The Words of the McKewen Family
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The Words of the McKewen Family |
Lecture
on the Principle being given to Youth Seminar participants by Rev.
Chung Hwan Kwak in Seoul, South Korea.
When I was first selected to participate in this year's Youth Seminar on World Religions (YSWR), I was not particularly enthusiastic. I just felt burdened, anticipating that there would be a lot of work and that a lot would be expected of me.
Since I have returned, though, I have reflected on what I actually experienced. My mother is Jewish and my father is a mix of Catholic and Greek Orthodox, and I was raised in an almost exclusively white, Protestant community. My city first allowed three black families to take up residence when I was 15 years old, and the fathers of these three families were a doctor, a lawyer, and a dentist.
Thus, as a result of the prejudice I observed and the conflict between my parents, I was desperate to see harmony between different religions and races. This dream led me to choose International Studies as my major in college and to immerse myself in an international community of Europeans, Africans, Asians, and Muslims from the Middle East at my college.
So it struck me that Father is not only dreaming of the same goal of world harmony that I am; the world tour is proof that he is making it happen. My group in the seminar consisted of my roommate, a Bangladeshi Muslim; an Indian Hindu; Nepalese and Cambodian Buddhists; a Korean Presbyterian; a Filipino Confucianist; a Mormon and a Mohawk Indian from the United States; and me, an Unificationist. What was most incredible was that the Muslim and Hindu became best friends: Gandhi would have cried with joy.
The tour was full of events which are too numerous to recall, so I have selected experiences in a few of the countries that were especially meaningful to me.
Even though I had been exposed to Christianity in my youth, my mother was a more dominant influence, so I was not so sure about Jesus. But when I stood in the Garden of Gethsemane in Jerusalem, the biblical story which had previously been a myth became a reality to me, and I felt close to Jesus for the first time.
There was such a sadness in the atmosphere of the garden that I could vividly imagine Jesus praying and crying throughout the night and the despair he must have felt when his disciples betrayed him. It made me wonder, also, how many times we had let Father down when he needed us most.
A church has been erected adjacent to the Garden of Gethsemane in commemoration of Jesus' prayer there. When I entered it, I was overwhelmed -- by a desire to pray at great length to repent for the failure of Jesus' disciples and also for our failure in not fulfilling what Father has asked of us.
But the tour had to keep a fairly rigid schedule, and I overheard that we were to depart soon. I sat down with great disappointment that I could not fulfill the prayer condition that I felt God was asking of me, but also with an urgent desire for God to understand my yearning to pray and repent. When I looked at the floor, I was startled to see a rosary, and as soon as I picked it up, I began to cry. The rosary had obviously been used quite a bit because the beads were worn down and it was even taped to hold it together. So my feeling was that through the rosary, God had enabled me to inherit the prayers and tears of another for the providence because it was not physically possible for me to remain in the chapel as long as I wished.
Another experience that evoked an overwhelming emotional response in me was my arrival in India. Regardless of the warnings of those who had visited India and the emotional preparation I had tried to make, I experienced a severe shock after disembarking from the plane in India. We first had a layover in Bombay before reaching our destination in Madras. Hungry, pleading eyes and outstretched hands met me in every direction I looked. I could hardly make my way to the bus because of the swarms of young children and elderly people who surrounded me -- begging.
I had a fleeting thought to change all of my money into small Indian currency so I could give something to everyone who pleaded, but the reality is that there is no end in sight. Whenever I saw someone give a donation, an infinite number of beggars seemed to appear, so there was no end to the need.
We had time for a short tour of Bombay, so I decided to take advantage of it. Every time we left the bus, we were met again by beggars. I was so grieved at not being able to help all those who asked that I tried to ignore them. But all of a sudden I felt something on my feet. I looked down in horror to find that a young girl -- not more than six or seven years old -- had laid a disfigured baby on my feet, and her eyes and hands were reaching up to me.
We flew to Madras that evening, and after the bus ride which I spent by watching the people -- even entire families with children and babies -- laying down to sleep on the sidewalks, I lost control. The shock of the poverty I saw made me so upset that I had to be physically escorted to my room as I left behind a trail of tears.
I could not leave the hotel for nearly the entire day following our arrival in Madras because I was in such shock. I decided to at least try to venture outside of the hotel in the early evening in order to have some idea of what my surroundings were like. I was struck by heavy humidity and a putrid smell as soon as I walked outside. I made my way to the street and decided that there was enough activity in the immediate area that I need not walk any further.
Everything seemed so foreign -- all the women were wearing saris, and the men were wearing various types of Indian clothing. They were equally awed by my strange Western clothing and our physical differences, which caused them to return my gaze.
After a few minutes a bus came along which was so overcrowded that people were almost hanging out of the windows and congested in the entrance. So many more people tried to enter the bus when it stopped in front of me that it would not go forward. There was a yell and several of the passengers jumped off to give it a push. Everyone was not allowed back on the bus, because it had evidently been overloaded.
One of the tour guides had answered my queries about the poverty and overcrowding by saying that a large part of the problem was due to people leaving the comparative security of their villages and seeking their fortune in the large cities. They gave up everything they had to make the trip to the city and arrived to find overcrowding and lack of employment. Thus they were doomed to the street life, because they did not even have the means to return to their villages.
In spite of the grotesque conditions that I saw in the cities, however, I had one experience that gave me hope and indicated that there might have been some truth to what the tour guide said. We had a long bus right to an area outside of the city, and the tour guide had the bus driver stop in a tiny village out in the countryside that had not been corrupted by tourism and other influences as in the big cities. When we got out of the bus, it was the first and only time that hands were not outstretched; instead the natives just laughed and pointed at our strange differences. Even though it was a poor village, food and shelter seemed adequate. What was most uplifting, however, was the pure joy I sensed from the people. The children frolicked and the women went about their duties, such as transporting large jugs of water on their heads, with such poise and grace that it was almost as if they were dancing. Even though it was simple life seemed rich and joyful in this humble village.
I am still a little confused about how much of our experience in China was propaganda and how much of the experience reflected the reality of life in China. We were made very comfortable -- our accommodations were plush rooms in the state guesthouse. It is the same place where President Reagan stayed during his visit to China.
Even though I realized that great effort was made to enable us to have a positive image of China, I sensed an inherent goodness in the people and the land of China, and I could understand why Father has so much hope for China in spite of communism. Our tour guides were extremely hospitable to us. I was able to talk to one of them at length, and in between the "party lines" he dictated to me, he confessed that no one in China would ever have a chance to leave the country. This was because there are two currencies in China -- one for tourists and one for the Chinese -- and it is illegal for the Chinese to possess the tourist currency. Thus, since the Chinese currency has no value in the international market, the Chinese can never accumulate enough money for it to be worth anything outside of China.
When the tour guide told me this, he seemed envious, for a split second, of those outside of China (especially Americans), but then he quickly returned to repeating party lines and told me that all the sacrifices of the people were necessary now in order for China to become great and prosperous in the future.
Thus I felt that the Chinese are not inherently evil but are merely victims of a communist regime. Once freed from this oppressive ideology, I am sure their beautiful spirits would blossom. We saw a ballet in China that was so breathtakingly beautiful that it proved this point to me beyond doubt.
The story of Father's prayers in the mountains of Korea have created such a romantic vision in my mind that I longed to visit those same mountains. However, the tour only went to Seoul, which is on the opposite side of the country from Pusan, so time did not allow me to visit Pusan.
But even as I gazed at the mountains of Korea from my hotel window, I perceived a reflection of a special aspect of God's nature through the majesty and beauty of the mountains. My one comment as a result of my observation is that I am completely confident that Father met God during his prayers in the Korean countryside... Korea is indeed God's country.