The Words of the Durst Family
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The Words of the Durst Family |
Dr.
Mose Durst
Just before Father left for Korea, he spoke to the leaders at East Garden, and the theme of ownership was central to everything he was saying. He emphasized that it is Americans who should feel ownership for this nation and take responsibility for it.
Before I talk about this, I feel it's important to acknowledge with gratitude and repentance the effort of the Japanese, Korean, and European missionaries who have sacrificed for us here in America. Recently in Japan I saw President Kuboki, Mr. Oyamada, and Mr. Furuta, and in Korea I saw President Young Whi Kim, and I thanked them for all that the brothers and sisters from those countries had done for America.
I also repented to the Japanese leaders, to the Korean leaders, and to Father himself. I said, "Father, I'm sorry we didn't set enough conditions to bring greater victory in America and to allow the impact of those missionaries to have a greater effect in America."
True
Father having a meal on the lawn with some of his early followers
For many years, Father has spoken about how the Japanese and the Koreans have to take responsibility for Asia, how Europe has to take responsibility for Africa, and how the United States has to take responsibility for Latin America. But the question is, how do we take responsibility? How do we take ownership? What does that mean?
In the dictionary the major definition of the word church is a place where God dwells, usually a physical temple of some sort. But Father is obviously not so concerned about the physical buildings that we inhabit. In case you didn't notice, this is a garage [Belvedere]. They used to have horses here, I think! What Father has spoken about for many years is ourselves.
Many people come to see me with complaints about "the church," or the structure of the church, or the leaders of the church. Well, okay, let's talk about the church. Here I am, there you are. We are the church.
We may have a concept that "the church" is missionaries living in church centers, but now there are more and more families living in their own homes and working in businesses, doing all the normal things that the world does -- having children, having to pay the rent, worrying about who's going to babysit and who's going to go to Belvedere this morning. All these things are real. If we are going to build an American church, we've got to look at ourselves as the church.
From the day I came to the church, my spiritual mother made me aware that I would have to comfort God's heart and end the suffering of the world. That's what I was taught Father's life was about. Not building the church at Pusan, but building a world where God could be comforted and the world could be liberated. And every time I see Father, that's what I think he's about. I don't actually see him as a Korean. Father's a universal person concerned about building a reality that is loving and caring and a reflection of great ideals.
One of the healthiest things I've ever done was give the workshop every weekend and give the evening lecture every night. For me, I can just open the Principle book to the Creation lecture and get inspired. "We have infinite energy, infinite creativity, and infinite love, to be not infinitely frustrated but infinitely valuable." Yeah! I mean you say those words in the Creation lecture and you start feeling about 37 feet tall! If you don't have any muscles, you feel like you got muscles. You feel tough. You can even handle the muggers of New York!
Hyo
Jin Nim prays over his nephew Shin Won Nim, Hyun Jin Nim and Jun Sook
Nim's baby son
If you read the Creation lecture and are still negative, or not inspired, then you should take a cold shower and read it again. The Creation lecture is a great, powerful, lovely, hopeful, ecstatic statement about who we are. If we are the church, then we need a model of who we are to be -- caring, loving, embracing, creative.
To build the American church, to take responsibility, we first must know who we are. When somebody says you're not valuable, when you're feeling down in the dumps, when something is going wrong, when it hurts -- what are you going to do? You can get on your knees and pray, "Heavenly Father, enter into me!" As soon as someone prays, "Heavenly Father, come dwell with us," I envision God's spirit coming here, and this creates a beautiful kind of moment.
When we eat, we say, "God, please sit down and participate with us. We will eat this food, but we want You to eat it first." Father taught us to offer the first fruits of the season to God. This too creates a holy moment.
The neat thing about East Garden is that it just feels nice being around holy people. Here's Hyo Jin Nim blessing his sister's child -- what a great feeling! Did your brother or sister ever bless the child of another brother or sister, or the neighbor's kid? When Hyo Jin Nim prays over his child, or Ye Jin Nim's child, we enter into that moment of prayer and it's a sacred moment. You feel the world is holy.
This is the reality of who we are -- holy people, heavenly people. We want a loving church, right? Okay, it starts with us. You've got to get up in the morning and enter into a love relationship with God.
In other words, act like God today. You don't have to do it in an egoistic way. You can say, "Okay, I want a loving church; therefore I must be loving today." Nobody wants to come here and get bummed out. Most of us came here today thinking, "Okay, I hope somebody will come here and do something for me." You want to be cared for. I want to be cared for. It means we want a caring church. My experience of life is that I've got to be there caring, whether others are or not. If I'm caring, I'm feeling good. If I'm loving, I feel a certain amount of love. If nothing is happening today, I can make something happen.
Whatever problems we have with "the church" are largely us. If you read the transcript of every one of Heung Jin Nim's talks, over and over again he says, "Don't worry about what somebody else in the church is doing. Worry about where you're at, what you're doing, and what kind of responsibility you're taking in the church." The church is as good as the image in the mirror we look at in the morning when we wash our face. That is the hope of the world.
"True
love means concretely listening to and loving another human being"
We actually have much more ability to create what we want than we think we have. You may say, "My central figure makes me feel real uptight." Well, fine, in front of your central figure, be uptight, but do what you have to do to be creative and loving and do what God needs elsewhere.
We often limit ourselves tremendously with our concepts of who we are, what we can be, and what our church is. Very often when somebody tells me what a difficult time he is having with "the church," I wonder, what church does he belong to? Because it bears no resemblance to the church I'm in. The church I belong to says you've got infinite value -- and nobody can take that away from you.
You've got infinite love because you reflect God. You're created in His image, and you've got an agreement with God, called a covenant. And God won't let you go, as long as you don't let Him go. Ours is a covenant God, a God who promises us He's going to keep giving us the goodies as long as we relate to Him in a good way. So no matter how "off' you are, all you need to do is to keep turning back to God and you get the goodies. That's a very hopeful image.
[A rooster crows]
Whoever gave a sermon with a rooster? It's ridiculous when you think about it! You've got to work him into the sermon somehow. Every other church has a choir; we got roosters out there.
This is our church, roosters and all. What are we going to do? Enjoy it! If we don't enjoy it, we're miserable. The responsibility is on us.
In Japan they know how to love, embrace, support, and uplift the brothers and sisters, and they're bringing in new members like crazy. They believe in the Principle; they live it in their culture.
They've got it moving and working. We can also do all kinds of caring and creative things in the American church. Father wants us to take ownership of America, in that we apply the Principle in loving this nation from God's point of view, from True Parents' point of view.
Now obviously we don't exist as isolated individuals. If we want to feel infinitely loving, creative, and valuable as individuals, what then do we want from this "community of faith" (the second definition of church in the dictionary)? We want to be around creative, loving, caring, energetic, imaginative, beautiful people.
What do people want? True friends. Where do you want them? With you all the time. What's a true friend? Somebody who is always seeking to draw the good out of you, somebody who is seeking to make you more loving, more valuable, more heavenly.
"Through
your eternal commitment to one other human being, you discover the
eternal aspect of yourself. Holy Wine Ceremony -- October 29, 1988
I was walking by myself to the World Mission Center a few weeks ago and a brother saw me and said, "Would you like me to go with you?" Why? Because he's seeking my well-being. He's thinking about God, thinking about True Parents, thinking about realizing God's ideal.
I once asked this brother, "Can you get, me a small photograph of True Parents?" He got me four of them, and one of himself. This brother will give you anything; he's got that kind of heart. Most of our brothers and sisters are actually like that. If we want to live in a creative, loving community, we've got to be that way to others and feel, "You are my friend. I've got to greet you with a smile, I must embrace you. What can I do for you? How can I help you out?" That's how we have to live in the church as real live human beings: true friendship, true relationship, being real friends with each other.
Whenever I visit Father and Mother, it's wonderful to know that the first thing they think about isn't what your report is or what you are doing. They say, "Sit down. What can we get you?" The leaders in Japan treated me in exactly the same way. Every moment they were solicitous of my well-being. It made me feel that I wanted to be even more solicitous of their well-being. We're competing in how to best love each other.
The first day I came to the family, I was told, "Look, you try to love others, they try to love you. Let's compete in love. Let's see who can love each other more." That's building the heavenly community.
We have to be the ones to make our church a community of love. If everybody in our department is bummed out, that's too bad. But then what's our responsibility? Send them notes; give them cookies.
I've already given instructions that at my Seunghwa ceremony, someone should play the Beatles' song, "Eight Days a Week." You can play some holy songs, but at least work that in somewhere. It's a good message: Eight days a week I love you.
Obviously there are obstacles within and obstacles without; we all feel it. "I don't feel good today. I don't function on hot days. I don't function on cold days. I don't like groups. I don't like me." People come and see me and say, "I'm losing it." We all face things. You've got to figure out strategies of love -- how to overcome the obstacles within and the obstacles without, through basic prayer, study, service, actualizing the Principle, and loving.
"We
have to be the ones to make our church a community of love"
It is not acceptable to be miserable. Spiritual death is not a good alternative. Being paralyzed is not all right. That's where sickness lies. Satan endlessly says, "You're not going to make it; you're off, and you'll never figure out why you're so screwed up."
You can recreate every bad experience that anyone has ever had in all of human history. But at some point you've got to say, as Father taught us many times, "I separate from that and I graft myself onto the new tree of our True Parents." And that new tree is a tree of health, a tree of love, a tree of hope. That's what allows us to have the power to overcome obstacles. You cannot overcome obstacles unless you have a belief that is hopeful and loving.
We've got to move the spirit world. It's already lined up. I mean, if God exists and you are desperate to reach somebody, you will. John Biermans had a wonderful spiritual child who unfortunately left the family. Tell them what happened, John.
John Biermans:
I told the spirit world I was going to bring seven spiritual children to replace this one person that Satan took. My center was doing a witnessing condition at the time, and after I made that determination it seemed like almost every person I met would come for dinner. Before that, I could witness for six months and never meet anyone that would come. But because I had somehow moved the spirit world by deeply investing my heart in the person who had left, I felt the spirit world could help me. At the end of the condition I realized that I had seven spiritual children. The spirit world was very active and very, very helpful to guide me.
Mose Durst:
He touched the spirit world. You believe, you have faith, you feel good, and you build momentum. You go and talk to people. What did Jesus do? He walked around the town and talked to people about God's love. Jesus was inspired.
Father has taught us about investing heavenly love in every relationship. If you're standing, stand with pride; if you're sitting, sit with pride. If you're a human being, be virtuous; if you're doing something, do it beautifully. In every aspect of life, Father is saying be beautiful, be good, be loving, be all that you can be. Father's life is the example that he wants to convert us to -- a life of love, a life of creativity, a life of beauty. That is our challenge as well. We've got to be the ones to reach out in a very natural way to the larger society.
The thought of witnessing sometimes makes us feel scared. "Oh, I can't go up to this person and speak about the church." Well, it may be difficult, but you can pray for the spirit world to help you, and that gives you a certain power. Pray to God; study the Principle; serve brothers and sisters -- then you have a certain momentum and power. Then you can reach out to other people. Building a caring, loving community is not an easy thing -- but what else is there to do?
Americans are largely an educated people. You cannot treat educated people like fools. You have to know how American people think. You have to at least look in the bookstores and see what they're reading. There is a necessity to understand something about how a non- Christian thinks about Christianity.
To reach educated Americans demands discussion and debate as a way of bringing people to the Principle. People did not give me spiritual life in this family by dumping on my head and telling me: Believe this or die. Or by making me feel guilty or judged. They said, "Do you have any questions? Let's sit down and talk about this."
I often feel we don't listen creatively and actively enough. A few weeks ago,
I had to communicate some very important information to someone, and the person was just sitting there waiting for me to finish. He wasn't taking it in. That's not love. True love means concretely listening to and loving another human being.
Real love can happen when you are with another real human being called your husband or wife who has all kinds of interesting qualities, but whom you may not understand at all at first. Through that unique other person you discover the mystery of the universe. Through your eternal commitment to one other human being, you discover the eternal aspect of yourself -- mysterious, awe-full. Some of you may be seeing your husband or wife as "awful," but you really should look at your spouse as "awe-full." My wife is a child of God, much bigger than my concept of her.
On the plane I was meditating on the mystery of loving another person. As soon as you enter into God's eyes and actively listen to that unique other human being, all the stupid things that are obstacles when you're uptight just fade away. If you can't love a unique other person, you're just into ideology. I do not believe that the Kingdom is at the end of the road if we're ignoring the complexity and the depth and the feelings of brothers and sisters. What Kingdom are we building if it doesn't happen each moment? If you don't respond to the cry of a child or the sound of a rooster, what kind of Kingdom are we building?
If we're going to be a witness to the world, it does mean setting goals and saying things like, "I'm going to give out three pamphlets and say hello to three people today." You do have to build up momentum and pray for help from the spirit world, but you're not going to do these things unless you really want to be a Christian, unless you feel that being a Christian is a natural, good, and loving thing to do. If you're just into the mission and ordering the people in your mission area around, or just responding dutifully, after a while it dries up.
Our church at one time did need the discipline and structure of a spiritual community. You had to learn to get up by somebody knocking on your door and waking you up even if you didn't like it. But most of us are not in those very tight church centers anymore. Whatever complaints you have had about the church, we are now the church. We have to give life to others by genuinely caring for them.
If you want to love another person, you need to know where they are in their growth. Everybody grows in a unique way. If you give the baby steak to quiet him you may kill him. If your goal is to give life to people, you have to be sensitive to what they need. If you're not thinking about what they need but only about what you want to give them, then you've got problems. And if you're not thinking about what they need, they're not even going to respond to you.
I recently read some books on Christian evangelism, on how to build a church. Most churches in America grow through friends and relatives. What are the instructions Father has given us? Go to your friends, go to your relatives. Go to people you know, build relationships. Not for just a day but for always.
Another point made in those books is that you only win somebody over through a sincere, genuine relationship over a period of time -- six months or more. John may have met his seven spiritual children in 40 days, but it took him several years to really get them in there. Care every day. He still writes to his spiritual children. I know people who say, "I have not talked to my spiritual child in the last seven years. In fact, I don't even know if he's alive or not." And people also leave their spiritual parents: "No, I don't communicate with my spiritual parent." Father is building a community of love forever. What can you lose if somebody in the mission you had seven years ago is still writing you cards saying, "I still remember the time we fought it out on 42nd Street, ha, ha, ha!" What do you lose if people love you? And what do they lose if you love them? We all lose if we forget the message of love.
We have to create an environment of love that's different from the world and better than the world. And if we feel it's not, we'd better buy a mirror and carry it in our pocket and look at ourselves, because then we are the ones that have to change.
We've got to be able to care for the unique other human being; that's what conversion is about. It doesn't have to be done in an unnatural way. We may have to find the ways that work best. If you want to go to a museum and you can't justify doing it because of your mission, go there to witness. I do that. I think, "Well, I can't go to a museum and space out, but I can take a brother or sister there, or witness." What's evil about that? I mean, if I'm not inspired, I'm in trouble. So I've got to be inspired. Obviously I can't do anything destructive, but I can figure out many, many ways of being constructive.
The building of an American church is a complex business, but it has to be built on understanding who we're trying to reach. This is a complex culture. You cannot think Americans are superficial people. If we have that kind of attitude, nobody's going to come. Father's trying to teach us humility toward other people. Father is very comprehensive, always trying to understand every person and how they're unique and how to relate to them.
We can have great hope because of our ideals. My conviction is that we should make no compromise with our ideals, none whatsoever. If we cannot love, if we lose our ideals, we lose our vitality, and we have spiritual death. There is no neutral ground. Either you're alive and vital and giving life to others, or you're spiritually dying and draining others as well.
The challenge is to maintain our spiritual life. Then we have our integrity. First the integrity of our soul, then the integrity of our heart, then the integrity of our being. Many people complain about church "politics," but what does politics mean? Relationship with other people. Of course there are other human beings in our church and we have to deal with them. Holding onto your ideals means you don't compromise your ideals even though you have to deal with a reality that is often very difficult. Your ideals will give you the strength and the power to maintain purity even in an impure environment.
I often feel that the whole purpose of the Unification Church is to recreate innocence in the world of experience. Let's come back to our original nature, original love, original ideals. The most beautiful thing about our brothers and sisters is that they're innocent. I pray each day for innocence. Just like you, I take a lot of potshots during the day. I know every negative piece of garbage in our whole church. People have shortcomings. So what? I have shortcomings. The important thing is we have God; we have our True Parents; we have the Principle. We have our ideals; we are armored to go out and deal with the evil of the world.
The challenge is to maintain our ideals, to build our church by starting with ourselves. It's living the Principle in a very natural way. Father once said that the goal of the Unification Church is to recreate normal people. The whole goal of our life is to become "normal" and to be able to love, receive love, be creative, get creativity from others, be beautiful, and respond to the true beauty of others in a natural way. It's very simple; it's just hard to do. If we can overcome the obstacles, the greatest one being inside, then we can create something beautiful for out there.
Let us pray.