An Excursion of the Heart

Geros Kunkel
September 2007

In September, the European Second Generation Department organized its eighth Meeting for Blessed Members of the Second Generation. This time the meeting was held at a workshop site that FFWPU-Spain has in El Escorial, which is about thirty minutes from Madrid, Spain's capital.

These meetings have the purpose of allowing elder second-generation members from all over Europe to take time out of their busy lives and spend some vacation time together. It also allows them to share about their lives and their experiences in blessed families. Some of the time is spent on presentations and discussions about issues related to relationships and family, but most of the time is spent going out and being together.

At this meeting, we had two day-trips to historic towns. The first was to Segovia, which has one of the last remaining and largest aqueducts built by the Romans two thousand years ago. An image of this impressive, massive construction, which provided the city 1 with water for centuries, is on the city's coat of arms. But Segovia has plenty more to offer. After wandering through the downtown, seeing the cathedral, the castle and several other sites, we went out for a Spanish dinner. Roast piglet, the specialty of Segovia, was on the menu, along with other native delights.

The next day was spent in Avila. This city has the largest intact medieval fortress wall in Spain. I guess carrying stones was a profession that was always in high demand in old Spain, as there were plenty of walls, fortresses, castle, aqueducts and other things to build.

Besides the fellowship experienced while exchanging thoughts and experiences over coffee in Avila or in the mountains, while driving to Segovia or just in the evening at the beautiful workshop site, we also spent time listening to presentations and engaging ourselves in content to help us in the areas of partnership, relationships and family. This time, the focus was on working on ourselves, understanding how we work and how we can grow in order to be freer in our relationships to experience love and to give love.

Thomas Schuh and I gave the presentations. I am responsible for the European Second Generation Blessing Department, and Thomas Schuh is a professional marriage counselor who works in the field of marriage and self-improvement and has founded an institute in Munich, Germany.

I gave the first presentation, which looks at man from a perspective focused specifically on the critical areas of heart and emotion. Heart, which our True Parents teach about and which is developed in Unificationist philosophy, is a very powerful force that is not well defined, understood or accepted in the professional world. Understanding heart can help us to develop a systematic approach to marriage and relationship education, based on principles and absolute values, while being able to consider and treat the emotional reality in a healing way. A clear understanding of emotions and heart and a clear distinction between the two are necessary, with the heart taking the central role.

Thomas Schuh then developed this concept further, looking at how our emotions and emotional patterns, together with our concepts and our thinking, hinder us from truly having access to our heart, our true being. We are not aware of how strongly our emotional and intellectual aspects and the patterns they develop over time obstruct us from being free and true to ourselves, and therefore impede us from being in touch with our true selves, our desire to love and experience joy -- our heart.

Together with exercises, Thomas presentations led us to look in detail at these patterns and how they operate. Working mainly from the subconscious or half-conscious realm, these patterns interfere in our lives and even determine our thinking and behavior. Raising awareness of these patterns and of our emotional situations can help free us- and our spouses-to experience loving relationships, as our hearts truly desire.

I am very happy that Thomas Schuh came and supported this meeting. He is a German member that has worked out how True Parents' teachings, especially on heart, can make a significant contribution to the professional world in his field. Furthermore, he selected and discovered various helpful methods for training and supporting blessed couples in developing loving relationships.

I believe that if blessed families are truly to contribute to the world, we need to be able to live true love and to have truly happy and loving families. This is not a small or easy task; in fact, it is what all people have been seeking throughout history. Finally, through the blessing and the exemplary lives of our True Parents and their teachings, putting in the center the right absolute values, rooted in the heart, we should be able to get there step by step.

This requires that we, especially members of the second generation, become professionals in this area and make efforts to truly overcome our ignorance and inabilities in this area. The training and work done in this field has tremendous value. I was very happy also to see that all the participants were serious in tackling this issue and making effort to work on themselves and invest in their relationships. This should be among the main tasks for blessed families, and just as in any other area, such as our professions, it requires knowledge and probably many years of effort.

In addition to being director of the European Second Generation Department, Mr. Kunkel directs the European Blessed Family Department.