Korea Trip: Day 3: Mega Church Opens

Simon Cooper
February 21, 2010

Today we went for the opening of the Cheon Bok Gung, our new mega church, temple, in the center of Seoul. Many of you helped to build and make this place through your giving.

They have done a good job of making it attractive while at the same time keeping the tone light and simple.

The point of today was to invite our True Parents to visit and give their blessing.

Father got up to speak in what was a very big event with a capacity crowd and as always showed us who he is by never allowing a social setting or some man made protocol define what he says, how he behaves, or who he represents.

He spoke for about half an hour and then started a bit of a party.

He asked Bo Hi Park (who was in the audience of around 2000): "Are you my son or my disciple?" the answer: "Your son". Father then asked: "Have you always been my son?" the answer "Yes!" What would you have answered. With hindsight I would say these were potentially not good answers. I guess how you want to interpret the question.

Anyhow, what we say is not so consequential, but what was profound was how Father replied: "You have no qualification to say that. Actually I find your answer distasteful." He said it gently. And then went onto say: "Actually when I come to these events and I am standing in front of all of you I feel very lonely, I want to listen more and listen to something that will make me cry."

He is so detached from all the fuss that people understandably make around him. It does not matter to him whether there is one person or 1000 people before him. He is seeking a people who can connect to his spirit and heart.

True Father, despite being blunt, was happy. He got his whole family up on the stage singing with True Parents and when the MC, Dr Seuk, took the opportunity of a brief interlude to try and wrap things up, it was clear who was in charge. Father kept on dancing.

The head of one of the main Korean Buddhist orders expressed how when he read Reverend Moon's biography he was deeply moved, and then today arriving at the temple and seeing the sanctuary with True Parents chairs and the pictures representing the four saints he understood why our religion has the role and ability to bring together and embrace other faiths. The question I asked myself was that if we were not a faith tradition in our own right would that ability be relevant.