The Words of the Love Family
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The Words of the Love Family |
There is a good chance you know me or have heard about me already… sometimes I feel a little over-exposed in our church – and I'm afraid that I might be over saturating the world with stories about MY life, and ME, and MY situation.
Anyway, as a Canadian I always feel the need to start any public communication with an apology. Now that I have filled that basic patriotic requirement, I can move on to the abridged story of how and why I was Matched and Blessed in the ever wild and exciting Unification Church.
As some of you might know, I was born into a the quiet and polite family / neighborhood / country Toronto, Ontario, Canada. There was no mention of religion or even a vague discussion of God that I can recollect during my formative years. When I was a teen, the only mention of religion in our home was the odd condescending remark from my sister and me. Simply put, I believed that religion and the idea of God was stupid – that the more you believed in the "Almighty," the more stupid you had to be. Though obviously bigoted and hypocritically dogmatic, that was seriously my staunch belief. And many of the people I grew up with still maintain that viewpoint.
Then I reached a point in my life where I began to reevaluate my worldview in the hopes of discovering how I came to be the way I was. As it turned out, I had assumed much of my negativity toward religion from culture – in particular, my school and the endless hours that I spent in front of the TV. Many people never get to that point because it can be incredibly painful. But if you are lucky like I was, you are confronted with the possibility that you have been brainwashed your whole life… that you believe and function a certain way not out of choice but because of the parameters ordained by your teachers, parents, friends, and society. This is a funny notion because the term brainwashing is often negatively associated with the Unification Church, yet those who are most opposed to this Church and its practices have had very little ACTUAL experience with it and have in fact been largely persuaded ("brainwashed") in their viewpoint by the media. Funny, right?
I bring this up because at the age of 27, after living in the world of compulsive dating and partying, I had to face the possibility that I was living a life filled with bullshit.
After a lot of soul searching, I conceded that I could be wrong about God and a great many other things in life, but only if I could believe and see evidence of this God in my life. After two years of full time active pursuit of God, I was convinced that the Unification Church had gotten something right, and the same goes for the True Parents – who are the reason I pursed God in the first place.
All of this leads us to the Blessing!
As I said before, I had dated a lot and, although I considered myself a good guy, somehow all of my relationships ended in pain and misery; and some of my breakups were actually quite traumatic. But then again, that was the expectation I was raised with. You date. You date until you find the right person. Then you get married and hope that you don't get a divorce. That's it. In our culture, this pattern has so much momentum, and there are so many reasons to be polyamorous (always hopping from one person to the next). We always try to be stimulated and gratified "right now." Who cares if I don't have the money to buy that jacket, I have a credit card! Who cares about next year, this person makes me feel good right now!! That is the culture we live in, and it has a huge detrimental effect on our lives, our social and psychological well-being, and on our relationships
When I heard about mass weddings and Matchings, I was a little weirded out to be honest. The only thing I remembered about Mass weddings was this one photo I saw when I was seven or eight in the Guinness Book of World Records for the largest mass wedding ever. When my parents found out, they were not happy at all either. Many people judged me as having 'lost my mind' and were quite condescending to me regarding my own personal choice. But the more I thought about it, the more I really felt that it was so much more of a SANE choice than my other options. Let's weigh those options for a moment.
1) Having sex with a different person each weekend when you are too intoxicated to even remember the experience and/or aimlessly dating someone because it makes YOU feel good. (The majority of college students have had dozens of girlfriends/boyfriends during their time in school and perhaps countless "one night stands")
or
2) Really spending time to get to know yourself at the expense of immediate gratification so that when you enter a relationship you are not a broken, needy person.
Immediate gratification versus long term joy and fulfillment. Of course one is more accepted than the other, but does that make it the right choice?
Also, what about this?
1) Spending 20-100 thousand dollars on a wedding for 2 people
or
2) Spending like 3-10 thousand per person to have an international wedding party!
Our blessings are freaking awesome! If we were more confident as a movement, if we weren't so afraid of what people thought of us, we could admit that the Blessing is pretty much the coolest thing ever. I mean we are committing ourselves to our spouses ETERNALLY with a bunch of other friends/family/community members… all in the name of making this world a much more livable and loving place. Freaking amazing!
I told my parents that I was matched after the fact; I felt that I needed to go through the process on my own, as I had also done in the pursuit of God and religion/spirituality. I finally introduced Uyanga (who was then my fiance) to my family on Christmas Day over Skype. It was fairly awkward, but my family tried hard to be as understanding and supportive as possible.
When we all eventually met up for the first time, my whole family was totally smitten. It was really cute! But the best part was when we Skyped Uyanga's family in Mongolia. Even though her mom also had not wanted her to really go through with the Blessing process – especially with a non-Mongolian – when our parents all met, God came into that hotel room and we laughed like crazy! Despite the massive language barrier (my wife had to translate) and that awkward lag time you get with Skype, it was a resplendent time for all.
A few months later, my parents came out to our Blessing and had a great time there too. They didn't understand everything that was happening, but they were like children at a birthday party – so excited and happy. My dad snuck around everywhere as my own personal paparazzi.
Since then, Uyanga and I have been blessed with a ridiculously cute and intelligent son who is the pride of Mongolia and Canada alike. My family has wholeheartedly embraced my wife and they have given much credit back to our church.
Well, it's about time to end this story and get back to work. But I hope this helps to contextualize my experience, and what it is like to go through the Matching/Blessing experience as a "first generation" Unificationist in this modern era.
Thanks for taking the time to listen to my story! I'm excited to be joining the Matching Mentor team and I look forward to helping you all on this journey.