Unification Sermons and Talks

by Reverend Zin Moon Kim

True Parental Heart

By Rev. Zin Moon Kim

This is a the first excerpt from the transcript of the Sunday Sermon given at Belvedere, New York on December 20, 1992. In this section, Rev. Kim oulines eight of ten points.

In Father's speech, we always hear the term, "parental heart." Through my twenty years in the western world, I see that western members need to understand more clearly the true meaning of parental heart. When I compare, I see that western and oriental parents are very different. Father's speeches about parental heart mainly center on the oriental way of thinking about parental heart. Therefore, I wonder whether you understand clearly when Father refers to parental heart.

Those who have children already feel parental heart a little bit, but you don't feel it clearly. For example, I pushed you many times, but still many parents who have small babies, who need to sleep next to the mommy's bosom, let the baby sleep in a small cage in the corner of the room, while the husband and wife sleep together. This is not parental heart.

Also you push even small babies in strollers; this is not parental heart. You must carry your small baby at your bosom or on your back. Before the baby can walk, it needs to feel the mother's and father's body temperature. Especially at nighttime, the baby's pillow should be the mommy's arm until it falls into a deep sleep, next to the breast, where it can easily suck and sleep. During the daytime, when you go somewhere, the baby must touch your body, not making distance between parent and baby through using a stroller. But here, so many of you leave a distance. It seems to me that you like your baby but you don't love your baby. "Like" is centering on myself; "love" is centering on the baby.

To love others, we need to sacrifice something. For example, if the baby is sleeping next to the mother at night, the husband and wife's sexual relationship sometimes may be impossible. So you need to sacrifice for around one year. You can have sex, but sometimes when the baby is crying, you must sacrifice it. After the baby grows up, he will realize how much you sacrificed. Then, eventually, when you get old and they grow up, they will serve you with their own sacrifice. Then your old age will be a very comfortable life. This is the original expectation of God for human society.

Ten Points

I don't know all of this; only Father knows. But as much as I know, I want to explain the true parental heart, especially to the western world. I have ten points. I think that there are more here who have no children than who have children. But by True Parents' words, we have the parental position to other people, so this morning you will hear what parental heart is. Then, you need to apply this to witnessing and taking care of other people.

In the orient, we say "in-gyuk," it means "human being's position," but in English it is translated "character" or "personality." This is a very inaccurate translation. In-gyuk means "human being's original position." Mission is determined by position.

When you sisters marry, your most serious and primary position is that of daughter-in-law. Because of this position, your primary mission is to serve your parents-in-law. But most women neglect that position. This creates many social problems, and eventually leads to problems with the children. The next position is that of wife. Because of that position you need to serve your husband. Eventually you will have the position of mother; then you must serve your babies. Everyone of us have many positions, determined by time, or by blood lineage, or by place, or by event. According to the position, the mission is different, temporarily or eternally different. If you marry, you have another position, according to which you have another mission. Human beings can understand their position by time and space, then do a certain mission because of the position. We call such people, "in-gyuk-cha."

We Unification Church members have the parental position to other people. Leaders have the parental position to the members. Of course, physical parents have the parental position. It means they have a parental mission. Position and mission always go together. If I have a high level position but no mission, then this position has no meaning. As we are in the position of parents to restore all the outside people, we need to clearly understand the meaning of true parental heart. We should have the parental position to other people, therefore we have the parental mission. Eventually we will become real physical parents. These points are from Father's speeches, which I picked up for you to understand simply.

Parental heart

1. Parental heart means the heart which has unbreakable love, directed toward the children. The love connection between parents and children can't be broken. The connection between husband and wife can break, it happens sometimes; it is divorce. But parents and children cannot divorce, so it is an unbreakable love connection. As real members of the Unification Church, we should have unbreakable love connections with other people. Then our position is that of parent.

Materialized, externalized societies create people who have a common characteristic: apathy. For example, "I care only about money; I don't care about you." Many western people seem to think they don't care about God. Second, they seem to think they don't care about the country. Third, they seem to think they don't care about their parents. Then, they seem to think they don't care about their spouses; finally, they seem to think they don't care about their own spirits.

We are living in such a society. We must change this atmosphere of apathy. Apathy means, "no heartistic connection." Originally God created with unbreakable love connections between people and creation. So if we become men of apathy, our future will become dim.

The future of America is very dim because of apathy. We have a moral group in America; "The Way of Unity," in Minneapolis. They want to combat apathy. We are living in a materialistic society, so we need to know the unbreakable love connection, centering on parental heart.

2. True parental heart is the heart that desires that the children be better than the parents. When we witness, we must think that these people must become better than me in front of Heavenly Father. You think that your children should be better than yourself. This is parental heart, which originated from God. God created human beings resembling Himself. So, if we didn't have fallen nature, human beings would be almighty and all knowing. It looks like God and human beings should have equal ability. But True Father said, actually human beings are better than God. God created human beings better than Himself, just as you want your children to be better than yourself.

I have four points of illustration. First, God is only spiritual, but human beings have spirit and body both. God cannot enjoy the physical world directly, He can enjoy only the spiritual world. If He wants to enjoy the physical world, He must do so indirectly, through human beings, who have bodies. Human beings have spirit and body both, so we are much better than God. Second, God can love only vertically; He cannot love horizontally. But human beings can love vertically and horizontally both. Loving children and my members is vertical love. But also I can love my brothers and my sisters and my wife; this is horizontal love. God can't have both, but human beings can have both. Third, God gave birth to only two babies, Adam and Eve. But you can make ten or twelve babies. You are much more powerful than God. Fourth, God spent millions of years to create two persons. But you as a man (husband) and a woman (wife) join together and in just nine months can create a baby. How much more powerful are human beings.

God had big hope, so He created human beings much better than Himself, but human beings fell. You can imagine how disappointed God was when human beings fell. You expect so much from your baby, but what if they create so many problems and all the time policemen are calling you, then how disappointed you will be. God's parental heart is that their descendents will be better than them. Whenever you witness, you must expect, "My spiritual son and daughter must be better than me, to serve Heavenly Father, to make the ideal world." You need this parental heart.

Give unconditionally

3. True parental heart is the heart that desires to give unconditionally and without limit. God gave everything He had to human beings, unconditionally and without limit. Likewise we must give unconditionally and without limit to outside people; then they will become our members. Parents, when they raise their children, do so unconditionally, not with the desire that when I get old they will serve me. Parents don't count: when I give one, they will give one back. If you give unconditionally, they will give back unconditionally, because this is what they learned.

4. The true parental heart is the heart that desires to teach justice only to their children. God taught us by Divine Principle to be just. Because of Satan we know injustice. When we witness others, we will not teach bad doings, only good doings. This thinking originated from God. God expected all His children to be righteous and just. This is one part of parental heart.

5. The true parental heart is the heart that desires the children to be harmonious, never fighting and conflicting. We inherit this heart from God. When you witness to many people, you will not be happy if your spiritual children are fighting each other. You absolutely want that they should unite harmoniously. This is parental heart.

6. The true parental heart is the heart that desires to give all the good results to the children after working together with them. For example, if a small boy brings one coffee cup to mommy while she is washing dishes, she will bring him in front of daddy and tell daddy that this morning our cute son washed all the dishes. Actually, he just moved one cup, but mommy said he did everything. This is parental heart. If you make a small good result, when True Parents go to outside people they will say, "Our member did such a wonderful thing." Actually it was just a small thing, but they consider it great. Spirit world is an enlarged world, where you will be praised very much for just a small good thing. God always wants to work together, saying "I will do 95%, you will do 5%, but my desire is to tell everyone that you did everything." This is parental heart. If you do like that, your members will follow you.

Sometimes leaders do only 1%, and their members do 99%, but they go outside and proclaim, "I did this one, I did that one." Such a leader cannot have a long tenure, because it is not parental heart.

7. The true parental heart is the heart that worries whether or not the children will make a problem. When children go to school, all the time mommy and daddy are thinking, "My girl, my boy, please don't make any problem today. Please no car accident, no bad food;" all the time worrying. My mother sometimes called me, when I was 55. She would say, "Son, I heard that in New York there are many vehicles. Please be careful when you cross the road." I soon will be a grandfather, but she thinks of me referring to when she changed my diapers. This is parental heart; it is not depreciating the value of the children; it is loving concern.

The children go to school, but mom and dad still worry all the time. This is parental heart. When you have such a heart to your spiritual children, they will never leave the church. All the time spirit world will connect you to them. Actually, I have around 30 spiritual children, but I cannot remember some of their names. This is my problem. Please don't follow this style. You must be good spiritual parents.

Forgiveness

8. The true parental heart is the heart that desires to forgive the children who made a problem, with the desire for them to repent and change. When Adam and Eve made a problem, God never gave forgiveness; He just kicked them out of the Garden of Eden. I'm very strict; I forgive very slowly. One sister said of one brother, "He was working with me a long time, he is a good guy; you need to forgive him. Jesus said, forgive even your enemy." So I said, "Who is higher, Jesus or God?" "She said, God." I said, "When Adam and Eve made a problem, God never gave forgiveness; He just kicked them out. Is God bad?" She couldn't say anything.

Forgiveness requires a 5% condition which must be done by the person who made the problem. Jesus' forgiveness doesn't work otherwise. When God kicked them out, by external thinking it looks like he hated them. But if you understand God's parental heart, you know He never hated Adam and Eve. Internally, He strongly expected and was hoping they would beg him for forgiveness; then He would forgive them with deep love. This was His internal heart. But Adam and Eve never felt that.

God prepared for such a long period to create Adam and Eve. Was it just so that He could kick them out? No, He wanted to embrace them and participate in their joy. So we can imagine that if Adam and Eve said, "Father, you can kill us, because we made a big problem, but please don't kick us away from you. We would rather die in front of you." Then what result would have come? I think the restoration course would have been very short. They made a problem, so there had to be an indemnity condition, but the period of indemnity would have been very short.

Parents shout at you, waiting for you to repent, then they will forgive you. This heart is behind the chastisement. This is the invisible parental heart. But it is difficult to perceive this by western world standards. We Korean leaders shout many times, but we never kick members out. The purpose of shouting is for you to be a better member; it is not to hate you. Father shouts and kicks us; is it because he hates us? No; he wants us to repent quickly. Then, willingly he will forgive us.

I heard that some American members say their parents hated them and beat them and therefore they don't like their parents. In Korea we can never imagine this, because we know that mommy and daddy spanking is for the children to be better, not because of hatred. But you take it as hatred. That is a problem. Of course, western parents do not have enough parental heart, but when they spank, it is not just hate.

Please change your attitude. Behind the spanking is the desire to make a condition to forgive. Parents are always waiting for you to repent and come back to be forgiven. But they cannot say at the outset, "Please come back and repent and I will forgive you," because to repent is the mission and responsibility of the one who made the problem, so the parents can't say it.

Adam and Eve fell within their portion of responsibility, not God's responsibility. So God couldn't say anything; He couldn't intervene. It is exactly the same. So, whenever your leader or parents are shouting, you must think, "This is my chance to repent." Then everything will be OK. But some members left the church or became home members because of their leader's shouting. The leader's shouting is for the member's benefit, not out of hatred.

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