jew because it is in the Torah; a Hindu because it is spoken in the Gita; a Buddhist because it is affirmed by Buddha, etc. Thus, the leaders of the various religions can agree about something very concrete, and take constructive steps forward together based upon this agreement.
Selfish, materialistic values are no respecters of religion. All religions are being assaulted. AIDS, prostitution, illegitimate children, divorce, crime, drug abuse ... these enemies are entering every sacred assembly. The edifices of faith must make a common cause today. To do so, however, they cannot be satisfied with the espousal of eternal verities, the removal of the living God from the world. To do that would be to go the way of 16th century deism. The faithful of all religions must examine their traditions for openings to the future, to prepare for the vast changes which God is bringing upon the Earth, and to work together with God as members of His one worldwide family.
by Joy Pople
When Reverend Moon asked for volunteers to help with youth ministries overseas, I volunteered and was assigned to Mexico.
It wasn't until the airplane started descending that I began to get cold feet. Mexico isn't that far away from the United States. Hey, a flight from New York to Mexico City takes less time than a flight to California. Our countries share a border and a river. I had studied Spanish. I wasn't going that far away.
I arrived in Mexico in the spring of 1975 with a thousand dollars in my pocket, to be used in case of emergency. I would need to work to meet most living expenses. And in Mexico, if you can speak English, you can earn enough money to survive by giving English classes.
You cannot go to Mexico without being assaulted by many new sights, sounds, smells and tastes. About one fifth of the 60,000,000 inhabitants of Mexico live in the capital, and that was my destination. Since I assumed I would be there for several years, if not the rest of my life, I wanted to plunge in.
It seemed like a plunge. In mid-May the weather is hot and dry, and the atmosphere is polluted. At 7,000 feet above sea level, oxygen is sparse. Nestled in a mountain basin, where little air circulates, and being home to an oil refinery and untold thousands of cars with no emission controls, Mexico City has few equals around the world in poor air quality.
My German companion, Sylvia, had arrived a few days earlier. She had rented a room a few blocks from the tourist area. It was a ground-floor room with no window. The adjacent bathroom had a toilet stool with a shower head immediately above it. No sink. Whole families lived in rooms like ours that lined the narrow courtyard. The children stared at us. The women found us amusing.
Sylvia had bought some lovely-looking green peppers at the market and decided to cook them for me to eat along with some fresh tortillas, to celebrate my arrival. A neighbor let us use her charcoal brazier. Our faces turned red and sweat poured down our forehead as we chewed. Later we learned that the veins of the chili peppers contain most of the aromatic oils, and if you clean out the veins before you cook them, the chilies don't burn quite as much. We learned a lot of things the hard way, by experience. We were willing to go almost anywhere and try almost any kind of food.
The women in the markets were delighted to tell us the names of exotic fruits and vegetables, give us samples, and tell us how to cook or serve them. It takes an entire year to experience the whole array of tropical bounty. Of all the fruits, mangos were my favorite. Fresh off the tree out in a village. Lush piles of yellow, orange or reddish-green fruits in the market. Juice dripping down your chin. Cool in the hottest of days.
We stayed for a while with a Japanese family, and I gave the children English lessons to help pay rent. Our third companion in mission was a Japanese man named Sato. If people from three formerly enemy nations can get along, there is hope for world unity. The three of us had our ups and downs.
We lived in an apartment building where washing is done at sinks on the roof and hung up on clotheslines. Being an American, I like to do things efficiently. Therefore, I would fill buckets with water and put my clothes in them, on the theory that it is less difficult to get the dirt out if you pre-soak the clothes. However, all the other women would wet each piece, rub soap on it, scrub it, and then rinse it before going on to the next piece. One old woman constantly criticized me: "Didn't your mother teach you how to wash?" After observing things for a while, I learned that people paid this woman to do their wash. When I started paying her to wash clothes for me on occasion, she stopped criticizing me.
I love music. Mexicans love music. Their traditional ranchero music is similar to American country music in its rhythms and tales of lost or betrayed love. Sylvia plays guitar, and she kept talking about wanting a guitar. We asked our Heavenly Father for a guitar and at one point, we had five-none of them much good-and Sylvia taught me some basic chord cycles. We learned to play Mexican music, and with my guitar and a repertoire of two Beatles songs, I was welcome at any party.
An American in Mexico runs into puzzling situations. There seems to be a mixture of admiration, envy and resentment for Americans. I remember in high school reading about the Mexican-American war of 1848 as a kind of interlude between our westward expansion and the Civil War, our heroes the valiant men who defended the Alamo against hopeless odds. Mexicans learn about the various times the United States military invaded Mexico.
I would get so frustrated when I saw Mexicans adopting some of the worst aspects of our popular culture. Visible evidence was the emulation of Saturday Night Fever styles of dress and talking. I would think of the American proverb: "You cannot keep the birds from flying over your head, but you can keep them from building nests in your hair." Translations of that proverb were not very favorably received.
Mexico is a land of abundance. Its geographic shape has been likened to a horn of plenty. It has bountiful resources of food, minerals, climate, and people. Mexicans blame their economic woes on the United States, but when a recent Mexican president left office after his six-year term, he was the sixth richest person in the world.
I couldn't make up for all the wrongs committed by my country. All I could do was offer a listening ear, a caring heart, and a hand of service. One meets a lot of beggars in Mexico. I gave people food. I collected clothes and bedding for people who came knocking at our door. But I seldom handed out money. A friend wanted me to meet his sister, who was in need of some guidance or counseling. We showed up at her house, much to her surprise, around mealtime. She fed us the stuffed chili peppers she had prepared for her children's meal, much to my dismay.
When an American or European tries to give advice in Mexico it is often dismissed with the comment, "Oh, that works in an advanced country such as yours, but it wouldn't work here." However, Mexicans do admire the Japanese. Japan never invaded Mexico and at that point did not exert a major economic influence on the country, so the roots of resentment are not so strong. When Japan wanted to end its centuries-old isolation it sent emissaries around the world to observe the best aspects of each culture, which could then be adapted by the Japanese. Japan rose out of the destruction of war to become a major world power. Mexico could also.
We visited churches and schools. We talked to people on the streets and in the parks, asking them if they were interested in talking about God. Some were. Some weren't. We gave lectures and held seminars on the Divine Principle, a systematic study of the nature of God and the universe that encompasses three main topics: the way God envisioned the world, how things went wrong, and how God has been working throughout history to restore the lost ideal.
Few young people knew very much about the Bible. They were interested in learning to know us, and they invited us to their home villages to meet their families. However, the idea of applying spiritual principles in daily life seemed pretty foreign to many young people.
Some of the most serious-minded young people we met were martial arts practitioners, and Sylvia and I enrolled at a taekwon-do school. We engaged in spiritual and physical training and discipline. Among the students and professors we found people who could grasp the vision of a life of sacrificial love and service for God, for the nation, and for humankind.
We reached out to both Catholics and Protestants in a country there is little communication between the two versions of Christianity. I became close friends with a Jesuit priest, Padre Carlos. He had spent years of missionary work with the Tarahuamara Indians in northern Mexico His experiences there were the high point of his spiritual life, and it broke his heart to be reassigned to the capital. Padre Carlos asked me to help with a project in a poor section of the capital, where he and several families who were involved in the Catholic charismatic movement hoped to spark a difference in the lives of the people. I was asked to offer some English conversation classes and lead and lead an evening song and prayer service. With some of the women, I went door to door explaining about the school and inviting children and families to participate. Sylvia and I had collected various simple songs and choruses, some of Catholic origin and others from Protestant churches, which I taught those who came. We would read Bible passages and pray, both recited prayers and spontaneous prayers. I was so moved by the earnestness of the people.
Sometimes I stayed with one of the families who were spearheading the community efforts. I offered to cook an American-style dinner for one family. They were delighted. I realized I had nearly forgotten how to cook American food. The first year I was in Mexico I ate whatever was available and got sick about once a week, until my body adjusted. However, after four years a bout with hepatitis seemed to indicate that it was time to return to the United States.
Sixteen years after returning to the United States, one of my most vivid memories is a trip with a Baptist evangelist to Chiapas, a state in southern Mexico. Emilio traveled from village to village selling Bibles and showing filmstrips of the life of Jesus. He invited me to join him and his family on a trip over the Easter break. Having a gringa along would be a drawing card for getting people to attend the gatherings. I had my guitar, as usual, and taught people simple choruses. Sometimes, as we were walking towards the meeting place, Emilio would say, "It's your turn to speak tonight." I would look at the roomful of faces lit up by the single electric light bulb hanging from the ceiling and talk in a simple way about our Heavenly Father, who created the world out of love and who sent His son Jesus out of love for us. The audiences were attentive, but I wondered how many of the people understood my American-accented Spanish.
Traveling with people offers an unequaled opportunity to learn to know them more deeply. Emilio and his family took me to villages not found on any map. At Emilio's home village, where we spent Easter, people lived in mud-brick houses. We sat on sections of tree trunks and slept on woven cord mats suspended from four posts.
I met Emilio's mother and several of her children, as well as his sister and her children. The children were pale, thin and listless. In contrast, Emilio's three children were chubby, bright and energetic. Emilio's wife bought food at the market and prepared it for her children, who ate while their cousins stood with empty eyes in a circle around them.
I had nothing to offer the people but my efforts and heart. Each morning I made tortillas for the day. It would take a couple of hours to shape the tortillas, pound them flat and even between the palms of my hands, and cook them just so on the round tin sheet balanced over a wood fire. A properly cooked tortilla has a thin skin on top and bottom, with a thicker core. The women and children watched me shape and cook one tortilla after another. If it wasn't exactly round, I had to re-shape it.
On Easter Sunday, someone bought a scrawny chicken, cut it up into nineteen pieces, and cooked it in a watery broth. I will never forget the eyes of the village children as they looked at the one precious cube of meat and bone that was their holiday treat. As the honored guest, I was served two pieces of meat.
The drive back to Mexico City took about 16 hours. Emilio was exhausted, so I did most of the driving. Three adults, three children, a teenager returning to school in the city, and a puppy filled the medium-sized car.
As midnight approached, our road wound up the escarpment from the semi-tropical seacoast of Mexico to the dry central highlands. Perched on the border between the two climates is Mexico's highest mountain, the Pico de Orizaba. An extinct volcano capped with eternal snow, the Pico de Orizaba is usually shrouded in fog and clouds. I was at the wheel, the only person awake in the car, when suddenly, rounding a bend, I saw the shimmering splendor of the Pico de Orizaba emerge in the moonlight. I pulled the car off the road and walked over to the edge of the lookout, to absorb the awesome sight. It was as if I was alone, facing God, the Creator and eternal loving Parent. Clouds and fog, often of our own making, obstruct our view of Him many times. Still God is always near, watching, waiting, longing to embrace all His children.