Our Community Needs A Handyman -- Reflections of an American member

John Hessel
April 1987

First OWP team posing in 1977.

In the summer of 1970, my spiritual search began. After only one year of college at U. C. Santa Barbara, I had watched a bank being burned by political activists, experienced an occupation of our campus by the National Guard, and seen a student killed by a policeman during the 1969 antiwar demonstrations. The greatest lesson I learned that year was that everyone knew society was in a mess but no one had any answers.

I gave up on society and decided to start my own way of life. I had heard there were places in Northern California where you could "homestead" That meant you could stake out some land in certain areas of the national forest, and if you made capital improvements of a certain amount for five years in a row, you could claim that land as your own. I bought a book called "Cooperative Communities -- How to Start them and Why," thinking that if we got away from the city and started over, things would be different. We would be different.

After two weeks in the woods I realized that the author of this book and his community were located just a few miles away. I headed for "Ananda," as it was called. There I had a profound experience that God was alive and was like a parent to us all. Then I went to Madrid, Spain, for another year of college. I spent most of my time reading religious books of all faiths, trying to discover God's will and His desire for me.

In December 1970 I met my spiritual father, Kevin Brabazon, in England, and I joined the church right away. I knew this was just what I had been searching for. The answer wasn't in the forest -- it was inside of me.

John Hessel with his wife Tokie and his daughter Mija.

A Practical Foundation

I came to the New York church, and some months later, while looking in the want ads for a job -- this was before MFT -- I still remember seeing an ad that said, "Spiritual community needs handyman:' I laughed to myself at the irony: Great ideals and noble purposes will not succeed in this world without a practical, substantial foundation to build them on. First we need to realize God's ideal in our hearts, then we need to build a tangible reality of that ideal. In working in businesses over the years, this truth has always given me motivation and hope.

In early 1972, New York church leader Philip Burley asked a number of center members to quit their jobs to do full-time "fundraising." We had done some successful weekend fundraising with candles, but the center depended on our salaries to meet its expenses. If we went fundraising we would have to bring back more than we did on our jobs, which wasn't much, and we had no idea what to expect. Mr. Burley said, "If this works, you'll get the glory. If it fails, I'll get the blamer'

The six of us involved were about one-third of the New York membership. Every day we went out with our product. After fundraising in front of Macy's department store all day, we would walk down 34th Street to a diner on 10th Avenue. We never imagined that the 43-story hotel we walked past would someday be full of members.

Our fundraising results were small, but we were proud of what we brought home in donations each day, because it was more than we could offer through our previous jobs. It wasn't easy to believe one of our elder brothers, who had recently arrived from Japan, when he broke our concepts and told us it should be no problem for each of us to raise $100 a day! Looking back, I can see that our greatest barrier was our own small vision.

Decor Marketing, a project of OWP.

Meeting the Needs

After I began to work under Mr. Kamiyama as the East Coast MFT leader, I realized how much the Japanese movement had developed a strong internal tradition and wisdom. One day I held a meeting for the four team captains of my region to give them some internal guidance. One of them was a Japanese member, who by the end of the meeting was doing the talking while I was eagerly listening.

His team had always been filled with a bright spirit, but I had no idea of the great wealth of inspiration within him. That night I told Mr. Kamiyama that this brother should be the East Coast leader, not me. Since then, I have always been learning from my elder Japanese brothers. I am deeply grateful for their wisdom and guidance.

I now work for a company called Original World Products (OWP). It was formed in August 1977 to provide financial support for The News World (now the New York City Tribune). As we approach our tenth year, I see how we have evolved and matured as individuals and as a business. The emergence of growing families has brought about the challenge of fulfilling our responsibilities in our mission while also supporting our children.

My goal and my hope is that OWP, through our art galleries, booths, and other projects, can provide brothers and sisters with jobs and a substantial financial opportunity that will meet the needs of growing families. Like the handyman being sought by the spiritual community in the classified ad, I want to provide an economic foundation that can free members to devote less time to fundraising and more time to directly fulfilling God's desire for this world.

I am inspired by that challenge.