Sun Myung Moon
June 20, 1982
Belvedere
All men and women are supposed to get married. When you look at all creation -- plants, animals, whatever -- everything has a reciprocal relationship between subject and object. Why do we need a pair system? The truth is very simple: in order to survive. Without a pair system nothing could survive, all the animals would have become extinct, plants would have died out, you would not be here.
God thinks of leaving good seeds behind, good generations behind. In order to have a good posterity, you need a good fiance; anyone who wants a good fiance reflects that nature of things.
You need a fiance for love, yes, but beyond love there is a higher goal or objective: to multiply or reproduce, so your life can be extended. So the consequences or result of love is children. They are the fruit of love, and they will carry your love, your image, your soul, your heart, and even your life itself, to successive generations. Thus, your children are part of you, and because of that you love them.
We all want to project into the future something better than the past. When you get married your hope should be to project something better into the future. That is human nature; we live on hope. You are destined to have children who are better than you or your fiance.
Consummate Yourselves As Parents
During my years of searching, the first time I met God, I asked Him what the essence of the universe was. The beginning is love and the end result is father and children, I found out. So why did God create the universe and man? In order to establish the world of love, through which the father-son relationship could be formed. You yourselves came to the world as the fruit of love, and you must consummate yourselves as parents. That is your goal.
Women always want to check how much their husband loves them, what direction his love goes in, and what size it is. Throughout your life, they will keep asking you how much you love them. So don't give them too much initially! In the beginning, you might say, "1 love you very much, the size of a bean!" Then later the love becomes the size of a tennis ball, next the size of a football, etc. Ultimately, your love will reach the size of the universe. But don't give the universe first! I tell Mother now, "Yes, I love you the size of the universe."
Of men and women, which is more sensitive? There is no doubt that women are. Men, beware of looking the other way when you answer your wife. She will ask, "Why do you look in another direction? Look at me." When God gave the commandment in the Garden of Eden, He knew well the strengths and weaknesses of men and women, since He was the Creator. He knew the vulnerability in women's heart, so He worried more about women. Therefore, women must take extra care, extra precaution. Women want to dress up, make themselves beautiful, more so than they really are.
Women have a very advanced sense of comparison. I had a younger sister in the good old days of my family life. One day we were walking down the street and a good-looking man happened to pass by. A few steps later I asked my sister, "Did you see that man?" "Yes, of course I saw him," she replied. Then she started analyzing him: his eyes were so, his ears like that, his hair a certain color. She described what was wrong with his ears. I asked her the question because I thought she hadn't noticed him! Apparently she must have given him a quick glance and recorded him in a photographic memory. At that time, I realized that women have incredible sensitivity in analysis and comparison.
You men may be contacting women for the first time now, since they are not just women, but your fiancée or wife. For the first time, you have to seriously deal with women. Therefore, you must know a woman's nature and be able to accommodate yourself to it and satisfy her. Ask your fiancée what your strong points are. Let her tell you all about them, and then try to change in order to satisfy her needs and liking. Ask her what clothes to wear. A woman will tell you what is wrong with your way of dressing; she will make comparisons and give you good advice. Women know how to harmonize things. Men should wear women's eyeglasses and through them see clearly what women are all about.
Moonies Are Trustworthy
We want true love, true marriage. You women, make it a rule that only one man can touch you forever. Only through one man can true love come. That is the channel. Dancing is fine, but dance with your husband. You men, just dance with your wife. As long as it is husband and wife dancing, you may dance all night.
Moonie women may not be the most colorful; Moonie men may not be the most handsome, but they are most trustworthy. If the man goes thousands of miles away, the wife can trust him, because he is under the tradition of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon. Would children want to see their parents loving each other, or would they rather see the mother flirting with the neighbor and the father going to his mistress, leaving the children behind to watch television and eat TV dinners? Children see that their parents are not like their neighbors; maybe they are not so colorful, maybe they don't go to so many social functions, maybe they are blunt or not very talkative -- but still, they are trustworthy. Children are proud to say, "My daddy loves mommy; my mommy loves daddy."
You should think, "I am unique among the 4 billion people on earth. I am a unique individual, and I was introduced to a unique individual from the men's world (or women's world); I am selecting one mate for eternity, from among the population of the earth." You cannot go all over the world and meet all the men (or women) to pick out one representative, but you can look at your husband (or wife) as a representative of the entire nation or world.
When I match you, I don't look at you as husband or wife, but I look at the children who will be born from you. Even if husband and wife separate and divorce each other, they always fight for custody of the children. Even though husband and wife may part, they cannot deny their parents or children, so in that sense, the principle that is the basis of oriental philosophy persists here in America as well. You must stick to history, to tradition.
Parents represent history. There are court battles over custody of children, but does anybody fight to possess his parents? Someone who would be willing to fight for his parents has the most right to fight for his children. If you really want to cam) on your succession through your children, you must possess your parents first. Your parents, you and your children must be connected by a straight line, representing the past, present and future. To reach out to the universe, the closest way is through your children; to reach God, the closest way is through your parents. Therefore, you cannot deny them. Regardless of the reason, parents cannot be denied.
When you visit your home town, you would hope your grandparents are there, so you can go to see them, wouldn't you? When you visit your home, you want to be welcomed by everybody -- children, parents and grandparents. Wouldn't you like to preserve this principle for eternity in your home or family/ You would want your children and descendants to carry on this tradition, wouldn't you?
Love Your Spouse Unconditionally
When children love their parents, do they do so because of their lovely faces? Babies are unconditional in their love. They go after their mommy unconditionally; if the mommy is not there, they cry. In the same way, the woman should go to her husband unconditionally, and the man to his wife unconditionally, without trying to evaluate him or her. This is a universal truth. That is the way your love should be, loving your spouse as unconditionally as children love their parents.
However, only when you give your first love can you make it truly unconditional. Men and women were designed to meet as husband and wife with their first love, a genuine and pure love.
When you wear the eyeglasses of first love, everything becomes beautiful. Unfortunately, here in America, not so many people retain this first, pure love. So what can you do? You should be more humble, repentant, considerate and fervent than you had ever been with any previous man (or woman). Be more sacrificial in loving each other, and in that way your mind will be ready to accept unconditionally your husband or wife.
Your original mind would say, "Father, I don't deserve any member as my husband (or wife). But if you grant me someone as a gift from God, I shall serve that person with my whole life. I know this is the pathway of heaven, and that by granting me this fiance, you are granting me heaven as well."
By the Blessing, everyone is launching himself beyond the level of first love. Sacrificial love is the meaning of the Blessing. Without it, you cannot open the door to the kingdom of heaven.
Such men and women coming together create ideal couples. They offer their love to each other and give birth to children, becoming ideal parents. How beautiful it is! The kingdom of heaven is designed for that kind of person.
Looking For Family-Heaven
Christians are looking for "my heaven," but Moonies are looking beyond to "my family-heaven." Which one is really talking about heaven? There is no way you can find heaven when you have totally isolated yourself. No matter how good your surroundings may be, it is not heaven. Even beyond the family-heaven, we are looking towards the nation-heaven, and beyond that to the world-heaven and cosmos-heaven. If a person lives this sacrificial way of life, when he goes to the spirit world, he will enjoy total freedom. But unless you live according to this principle here on earth, you will be blocked every step of the way.
Some people say, "1 don't care about anyone other than my wife and children." Some wife may tell her husband, "You are not educated enough; you don't have a degree. Why don't you sneak out of the church and go to school, so I can have a prestigious husband and have dignity?" "What about the mission?" he might reply. "To heck with the mission; you are my husband, go to school." "What about the nation? What about the restoration of the world?" "Let somebody else worry about that; you go to school." Is that what you would say?
For the sake of the higher goal, the world, the universe, if you sacrifice your family, that family becomes the savior-family; and when you go to the spirit world, you shall be a central figure, and your family members shall join you in the central figure's position.
Your Destiny: Home Church
After you get married, where will you go? If the husband and wife are alone, they are naked, and Satan can always invade, because there is no fence around them. So what is your destination? Home church. This is the absolute direction and destination. Through home church, we will bring all people and races together into unity.
So after you get married, will you run away on a honeymoon, or will you go to home church?
God is very scientific. He wants to give you what you want, so He gave you home church, where you can fight the battle and do your mission as a family unit, husband and wife together. Set the example for your children, telling them, "This is the way True Parents fought the battle; this is the way your mother and I fought the battle; and you shall fight the battle in the same way."
Your children will ask you why we call Rev, and Mrs. Moon True Parents. You can tell them that they are our True Parents because they established the heavenly tradition and way of life. They lived a sacrificial life for the sake of others and the sake of the world. Those who do not live that way of life are not True Parents, just parents. Tell them that race does not matter, that Rev. and Mrs. Moon are exemplary, and you are succeeding in their tradition. "I am doing home church in order to become a true parent," tell your children; "other parents are not true parents, but your daddy and mommy shall be true parents." A messiah is nothing more than a true parent, the one who fulfills true parenthood. So the Unification Church is the factory for the mass production of messiahs!
You may say, "I will go to home church, Father, but please help me; I have nothing. You must buy me a house, you must buy me an automobile, you must buy me food and clothes. Then I might go." Is that the way a messiah acts? No. We came as True Parents and gave you our sweat and labor, heart and soul, to lay your foundation. And we are inheriting everything to you for free. You shall inherit upon this foundation, and your persecution shall not last for more than three years.
What would you do without home church? How would you accomplish your task? Without home church, you would have to walk around the entire world like a gypsy; you would have to cover the entire world by yourself. Home church, however, is the microcosm of the world; without it you would have to go to the macrocosm, the entire world.
After the crucifixion, the Holy Spirit came down and worked together with Jesus, and salvation work began through the Trinity. By the same token, a husband and wife working together are almost like Jesus united with the Holy Spirit, in a physical sense, going to home church to do the work of salvation. You should be able to say to your fiance or spouse, "I love home church better than I love you." You may not do exactly that, but at least you know it.
When you go to home church, your utmost desire, hope and prayer should be for True Parents to visit your home church and stay overnight at your home. I would visit either the most controversial home church or the most successful home church, the one where you have won over every home and are welcome in every house. The book of Revelation clearly states how I feel: Don't be lukewarm; be either hot or cold. Cold means controversy and hot signifies complete welcome.
Don't be greedy and want your home church to be hot from the beginning; start out cold and make your home church hot. When people despise you and try to tear you apart, you should rejoice and dance. When someone says, "Don't come here, don't show up," you should appear every day. When people demand service, do it willingly. If a negative person still opposes you, God will mobilize all the neighbors and they will protest to him, "I have never seen such a man as that home church person; how come you persecute him? You are unrighteous. If you don't like him, you go away." They will kick out him, not you.
The Most Important Thing: Pray Together
In order to make a cold place hot, you have to become like burning charcoal. Would you grumble and fight with your husband or wife and then finally go to home church, or would you unite with each other and then go to home church? Husband and wife should chase each other out to home church. Pray together and go to home church, come back and pray more.
Don't pray alone, but with each other. Your wife may say, "I need a little more sleep, you go ahead and pray," but don't give up; wake her up, pat her, shake her -- whatever technique you have -- make her come and pray with you. That is the most important thing: to pray together.
Why should husband and wife act together? Because when home church becomes successful, you should celebrate together, rejoice together. If the husband is celebrating but the wife's conscience hurts, she cannot laugh with him.
Mother just came home from the hospital yesterday with our 13th baby. It was a long ordeal. I tried to win her heart, woo her somehow, so she would agree to come to Belvedere this morning. I wanted her to show a heroic example to all of you. The doctor gave strict orders for Mother to stay at home and lie down, but she came here and listened for four hours. When Mother does that, how can anybody in the Unification Church complain? That is the kind of tradition I wanted to set this morning.
Do you think God would say, "Rev. Moon, how cruel a husband you are! How can you drag your wife out just after she came home from the hospital?" No. He will say, "You are indeed a wonderful husband. You truly love your wife."
You must know that in all the nitty-gritty of daily life, there is a Principle standard which you have to live up to. It takes effort every minute of the day. Nothing comes automatically. Nothing comes freely.
When we receive your "Abojee Mansei" Mother should be here with me. I want her to be included, otherwise your cheers aren't deserved. When you cheer Mother, I want to be the first person to cheer her. I always try to set a good example to every member of my family; I work hard, go to bed last, get up early in the morning, spend many sleepless nights sitting on the couch and meditating through the night. Nobody in my home can say I am not working hard enough. A man should play the man's role, with a man's dignity. He should be in a position to educate women.
My Goal: To Make You Brilliant Husbands
So what kind of husband would you become? A husband respected by women or cursed by women? Unification women hope that their husbands will become good lecturers of Divine Principle, Unificationism, VOC, etc. They want you to stand up wherever you go and speak about our philosophy. Have you become that way? All the women of the world want their husbands to be very diplomatic, respected, capable of meeting government leaders and ambassadors, winning the respect of high levels of society. In short, women want to have their husbands become somebody. Moreover, women want men to be masculine, sportsmen-types, good hunters and fishermen.
Women want their husbands to be able to sing and tell jokes. Are you men like that? My goal is to transform all the incredibly dumb-looking men into that kind of brilliant husband! So I have to push you out, to the IOWC, fishing, witnessing, fundraising, evangelical work, whatever. Seminary graduates are sent out to ocean church, and within a couple of weeks the scholars smell like fish. When people learn too much in the classroom, they become timid, skeptical, scared of everything. So I bring them out and make them participate in demonstrations. Soon they discover how tasty it can be.
I can do all kinds of things. On a moment's notice, I can take the platform and speak to any kind of audience, making them laugh, smile and cry. I will not fall behind anybody. When I sit down to carry on a whispered conversation with Mother, she becomes so intoxicated. If I have to leave, she begs me, "Father, can you stay with me another ten minutes?"
Since you sisters said you want to have that kind of husband, I am going to push you brothers out. But what if your husband has a mission out on the ocean? In a small boat, tossing throughout the night, you wives wouldn't mind being with your husband? You have to be supportive. If you cannot go everywhere with him, at least you should be obedient and uncomplaining. Don't fire sharp words at him, such as, "Where were you last night?" or "Why didn't you come back before midnight?" "Why didn't you call me?" On many missions, there is no telephone available. Without even knowing what kind of important mission he was fulfilling, it isn't good to just make complaints.
So you women like dramatic men, and you men like dramatic women, with lots of talents and many experiences. Thus, if the two of you go together to home church, taking care of a total of 720 homes, you will attract many people. You will be just like me. I am versatile and multi-talented, so you love me. By the same token, your home church people will adore you, because you are in my position when you go to home church.
The ideal blessed couple is the husband and wife who are most determined, with a goal firmly fixed in their minds, and who will not give up under any circumstance. They have joined their lives together, persevering with patience until they reach their goal. That is the blessed couple.
The Children's Cross
When children come, will your burden become lighter or heavier? If you worked eight hours as a single person, when you are married, you may have to work 16 hours. When you have children, you may have to work triple time. Maybe you would have only six hours free per day. But in living that way, you can tell yourself that you will not be a burden to anybody, you will not be indebted to anybody. You have a double cross: you have to bear not only your own, but your spouse's cross as well. Maybe you think your cross is smaller than that of your spouse; but the greater cross is the children's cross.
It is very exciting to get married, but I want you to be prepared, so you won't become discouraged a week later. You should be grateful to the Unification Church; if you truly adhere to our Principle, you will not weaken. You will have confidence and strength; you have a mission and a spirit that will overcome all difficulties.
In order to begin married life, you have to dedicate three spiritual children to the church. All of you are going to get busy on that. Why three? Unless you restore Adam's family and Noah's family, you cannot restore yourself. In Adam's and Noah's families, there were father and mother, three sons and three daughters-in-law living with the parents -- eight all together. If both husband and wife have three spiritual children, that makes six children, surrounding you as parents. If you can't restore that family, a new world cannot start. Unless you have three spiritual children, it is almost like Noah's ark floating on the water, unable to settle down.
You are going to home church as the representative of John the Baptist and in the potential position of Jesus Christ. I am sending you to home church, where you and John the Baptist and Jesus Christ will be welcomed and not rejected. What you accomplish in home church is greater than what Jesus did 2,000 years ago: first, because there were no True Parents in his time and second, because they did not become tribal messiahs. You cannot go to perfection without fulfilling the growth stage, and home church is the absolute requirement.
The years 1970-72 were years of incredible ordeal for the Korean blessed couples. Leaving all their children behind, the blessed wives went out on pioneering missions throughout the country. They sent their children to orphanages or to live with families who were reluctant to keep them. It was almost like Moses' mother leaving her child in Pharaoh's palace. But Moses did not lose his identity. By the same token, when our blessed children went to other places to live, they did not think that their parents deserted them, but they knew that their parents were righteous enough to put their mission ahead of everything, sacrificing all for the sake of the mission.
Adults complained about parents leaving their children behind, but the children received incredible sympathy from their peers. The more the parents rejected the children, the more sympathy they got from the other children. Through these experiences, the barriers that prevented national unity were broken down in some ways. After I and the Unification Church became famous, some of those who cared for the blessed children during those years came back and said, "Do you remember me? When you went out for your three-year mission, I took care of your children; you must pay me some tribute now." They all want to take credit now!
This time, however, you don't have to leave your children behind. You can care for your children, go out and work for home church, come back and be with your children. The next day, you can go out in joy again. The elder Korean members suffered this ordeal for the sake of the world, but all you have to do is home church.
Bring Liberation To All
You are in the position of Adam and Eve. That means that all the sacrifices of history have occurred because of you. Christians were tortured for 400 years, for you, for the consummation of your blessing; the attempts to exterminate the Jewish people were for you; the Christians who are suffering and dying under the yoke of communism do so for our perfection -- the perfection of Adam and Eve.
When we reach the consummation on this kind of foundation, we must turn around and bring liberation to all. Spiritually, we are responsible to liberate our ancestors; physically, we have to liberate our posterity and the present and future generations. You are in the position of bearing the sins of the universe, and you must liquidate them. You are bearing the cross. However, I hope you won't do it out of duty, but voluntarily, because you want to.
So do you now know the value of home church? You are alive and strong; how can you say you cannot do it? How many of you can say, "I definitely need home church"? Who will say, "Yes, Father, I will do it at once; on July 1st, I will make a new beginning"? You will spend your honeymoon in home church.
The most important thing is to gain spiritual children. I have told you how to restore your relatives and parents by writing them letters. Write to your physical brothers and sisters, your relatives and friends. Don't dismiss this suggestion lightly and say you tried but had no results.
Spiritual Purification
After marriage, you need a 40-day spiritual purification period. You have lots to overcome. You need to have an iron will, become strong men and women. You should be able to purify yourselves, lift up you standard higher than that of anybody else in history.
During this period, you can touch your wife's hand, your husband's hand. If you like to kiss you may do so. But you should have a clear conscience. When you kiss, if all kinds of past memories come up, you should wait, and purify yourself more.
As husband and wife, sit down face to face and talk things out. Reach a conclusion that you are meant only for each other. You should pledge your lives to each other. Spread out a multitude of pictures, among them your wife's, and pick out her picture, saying, "Yes, this is the one God gave me. This is the one I love absolutely."
You are no longer living in a dream world. You are living in a world of reality. You have to make the dream a reality, fulfill it. Think of your husband as your king, your wife as your queen. Wipe out the memories of the men or women you loved in the past. Please remember that when you look at your husband or wife, what you see externally is the case; the most precious value is not the case, but the contents. Inside your husband or wife is a gold mine, a diamond mine. A beautiful- looking box does not necessarily always contain good contents. Even though the case may not be outstanding, tell yourself that there is a gold mine or diamond mine inside.
Faithful people don't show their faith by appearances, but true faith permeates them. The world of faith is determined by the contents, not the appearances. An ugly person may possess a purer heart; beautiful women tend to be tempted in many different directions.
Your Family: The Universal Textbook
Look at your family as the core of the universal textbook. Everything is in it: God, the spirit world, your happiness, your confidence, the perfection of your life. When you say, "My darling," the entire universe resounds in harmony, and God will smile at you and applaud you. This is the kind of family you can call a blessed family. Just listening to the phrase "blessed family" intoxicates you, doesn't it?
My life was a miserable and tragic life, in a way, but I never lost my dream. The seemingly impossible dream has become a reality, step by step. I used to dream of dancing with people of all five colors of skin, all races of the world. That could happen right here! So dreams can become a reality.
No matter how miserable you look or how tired you feel, you have the hope of home church. It shall become a reality, and it shall be fulfilled. Your dream shall be a reality, just as mine has become a reality.
Be thankful for persecution, for persecution will make you whole. Tears may flow from your eyes, but your mouth will say, "Thank you." Never be discouraged. Move on to home church. We shall win the victory at home church.