The Words of the Beutl Family
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The Words of the Beutl Family |
Thank you very much for making the effort to point out 7 aspects of what you understand from the reflection I offered.
1. Each of us should love God with all our heart, soul, and mind, and we should love our neighbor as ourself.
As you can see from the topic of my article it is God's point of view what I am most concerned about. The underlying issue is that if we do love our Heavenly Parent with all of our heart and soul and mind then we will also be able to manifest True Love for others which goes far beyond loving others as we love ourselves but we will embody a parental heart of taking responsibility for the issues we see that others are struggling with.
Concretely this means for those who agree with the mainline church standpoint that they feel responsible to help Hyun Jin Nim to solve his problem as they perceive it. Once they rise in their hearts to the level of having the heart of a father or mother for our True Parents' third son whom they see struggling with certain issues they will leave no stone unturned to meet with those who support Hyun Jin Nim and together go to see him and to speak with him. They will show the heart of the good shepherd who leaves the 99 sheep behind in order to search for the lost one.
We all know well that such a heart has not been manifested so far by those who say that they are united with True Parents. It is obvious that embodying a Heavenly Heart is lacking on their side and therefore the claims to be fully on God's side stand on very shaky grounds because it is not backed up by practicing the standard of True Love which would manifest the attitude of our Father in Heaven who loves all of His children unconditionally.
True Parents have been teaching us to relate even to strangers whom we meet as our relatives, as our brother or sister. We are writing history now and each one of us shows to which extent he or she lives up to Father's teaching in practice by having a heart of True Love - which means taking full responsibility for another person's situation.
In front of our Creator the decisive question is not on which side we are in the present confrontation but what kind of heart we embody. Hyung Jin Nim is surely right when he speaks about the two kinds of sinners whereby he points out the grave sins of those who seem to do everything right from an external viewpoint but whose heart is corrupt with no True Love to be found in it.
2. We should speak to and about each other in a kind manner, even when disagreeing.
It is obvious that we should show a kind and loving heart for each other beyond the issue of what kind of beliefs we have.
3. But more basically we should not be expressing disagreement to begin with, especially when it involves personal criticism.
I do not see any problem with expressing disagreement. It is important that we speak about how we see or perceive things but the much more important question is: With what kind of heart are we doing it? I can only repeat here that I am indeed shocked and it is truly painful for me to read some of the comments offered in this group rooted in self- centered hearts who show so little respect for others.
4. Rather we should consider ourselves responsible for any bad things that have happened in the UM.
This is a core point. Therefore I offered a reflection about the theme "Who takes responsibility for True Parents' legacy?" The present sad situation has its roots in the poor behavior of leaders and members and therefore the solution is to be found there – in the history of our church.
In my reflection "A movement in Crisis – Where did it start?" I pointed out a few aspects of root causes. To examine the ultimate roots is our primary concern so that we can see clearly what we did wrong to begin with, rather than discussing the end results of the present tragedy.
The essential question is for each one of us no matter what our personal opinion may be: Are we ready to take complete responsibility for the given situation? Once we do we will be desperately working for lasting solutions rather than short-sighted actions.
I have read the thousands of comments that were offered on this website where a lot of logical argumentations were offered but what I saw lacking more than anything is the logic of love – the right kind of heart behind the argumentation.
5. If a member of SMM's family does something wrong, we should look the other way and not say anything about it. Or if we do say anything, it should be done very carefully, with a view to figuring out how to educate him?
I did not say a word which would justify the first part of this comment. A heart of True Love never looks the other way but to the contrary searches to see clearly what the roots of the problems are and how lasting solutions can be achieved.
First of all we should make sure that we are educated – ourselves -- as representatives of God and True Parents in this world. What I am advocating most of all is the change in our own hearts to truly embody the values and ideals which we learnt through the Divine Principle and Father's speeches.
Therefore I am longing for the day that the discussions on this list under the theme of Father's legacy are centered on how we are manifesting the legacy of our True Parents and not about what others (True Children) are doing wrong.
6. Something should be done to make sure that everything SMM says is written down, video-taped, and made available to all members.
This is what True Father has very clearly asked for – a direct hotline between him and each member – and therefore we are all guilty of the existing problems because most of them could have never come about had we insisted on this direct connection between us and True Parents' guidance for us.
7. The structure of the movement should be such that the founder has fairly direct access to every member, minimizing the possibility of middlemen modifying the message.
Those who have read the profound reflection by Stephen D. which was published here attentively are aware of the very serious issue: "From the moment Father declared the end of the era of the leader centered movement to the era of the member centered movement based on this commandment the elders and leaders themselves in the Archangel role plus the whole movement should have worked to accomplish this new direction from Father in the position of God. Clearly this wasn't done and over the intervening years has led us to this time of confusion, division and crisis.
Leadership has wanted to maintain power and control seeking to be served and not to serve, cementing a top down church dominating members through members' own faith in God and True Parents, using that very faith to manipulate members as is still happening now. Lucifer manipulated God's word to control Adam and Eve. The egregious crimes of Unificationism is not in burning women at the stake, torturing so called heretics and butchering millions in the name of Christ but in stealing our birth right to be true sons and daughters of God by impeding our ability to fulfill our own portion of responsibility in our own relationship with God not the so called central figure, which in fact, is YOU (History of Restoration and "I".) We have been subjected to futility groaning in travail waiting for the day we could be liberated from the chains of expedience, exploitation and elitism that has been so prevalent in Unificationist culture.
Brothers and sisters have been turned into slaves as Joseph was sold into slavery by his own brothers and as Jacob's own uncle Laban deceived and exploited him. Know for a surety that a man's enemies will be of his own household. Just as Judas dipped his hand in the bowl with Jesus. The infamy of the so called Unification Church is the betrayal of brothers' and sisters' hearts, hopes and ideals, betrayal on all levels. 'Hope deferred makes the heart sick, a desire fulfilled is the tree of life.'
Adam's hope was perfection. Where is the perfection of actions, behavior and culture in the Unification Church. It doesn't exist. We pride ourselves on being the followers of True Parents, 'Out of these stones God may raise up followers of True Parents.' We are meant to be God's children first; do we even know God, if we did we would be loving our brothers and sisters as we love True Parents, in fact as Father directed in the speech we must love our brothers and sisters more than we love God and True Parents. Have we? No! Because we are behaving like servants under the dominion of the Archangel. We seek praise, to be acknowledged and be seen in a good light within the Unification community as good members, abel-type members and that is our undoing."
May we all take these words by our brother Stephen to heart and pray about them and all the other relevant issues concerning our task of making sure that the Heavenly tradition taught by our True Parents is implemented properly in our movement.
Sincerely yours,
Nikolaus