I think most westerners joined and received so much inspiration from the sense of idealism we used to have in the Unification Church.

"Wow; becoming perfect people"; "having perfect families"; "save the world"; it was such an exciting time to join the Unification Church; it was that sense of "crusading" that gave you the energy to continue in spite of so much opposition and negativity that we were facing.

But I feel little sense of idealism in the Unification Church anymore; it's more likely to be a depressing mandate along the lines of "do this or 'pay the price/go to hell' if you don't". The mantra is not "save the world" anymore, it's "sacrifice, sacrifice, sacrifice; then go out and sacrifice some more"; you almost have to have masochistic tendencies to continue in the Unification Church anymore.

The loss of idealism in the Unification Church used to depress me, but then my realistic mind provided a counterweight to it all; our idealism was based on a belief that the "ideal world" was going to just sweep the earth within a short number of years and all this restoration nonsense would be quickly finished; but, if we'd stopped to think about it, could we really expect to change the course of thousands and thousands of years of history in just 5 or 10 years?

My conclusion is that we have to find a way to keep the idealistic fires (at least) smoldering and keeping one eye towards the ideal world to come (some day, but probably not in our lifetimes), but we still have to dig down deep in our guts and find the energy to keep putting one foot in front of the other and moving forward in spite of the drudgery and misery that we often have to face in day to day life.

"Life is a paradox; then you die." (new variation on an old expression)

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