The Words of In Jin Moon from 2011
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The Words of In Jin Moon from 2011 |
Good morning, Washington, D.C. I am delighted to be with all of you once again. I just came from Las Vegas after spending some time with our True Parents and they send you their love and greetings. I always find it amazing that the True Parents of humankind have decided to plant themselves smack in the middle of what we know Las Vegas to be, Sin City. Through their presence and the kind of work they continue to do there, they intend to turn Sin City not just into a Shining City on a hill but into a Sun City.
When you see the word sin, in the middle sits the letter I. I've always thought that when we think only about ourselves -- or me, myself and I, or the individual -- it's very easy to succumb to the temptations of the world. But when Father wants to change Sin City into Sun City, smack in the middle of the word sun sits the letter U. To me that symbolizes the importance of unity and really living a life of unselfishness.
Our True Parents are reminding us to take ourselves away from the concept of me, myself and I -- or the individual being the master of the universe or the most important thing in our lives -- to an understanding that we really do belong to one family under God, and that we need to unite with God's representative here, our True Parents. We need to unite with them in heart and spirit so we can do the good work that needs to be done. It's extremely important for me to feel the spiritual presence of our True Parents as we continue to do the things we need to do in the course of this year.
I've found it interesting that this is the year of the rabbit, which in the East symbolizes a year of great prosperity and luck. I believe that if we can truly unite heartistically in the spirit of true love with our True Parents, we can reap the heavenly fortune that this new year will afford us and the amazing luck that abounds. I believe that the promise of prosperity can be turned into a substantial reality if we decide today to live as God's eternal sons and daughters united not only as Unificationists in name, but also as true Unificationists understanding who we are and what an incredible time we're living in when Heavenly Father is encouraging all of us to testify about the breaking news of our True Parents.
I think it's not a coincidence that we're embarking here in Washington, D.C., on this joint worship where the various communities will now come together and worship as one family. If we can fully inherit the heart and spirit of God, I believe that the city of Washington can fulfill its providential role of washing not just the capital of America but all of America with the spirit of true love, and the understanding that our True Parents are here in our midst.
How wonderful and surprising it is that we can remind ourselves of how important True Parents are in our lives on this beautiful Palm Sunday. According to the Gospels, Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey while people laid cloaks and tree branches before his feet. Unlike the image of a king riding through town on a horse -- the horse being very much a symbol of war and fighting that would soon ensue -- Jesus rode into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday on a donkey. In the Eastern tradition, this animal is understood to symbolize peace. Jesus was riding into town as the Prince of Peace, as the child of God who will usher in a time of peace and bring God's message not only to be heard but also to be substantiated by himself in his lifetime.
Palm Sunday is particularly significant in that it offers us the beautiful image of Jesus symbolizing the prince of peace by riding humbly into Jerusalem on a donkey. But Palm Sunday always has a bit of sadness because know that a week later we celebrate Easter Sunday. In the course of a week Jesus offers us the beautiful visual imagery as the prince of peace entering Jerusalem, and the heartrending imagery later in the week as he was crucified and then resurrected.
Of course in the resurrection we can celebrate Jesus' spiritual foundation. But we know that what he came to do was to find that beautiful wife and together with her establish themselves as the True Parents of mankind so their brothers and sisters could not only experience true love and true life, but also have the opportunity to substantiate true lineage by grafting onto God's lineage. This beautiful idea of what should have been was lost due to the Israelites' failure to unite, and John the Baptist's failure to fulfill his responsibility of testifying to his people that Jesus was the son of God.
John the Baptist's role and responsibility was to make straight the way of the Lord, but because he could not testify clearly to who Jesus really was, he did not make straight the way of the lord, so Jesus had to go the way of crucifixion and we had to wait many, many years before we could welcome our True Parents.
Palm Sunday is a reminder of what Jesus could have been. Jesus entering Jerusalem as a symbol of the Prince of Peace is a symbol of what could have been. It was the beginning of that lovely story that went truly wrong in the course of a week because the people could not believe and because the key providential person like John the Baptist did not fulfill his responsibility in testifying to the world and to his people what Jesus Christ was really about.
So we had to wait 2,000 years before our True Parents could come and be in our midst. For the first time we now have a man and a woman standing together representing our Heavenly Parent. We have the masculine aspect represented in our True Father and the feminine aspect represented in our True Mother. For the first time we have this holistic picture instead of a picture that has seemed askew.
I think a lot of women in the audience may view the fact that Jesus never had the chance to find his beautiful wife and establish a beautiful family as being closely tied to the fact that in history religion has often been truly unkind to women. Nobody has known what to do with women. Nobody has known what roles women should play in an active life of faith, or whether they should be afforded an active life of faith at all.
Many people did not understand the power of the feminine and how important and outstanding it can be to a life of faith. We had to wait a very long time -- and the history of religion has been that of waiting, constant waiting, waiting for individual salvation, waiting for the Messiah to return, hoping that we could be living at a time when the Messiah does come back.
Instead of living and loving and substantiating this thing called an ideal family and experiencing the true love of God, the history of religion has been that of waiting, waiting for salvation, waiting for True Parents.
Now we have our True Parents with us in our lifetime, brothers and sisters. This is the time when God is going to look to us to reverse the failure of John the Baptist by testifying about our True Parents. The Unification movement has done a whole lot better than the disciples of Jesus in that regardless of how difficult and how much persecution we went through, the first generation never left our True Parents. You stood by them through the good times and the bad times, through the difficulty and the suffering. So all of you were able to accomplish what the twelve disciples could not accomplish in Jesus' time. Your offering and sacrifice became the foundation on which our True Parents still continue to work.
Can you imagine if the Second and the Third Generations now build on your victory, not just keeping our True Parents alive but seizing the opportunity before us to share the breaking news with the rest of the world and start testifying?
I've always found it quite interesting that when you look at the word testify the word test is in there. That's God's hint to us that there's going to be quite a bit of testing along the way. God might put us in situations where he will test our faith, or our understanding of who we are or what we want to do, to see if we're going to stand up and be eternal sons and daughters who testify to the breaking news of our True Parents being with us.
One of the first things you need to do internally when you prepare yourself to be the vessel to testify about our True Parents is first and foremost to be true to ourselves. We have to know who we are, why we are here, why our life is so precious, and why we need to encourage other people to see their lives as something precious, as a divine gift that should not be wasted but should be nurtured, encouraged, and empowered so that we can all be great sons and daughters of God.
When we think about being true to ourselves, it reminds me of the early 1970s and 1980s when we had Divine Principle workshops for blessed children. One of the things we did was go flower-selling. We would pick different locations, usually at an intersection in front of a gas station. One day my older sister, Ye Jin Onni and I and my younger sister, Un Jin, were manning a flower-selling booth, selling roses. A lot of people were coming and going. The persecution of our movement was really intense at that time, so a lot of people driving past, seeing the roses and seeing Asian faces, automatically assumed we were Moonies. Many drivers went by, "Mooooniieeee," honk, honk.
Some people would stop and buy flowers, others would ask, "Where are you from? Who are you?" Because we were being persecuted, we thought, "We're tired and beaten to a pulp already and it's not even noon. We really don't feel like testifying about God, about the church, about True Parents. Maybe we can say we're raising money for charity to send overseas." My sisters and I had a conversation about how we were tired of being called Moonies all morning. "When people stop and ask, why don't we just tell them we belong to a Christian organization raising money for charity that will be sent overseas? Let's see if that does any better."
We did that with a couple of people who stopped by our flower stand, and we thought afterward, "This is much easier. Fewer questions. Not so much provoking us with questions like, 'Is he your father?' 'What kind of a father sends his daughters out flower selling in front of a gas station?' 'He's a cult leader.'" All these things. We were getting sick of hearing that. When we said we were a Christian organization, it was as if the dark cloud raining overhead just suddenly disappeared. People started smiling, "Oh, you're sending money overseas?" "Yes, we are sending money overseas." We thought, "This is going quite well," So we continued on with this little story.
Then one gentleman pulled up in a white car. He came over very seriously and said, "Where are you from?" My sister and I looked at each other, and we each thought, "Better not to say Korea. It will quickly go to Moonies." So my sister said, "We're Japanese." The gentleman said, "Really? What are your names?" Then my sister said, "Ye Jin-go." He said, "What's your name?" "In Jin-go." He looked at my younger sister. "Un Jin-go." We thought we were doing quite well by putting a Japanese ending on our names so it didn't sound Korean.
Then he said, "What are you fund-raising for?" We said, "We're from a Christian organization raising money selling flowers so we can send it overseas." Then he said, "What kind of Christian organization?" My sister and I looked at each other, and replied, "We're a Korean Christian organization." When my sister said that, I could see her brain ticking -- she had just said she was Japanese but she was working for a Korean Christian group.
He said, "So who is your pastor?" My elder sister said, "Pastor Moon." The man asked, "Where is he from? Where do you have your church?" We looked at each other and said, "Yes, we have churches all around the country and our pastor travels all around the country. He is very busy." The man asked, "What is his full name?" We said, "Well, his full name is Pastor Reverend Minister Moon." The man said, "No, what is his first name?" So we looked at each other and he looked at us and said, "You are not Japanese, are you?"
We replied, "No we're not." "Where are you from?" I said, "Well, actually we're Korean." He said, "Well, now that you've told me that you're Korean, you can drop the "go" at the end of your name. Your name is Ye Jin, your name is In Jin, your name is Un Jin. Um hmm. So what church are you from?"
See, finally we said to him, "Well, we are from the Unification Church. But we had a really tough morning being honked at all morning long, being called 'Moonie,' so it's not that we didn't want to be true to ourselves. We were just tired." Then he looked at us and said, "Ladies, I'm a professor at East Asian studies. I speak both Korean and Japanese, so had I started conversing with you in Japanese, you would have been in deep trouble." Of course at the end we exchanged a lot of laughter and he ended up buying a whole bucket of roses.
But that experience taught me something. That experience taught me that we really have to be true to ourselves. Sometimes in the course of our lives we are tired, we just don't want to deal with the persecution. We want to take the easy way out. But at the end of the day it's the truth that will set you free, as it says in John 17:23. It's the truth that will set you free. [Actually John 8:32]
The beautiful thing is, we were able to sell this huge bucket of roses because finally we were able to own up to who we were. Regardless of whether we were tired or beaten, we could finally say, "We belong to the Unification Church. Yes, we are daughters of Rev. Sun Myung Moon." And it felt so good.
Even now, as I go around the country meeting with different people -- politicians, entertainers, great brothers and sisters -- I'm always reminded of the simple need to be true to myself. I was also reminded that despite the great satisfaction and rewards of owning up to who we are as proud Unificationists who know we are divine creatures of God, eternal sons and daughters, many times we are our worst enemies in that we're embarrassed or ashamed of who we are.
But the minute we start raising our heads -- not out of pride, but out of confidence in knowing that we belong to one common parent and that we have this great opportunity to work with our True Parents -- then we realize that we don't have to be afraid. After all the years in the wilderness, being called a lot of bad names -- "Moonie" tended to be one of the better ones -- and being persecuted so heavily, it's almost an instinctual habit, I believe, that whenever we are confronted with a new situation we lock ourselves in. We're not proud or confident the way we should be.
My younger brother, Kook Jin, who's doing such a phenomenal job heading up the Korean foundation -- he single-handedly turned around the financial crisis of the foundation and has now turned it into a money-maker -- is very much acknowledged as a great CEO in Korea. He has been featured in a business magazine that highlights the most promising and up-and-coming CEOs in Korean industry.
Kook
Jin Moon
Not only is he well known as a great businessman, but the amazing thing about Kook Jin is that he is also a phenomenal witnesser, in that he is not afraid. He will go up to anybody on the street, to anybody in government, and say, "Hello, good morning, my name is Kook Jin Moon. My father is the Lord of the Second Advent and the Messiah and you as Koreans should be proud that the Messiah was sent to this country. You should work together with our True Parents."
The interesting thing is, when he is so up front about his beliefs, when he can be so bold, courageous, and honest about his beliefs -- our beliefs -- people are initially taken aback, but then they have a second response. "Oh, really? You think your father is the Messiah?" But then whoever is listening to Kook Jin will go through a mental process where they're asking themselves, "How can a son of this man so boldly believe that his father is the Messiah?" And this son is not just any kind of son. He's one of the titans of industry in Korea. He is one of the well acknowledged, up-and-coming CEOs of Korea.
When somebody with this external excellence so boldly proclaims that his father is the Messiah, because it is through his father and mother's teachings that he has come to understand the need for internal excellence as well, then people are, "Wow, this is amazing."
Somebody said to me a while back, "Do not be afraid of anything new. Just remember that it was the amateur, the believer who built the ark, but it was the all-knowing professionals who built the Titanic. In other words, perhaps our boldness might look so innocent, so ignorantly innocent, but if you really think about it, the truth is the truth. It is time for people to realize that our True Father has a profound message to share with the rest of the world, and here are his son and his daughter saying that this is the Lord of the Second Advent we have been waiting for. We are saying that in the form of our True Parents we have a beautiful man and woman who are going to show us how to become ideal human beings, ideal spouses, ideal father and mother, and ideal children.
When we think about how amazing it is to be afforded this opportunity to be breathing and walking together with our True Parents, we realize how incredibly blessed we are, brothers and sisters. This is not a time to be afraid when God tests us. God might put us in a very difficult situation -- perhaps in a room full of journalists or people from organizations like the Cult Awareness Network -- but if we can be bold and not afraid of who we are, and start preaching and sharing the breaking news, I think we will be amazed at the kind of feedback and response we will experience.
I can testify that the stronger I am and the bolder I am in talking about my faith and my parents and how incredible it is to have True Parents here with us, the more people want to hear. People want to study more. People want to read our True Father's autobiography.
Did you know, if you end up going to Las Vegas on this book distribution project that is taking place now, when you drive down the highway you will see a huge billboard advertising our True Father's autobiography as a best-seller. You can learn more about this autobiography at peaceking.com.
I was spending time with True Parents but I wanted to know what the billboards looked like. Reverend Cotter took a video of the approach to the billboard and included comments about what he felt and how it looked to him. When he showed me this video, I saw another example of Reverend Cotter's talent. He has made a good visual record of the car going slowly toward the billboard, but what is quite striking is his narration. It is almost like listening to the Indy 500 -- "Here comes the lead car. Here they come in the turn around the bend," and so on. He was narrating, "Here we are going down the highway, approaching the billboard, which will come up on the left. This is really amazing.
This is the first time something like this has happened in this remarkable Sin City, now Sun City, of Las Vegas. We need to look -- look, look toward the left. As we're approaching, look carefully. There it is! There it is! Beautiful billboard! Father looks magnificent and it's so tastefully done." When I experienced this almost childlike excitement at seeing our True Father on the billboard next to a highway in Las Vegas, I said to myself, "Hallelujah. True Parents have arrived and this is just the beginning."
Father has a lot of plans for Las Vegas and all the wonderful things he will be doing. I'm sure you will be hearing more and more about some of the things that will be taking place. But again I felt, why have we been so afraid to put a beautiful picture of True Parents up on a billboard? It's a lot nicer looking than some of those billboards out there with Australia's "Thunder Down Under," right? You see billboards of half naked men and women all over the place.
But here you come across this beautiful billboard where two hands are holding up the autobiography of our True Father, encased in a blue light, and there are doves flying out of it. Even the company that owns the billboard said this is really quite beautiful.
Even in that small way our True Parents are letting people know they are here. What should we be doing if we see this last three years before 2013 as the window of opportunity when we can be there to testify about our True Parents so they will truly be understood as the True Parents of all humankind? Or are we not going to do our responsibility, and have our True Parents crucified? Once our True Parents start showing up again in the consciousness of the American people, our movement has to be right there like a true John the Baptist, not just to protect them but also to testify as to who they are.
When we're thinking about testifying about True Parents we need to realize that in order truly to testify about True Parents we have to be a living witness for them. I received an e-mail from a Second Gen high school student in Red Hook, New York. She said one of her classes was studying different religions and cults. Of course when the topic of cults came up, immediately it turned to the Unification Church and Rev. Sun Myung Moon. They were showing a video of different cults. It was not a very flattering clip, but the teacher, knowing that there are Unificationists in his class, decided quickly to cut that video segment short. The teacher had to make a couple of statements after the video, saying, "Here in our school we have Unificationists represented and I need to say that they are a wonderful addition to our community and we are so lucky to have them."
The teacher, realizing how unflattering the videotape was about our movement, had to make that statement because the Second Generation going to that school were living witnesses of what our True Parents are all about. They tended to be the best students. They tended to be more focused and more serious about their studies.
Regardless of what people have seen or heard about our movement, when they meet you and our children they have to look at what's in front of them, wrestle with what they've heard, and decide for themselves -- "Is Rev. Moon really a good guy or a bad guy? Because here I have a living witness, a living testament of their faith and all I see is beauty and promise, somebody who is serious about their life." What else can people say? They are naturally won over by you and our children.
Again, this is the power of natural witnessing. When we can raise ourselves up to be excellent, proud, and confident sons and daughters of God, there is very little we need to say. The only thing we need to do is go about our business, doing the good work that we need to do. When people want us to share about our faith then we do so boldly, proudly, and with great confidence and reverence for the True Parents, who are really, truly a gift to all of us.
Our True Parents are saying, "God prepared this beautiful country of America to play a remarkable providential role. What are you Americans going to do for the sake of the world?" Here we are in Washington, D.C., which has been so blessed over the years when Father invested millions and millions of dollars to save America, to help America stand on its two feet and be the great country that God is waiting for it to be.
Our members, who have been fortunate to work at these different institutions such as the Washington Times, The World and I, and Atlantic Video, have also prospered materially. But sometimes when we are blessed materially or externally we get a little complacent. Sometimes we get a little fat in our thoughts, and we forget who we are. We forget why we're getting that check from the Washington Times. We're not getting it just for our own benefit, so we can have a great house, eat great food, play with our neighbors, and say, "I am just like you. I belong to a golf club, to this club and that club."
God did not invest in Washington, D.C., so we could all have memberships to clubs. God and our True Parents invested billions of dollars because they were fighting communism. They were trying to protect the world from things like communism and the kind of life that has no vision or purpose or direction.
If Father and Mother invested that many external resources in this great city of Washington, shouldn't it be more than what Charles Dickens calls a city of magnificent intentions? Shouldn't it be a city that understands how much sweat, blood, and tears lies behind all those financial resources?
American brothers and sisters, those resources came from the mother country of Japan. Don't you think that America, as an eldest son, should finally grow up and be responsible and take care of the father and mother? This begins with taking care of ourselves. We should be the country that generates resources in support of Korea and Japan. Shouldn't we work that much harder, knowing how much Father has invested in this community? Shouldn't we feel the weight of ownership so that we can work harder to be the proud and confident elder son country that God has been waiting for?
Brothers and sisters, when our True Parents come to Las Vegas and are asking all of us to share this breaking news, they're asking us to share their love with the rest of the country. They're asking us to start making people feel God's love through natural witnessing, through being proud and articulating who we are as Unificationists with great dignity and reverence for our Heavenly Parents and True Parents. In that way we can move the conscience of the American people so that America comes to shine as a beacon of light unto the world.
America has been so privileged to have so many things at its fingertips. It has power, prestige, and the best academic institutions around the world. Now what are we going to do with it?
When I entered Columbia University and took my first course in political science, my teacher defined what power meant. He said power is the ability to influence. America sits in a unique position in that it can exercise tremendous power to influence the world. So imagine if America could truly be unified with our True Parents and our Heavenly Parents and exercise its providential power to influence the world to see ourselves as belonging to one family with one God and to understand that the differences we have, if we come together, will combine as strength interwoven in a beautiful tapestry.
As long as we can maintain a grateful attitude and heart, we can continue to exercise a great ability to influence, starting with our own families, communities, and movement, and then expanding to our different communities, cities, towns, and ultimately this country and the world.
Brothers and sisters, we have a lot of good work to do. You need to know that the work we are doing is an extremely important one. No work is more important than helping people come to understand who God is and what our True Parents are all about. Instead of just enjoying this gift of the Blessing ourselves, how wonderful would it be if we could share the gift of the Blessing with the rest of the world, so that in essence we do become one family.
When I received a daughter-in-law who is half Japanese and half Finnish, I felt as if the world was becoming my family. That's the beauty of the blessing. In God's eyes, he and she see no color. We are all children of God and divine beings. So be a proud son or daughter of God. Be proud Unificationists. Know that we have been uniquely blessed through the presence of our True Parents, and that our mission in life is to leave the world better than we found it. So should we not honor God and our True Parents with everything we have?
Our movement has been called the most successful movement in the lifetime of its founder. That's just the first stage. Brothers and sisters, if the Second Generation can continue on this great success by being proud of who they are, and sharing the beauty of themselves with the rest of the world, we're going to experience the floodgates opening.
I'm experiencing in my work day-to-day with the different people whom I meet that they respond differently to our movement now. There is a desire for them to get involved. The concept of True Parents, the feminine and the masculine represented in a holistic picture and with the concept of a loving family, is something that we all desire and aspire to have.
The message of true love, true life, and true lineage is a beautiful one. So go proudly and know that our True Parents are with you every step of the way. Please have a great Sunday and a great week. I hope you can continue to help wash not only the capital of America but all of America. Please help America to find its way back to God so the country will be able to exercise its rightful power and the ability to influence the world in the way that it was meant to.
God bless, and thank you.
1: When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, "Father, the hour has come; glorify thy Son that the Son may glorify thee,
2: since thou hast given him power over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom thou hast given him.
3: And this is eternal life, that they know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.
4: I glorified thee on earth, having accomplished the work which thou gavest me to do;
5: and now, Father, glorify thou me in thy own presence with the glory which I had with thee before the world was made.
6: "I have manifested thy name to the men whom thou gavest me out of the world; thine they were, and thou gavest them to me, and they have kept thy word.
7: Now they know that everything that thou hast given me is from thee;
8: for I have given them the words which thou gavest me, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from thee; and they have believed that thou didst send me.
9: I am praying for them; I am not praying for the world but for those whom thou hast given me, for they are thine;
10: all mine are thine, and thine are mine, and I am glorified in them.
11: And now I am no more in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to thee. Holy Father, keep them in thy name, which thou hast given me, that they may be one, even as we are one.
12: While I was with them, I kept them in thy name, which thou hast given me; I have guarded them, and none of them is lost but the son of perdition, that the scripture might be fulfilled.
13: But now I am coming to thee; and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves.
14: I have given them thy word; and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.
15: I do not pray that thou shouldst take them out of the world, but that thou shouldst keep them from the evil one.
16: They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.
17: Sanctify them in the truth; thy word is truth.
18: As thou didst send me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.
19: And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be consecrated in truth.
20: "I do not pray for these only, but also for those who believe in me through their word,
21: that they may all be one; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.
22: The glory which thou hast given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one,
23: I in them and thou in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that thou hast sent me and hast loved them even as thou hast loved me.
24: Father, I desire that they also, whom thou hast given me, may be with me where I am, to behold my glory which thou hast given me in thy love for me before the foundation of the world.
25: O righteous Father, the world has not known thee, but I have known thee; and these know that thou hast sent me.
26: I made known to them thy name, and I will make it known, that the love with which thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them."
1: but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.
2: Early in the morning he came again to the temple; all the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them.
3: The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst
4: they said to him, "Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery.
5: Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such. What do you say about her?"
6: This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground.
7: And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, "Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her."
8: And once more he bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground.
9: But when they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the eldest, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him.
10: Jesus looked up and said to her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?"
11: She said, "No one, Lord." And Jesus said, "Neither do I condemn you; go, and do not sin again."
12: Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, "I am the light of the world; he who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."
13: The Pharisees then said to him, "You are bearing witness to yourself; your testimony is not true."
14: Jesus answered, "Even if I do bear witness to myself, my testimony is true, for I know whence I have come and whither I am going, but you do not know whence I come or whither I am going.
15: You judge according to the flesh, I judge no one.
16: Yet even if I do judge, my judgment is true, for it is not I alone that judge, but I and he who sent me.
17: In your law it is written that the testimony of two men is true;
18: I bear witness to myself, and the Father who sent me bears witness to me."
19: They said to him therefore, "Where is your Father?" Jesus answered, "You know neither me nor my Father; if you knew me, you would know my Father also."
20: These words he spoke in the treasury, as he taught in the temple; but no one arrested him, because his hour had not yet come.
21: Again he said to them, "I go away, and you will seek me and die in your sin; where I am going, you cannot come."
22: Then said the Jews, "Will he kill himself, since he says, `Where I am going, you cannot come'?"
23: He said to them, "You are from below, I am from above; you are of this world, I am not of this world.
24: I told you that you would die in your sins, for you will die in your sins unless you believe that I am he."
25: They said to him, "Who are you?" Jesus said to them, "Even what I have told you from the beginning.
26: I have much to say about you and much to judge; but he who sent me is true, and I declare to the world what I have heard from him."
27: They did not understand that he spoke to them of the Father.
28: So Jesus said, "When you have lifted up the Son of man, then you will know that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own authority but speak thus as the Father taught me.
29: And he who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what is pleasing to him."
30: As he spoke thus, many believed in him.
31: Jesus then said to the Jews who had believed in him, "If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples,
32: and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free."
33: They answered him, "We are descendants of Abraham, and have never been in bondage to any one. How is it that you say, `You will be made free'?"
34: Jesus answered them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, every one who commits sin is a slave to sin.
35: The slave does not continue in the house for ever; the son continues for ever.
36: So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.
37: I know that you are descendants of Abraham; yet you seek to kill me, because my word finds no place in you.
38: I speak of what I have seen with my Father, and you do what you have heard from your father."
39: They answered him, "Abraham is our father." Jesus said to them, "If you were Abraham's children, you would do what Abraham did,
40: but now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth which I heard from God; this is not what Abraham did.
41: You do what your father did." They said to him, "We were not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God."
42: Jesus said to them, "If God were your Father, you would love me, for I proceeded and came forth from God; I came not of my own accord, but he sent me.
43: Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word.
44: You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
45: But, because I tell the truth, you do not believe me.
46: Which of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me?
47: He who is of God hears the words of God; the reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God."
48: The Jews answered him, "Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?"
49: Jesus answered, "I have not a demon; but I honor my Father, and you dishonor me.
50: Yet I do not seek my own glory; there is One who seeks it and he will be the judge.
51: Truly, truly, I say to you, if any one keeps my word, he will never see death."
52: The Jews said to him, "Now we know that you have a demon. Abraham died, as did the prophets; and you say, `If any one keeps my word, he will never taste death.'
53: Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died? And the prophets died! Who do you claim to be?"
54: Jesus answered, "If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing; it is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say that he is your God.
55: But you have not known him; I know him. If I said, I do not know him, I should be a liar like you; but I do know him and I keep his word.
56: Your father Abraham rejoiced that he was to see my day; he saw it and was glad."
57: The Jews then said to him, "You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?"
58: Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am."
59: So they took up stones to throw at him; but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple.
Charles Dickens (1812–1870), British novelist. American Notes, ch. 8 (1842) wrote about Washington DC:
It is sometimes called the City of Magnificent Distances, but it might with greater propriety be termed the City of Magnificent Intentions.... Spacious avenues, that begin in nothing, and lead nowhere; streets, mile-long, that only want houses, roads, and inhabitants; public buildings that need but a public to be complete; and ornaments of great thoroughfares, which only lack great thoroughfares to ornament -- are its leading features.