The Words of In Jin Moon from 2011
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The Words of In Jin Moon from 2011 |
Good morning, brothers and sisters. It's so good to see you again on this beautiful Sunday morning. We just celebrated the Commencement Gala on Friday with about 450 kids and parents. It was a wonderful evening, celebrating the accomplishments of the young people, but also presenting an opportunity for the young, beautiful, and handsome ladies and gentlemen who were celebrating their accomplishment to thank their parents, our True Parents, and our Heavenly Parent, who really made that evening possible.
Commencement
Gala
As the senior pastor who had the honor of hosting such an event, it was deeply satisfying for me. Our great Sonic Cult performed. As I was listening to their performance from the audience in the front row before I came to the side of the stage, I couldn't help but notice that the band was sounding really good. We have a new drummer, who is the drummer for Rain, one of the most famous artists in Korea. To have him perform together with Sonic Cult, grounding the band, you feel the power of every beat, don't you? I'm very happy to have him with us this Sunday.
Sonic
Cult at Commencement Gala
I got a taste at the open mic of the great talent we have up and coming. When I first initiated the idea of open mic at 43rd Street, I hoped it would turn into a place where we could see the birth of a lot of talented young men and women. I think a lot of the leadership took it to heart, including STF, and I can see a great deal of improvement in the performances. In particular I was blown away by Misha Green. I happen to be cosponsoring an event with dancers from the TV program Dancing With the Stars at the Hammerstein this evening. So I thought, how wonderful it would be if we could integrate the best of our community with the best of what's taking place on TV.
Dancing with the Stars is the Number Two show in all of America, watched by millions and millions of people. Yesterday at rehearsal, Dancing With the Stars agreed to integrate Misha Green into their program. I would like all of you to be watching. For those of you who can attend, please make it tonight, 8 o'clock at the Hammerstein. All the brothers and sisters around the country, please watch our own and be proud. Take the time to acknowledge that something like this is possible because of the sacrifices that our True Parents and the First Generation have made over the years.
To have such a wonderful building as the Manhattan Center, which is the hallmark of culture in midtown Manhattan, is a blessing in disguise. I see it as an endless opportunity not only to showcase great artists from all around the world, but also to be a nurturing womb giving birth to many great artists who are not just about making it for the money, the fame, and the celebrity, but who are going to create a new culture. These would be artists who want to give the best of themselves, to give the best performance because they want to make other people happy. They would want to live their lives in service of others.
So not only should you be watching for Misha Green, but also Ariana. The reigning champ at Harvard, together with her partner, Marco, she will also be dancing tonight in Dancing With the Stars. We will have quite a few from our community representing us tonight. I'm terribly excited about that.
When I was talking with the graduates, celebrating their Commencement Gala, one of the things I stressed to them is the concept that although a lot of young people in thinking about their future careers have dreams of wanting to become something, many times they are not willing to pay their dues -- to do the difficult thing, to put in the effort, the practice, and the many patient hours required to bring out the full expression of their artistry.
I know that in order to be the best, it takes a lot of time, effort, and dedication. But first and foremost I know that if we want to be great and accomplish our dreams, if we truly want to reach the moon, we have to start with ourselves -- we must not let ourselves be our own worst enemy in that we psych ourselves out of our dreams.
I implored the young people to take another look at the word impossibility, -- to understand the word and what it means in the context of our lives. I see the letter I and the letter M before possibility. I shared with the young people that many times we are our own worst enemy in that we, talking to ourselves, say to our mind, "I am not capable of accomplishing my dreams. I am not capable of doing what I would like to do." Or, "I am not able to do that because" -- and a list of tons of excuses: "My family does not have enough money, my parents don't understand me, my teachers are not supportive," and so forth.
But if we really understand the word possibility and what impossibility means, the only thing we need to do is to realize that the minute we decide to be our own agent of change, to be everything that is possible -- "I am not going to be the thing that hinders the possibility of what I can be," then we can do incredible things.
Instead of just concentrating on the I -- me, myself, and I -- I was encouraging the young people to think of themselves as belonging to one family, in that whatever we do affects another and vice versa. When we are so busy thinking of ourselves and the impossibility of reaching our own dreams, we may be our own worst enemies if we use all these sorts of excuses to psych ourselves into not taking that first step. Also, many times we don't give ourselves the due credit for wanting to own up to everything that we're about and actually do something with our lives.
So we can easily imagine that every person who wants to be successful -- every person graduating this year from high school, college, or a graduate program -- has a dream, but we need to understand that nobody can be a success by themselves. Nobody can be a success on their own. Every artist has a manager. Every lead vocalist has a band. Every artist has a family, a supportive group of people that follows that career and helps the artist blossom. Every great painter needs a great teacher, and in many instances needs a great school, institution, or organization that supports them in what they're doing. The young people at the gala are fantastic graduates, young men and women full of promise as they take the next step toward whatever they want to do in their life. On your career path, or in your life of academia, you have to be willing to acknowledge the others around you. You have to be able to say, "Yes, I graduated as valedictorian of my high school class," but standing at the podium, addressing your class as a proud graduate, you should have the heart and love to congratulate the parents, the teachers, and the community you come from that supported you in becoming who you are.
As we move forward becoming excellent men and women of God – being the valedictorian, the best researcher that will go on to perhaps one day find a cure for cancer and various rare diseases of the world, or to solve the energy crisis in the world, or whatever is our dream -- we must always be mindful of what kept us standing, supported, and nourished.
The accomplishments of the individual are something we should all celebrate together and give hearty congratulations. But also it is the responsibility of graduates to turn around and thank the community, God, True Parents, and their parents for being there through thick and thin. In that way we can create a new culture not just of individuals who want to be excellent all by their lonesome, becoming an island unto themselves, saying, "Look at how great I am," but of individuals who become excellent externally and internally, while at the same time being cognizant of all those around them who have invested in making them great.
I am hoping that every graduate who enjoyed the comments at the gala had a chance to go back home and thank their families and parents and in their prayers to thank True Parents and our Heavenly Parent.
I think about the fact that we are no longer in the age of the wilderness, but we're entering the age of settlement when we can integrate our community into the world at large and help raise the world to a whole new level as we live for the sake of others, practicing and applying true love in our lives. When I think about this, I am reminded of the Bible verse, Philippians 4:12, which talks about the need to know how to be abased, as well as how to abound. We need to know how to be the lowest of the lowly as well as to experience what it is to be prosperous, to be successful.
When Lovin' Life started, it was an effort on the part of the ministry to re-imagine a religious life that can be fully satisfying, prosperous, engaging, and empowering. The concept of Christian piety, of what a religious life should be, has been one of extreme suffering and misery. We understand Christian piety to be such because of the paradigm of Christian piety -- which is Jesus Christ himself, who never really had a chance to play out the full movie. He was not supposed to be crucified on the cross. He was supposed to live on, to marry, and together with his wife to raise a beautiful family that would become the paradigm of true love to the world. As the True Parents of humankind, Jesus Christ and his bride would have invited all the fallen brothers and sisters who had become part of the satanic lineage because of the Fall to graft onto the heavenly lineage through the Blessing, or the holy matrimony ceremony.
Had Jesus lived on, we would not have seen the paradigm of Christian piety as a life of denial, a life in which nuns and priests cannot have a spouse and the nuns must live their whole life waiting to be the bride of Jesus Christ. The model would have been very different had Jesus found that beautiful wife, created that ideal family, and had a chance to be that true parent and bless the world into God's lineage.
With the advent of our True Father as the Lord of the Second Advent, as the Messiah come again, and with our True Parents here as the man and woman who come to complete the picture that Jesus did not have a chance to complete, Lovin' Life is trying to re-imagine what life was truly meant to be. God as the Heavenly Parent wishing all the love, blessing, and prosperity on God's children, was not thinking, "I want to create an Adam and Eve so they suffer for the rest of their lives, so they are miserable the rest of their lives, so they have to stick together and battle it out in a marriage that is downright difficult."
God was hoping for Adam and Eve to grow up in love, inherit the true love of God, and build the beautiful family that would be wonderfully fulfilling. Of course in life they would have their ups and downs. They would go through periods when they were abased and periods when they would abound. They would have their highs and lows. But as they went through life, the trajectory would be toward the heavens. It would be up, not down.
And as they grew together in love, they would have modeled for all their descendants what it means to be the eternal son and daughter of God. We would have seen a picture that is very different from the lonely path Jesus Christ took and the lonely death he suffered on the cross as his beloved twelve disciples left him abandoned there.
But with our True Parents, we have a chance to re-imagine life. We can see our Second and Third Generations standing on the shoulders of your good effort, First Generation, to be prosperous and to be excellent men and women of God both internally and externally. On that foundation, our Second and Third Generations will march toward being the best that they can be in society in their respective fields. The Second and Third Generations know that we should not be arrogant but we should understand that we were blessed with a divine gift, that through our hard work, nourishing our gift, we have an opportunity to give back to the world a little more beauty, perhaps more effective solutions to the problems we are dealing with -- to give back to what was given.
If we are truly to be the great generation of peace that can bring about a revolution of love and create the beautiful culture we have all been waiting for, how do we go about doing that? How do we build that beautiful culture? The lesson from Philippians tells us that we have to know what it is to be the lowest of the low, as well as to sit on the highest of the highs.
The Bible is saying that regardless of whether we are full or hungry, whether we are experiencing abundance, or suffering a need or difficulty, as a child of God we should always maintain an attitude of gratitude. Gratitude for me means a grateful attitude. Regardless of whether we are down or out or up, or wherever, we have to maintain an attitude of gratitude.
As new graduates going into society as professionals, or as high school graduates going on to college to experience independence for the first time, you will probably experience that it's a wonderful thing to finally be able to walk on your two feet -- meaning leave your home and go away, perhaps to a college for four years. But please try to enjoy your independence while still respecting your parents. We certainly didn't come into being because we decided to exist. We came into being because of love, because of the love of our parents.
Regardless of where we go, regardless of when we leave the cocoon, when we do take that first flight into the blue skies, we have to do so with a grateful heart. One of the things that we should all keep in mind is the word respect. The dictionary defines respect as "to honor and esteem as something valuable." One of my all-time favorite songs is by Aretha Franklin, "R-e-s-p-e-c-t," saying, "What I want is respect." And I think a lot of young people, looking toward their future life, want to be respected. "I am a valedictorian, so respect me." "I got into the best college, respect me." "I want respect wherever I go."
But respect is one of those things that you've got to give in order to receive. I find it very interesting when I look at human growth phases -- from a child to a teenager, to young adult, to a young parent, to middle-aged parents -- that one of the things we need to keep in mind as we go through each process is the word respect, regardless of how great we think our accomplishments are.
I would love to caution the young people, as you think about your futures and your lives, to give some thought to the idea that if you want respect you have to give it. If you want people to respect you, you have to know how to give respect first. For instance, here I am as your senior pastor. I cannot ask for any kind of respect if I myself cannot respect God, or our True Parents, or our community, for the great sacrifice and suffering that the First Generation has made. I am in no position to demand respect, if I don't respect my parents first.
Many times young people leaving the nest are only thinking about independence: "I'm going to do my own thing, I'm going to do it my way, I'm not going to do it my parents' way." But you have to understand that regardless of where you go in life, good character shines through in everything. It doesn't matter how talented you are. A lot of people may even be more talented than you, but then why is it that you seem to be the one who gets the blessing from Heavenly Father to be given a chance to represent your community? It's because you're living for the sake of others, being mindful of others, practicing and keeping respect in your mind. Then you can recognize that the respect you receive is a byproduct of the kind of life you have lived.
When you live your life respecting others, wanting to serve others, conditions are set in place so it's not a coincidence that just this year alone Heavenly Parent prepared opportunities for two young people on the STF program to be highlighted in the popular culture on TV. Earlier this year we saw Emmanuel on a TV program, right? He was an example of natural witnessing at its best. Not realizing that the camera was on him, he was asked a very simple question: "Should a black nanny buy a black child a white doll, or an Asian doll or any other doll?" Because Emmanuel was raised in a community like ours -- full of interfaith dialogue respecting other faiths and different cultural backgrounds, and understanding that we are all one family because we are all children of God -- he was able to give a beautifully clear answer to the man questioning him. Hearing Emmanuel's answer, the producers of that program could not say enough about him.
Many of you are here to find your own faith, find yourself, but you're also here to serve your community and to help build a spirit of camaraderie and a spirit of what it means to be an Unificationist. When you decide to commit your life for the sake of others, when you can work so closely with the True Family and you're willing to do that with an open heart, then I believe God can do amazing things.
I don't think Misha's being able to perform on the Number Two TV program in the United States is an accident. These are the ways that Heavenly Parent is trying to awaken the Second and Third generations to understand that we need to respect our community, our True Parents, and our parents who brought us into the world. Our Heavenly Parent also wants us to know that in our giving something back and living a great life for the sake of others, we can receive success, good luck, and good fortune as byproducts of being a great person with a great attitude and great character.
When you're thinking of being a child of God, wanting to apply respect, you've got to remember that in order to get it, you've got to give it. Give and receive: There's a dynamic relationship taking place on all different levels. And we as a community must realize that we are no longer in the time of the wilderness, when we had to hunker down and fight for our identities. We were once ashamed of who we were as Moonies. We were not proud Unificationists. We didn't wear our symbol; we hid it. But this is a time when we should be proclaiming the good name of our True Parents and the good work of our church. We should be proud of our church, respecting our tradition, our heritage, our True Parents, and our parents. In so doing, we will become great ourselves.
Nicole
Kidman
When we really want to create this beautiful culture of love, peace, and harmony, and we're contemplating the theme of respect, we have to think about the importance of refusing to assassinate the character and life of a family in our desire to be independent, to be our own person. I've met a lot of young people who go a long way trashing their parents: "My parents are miserable financial basket cases. They don't look good. They don't look like Nicole Kidman and they don't look like Jeremy Irons. They're not as successful or as smart as I am." I've heard that over and over again from a lot of blessed children.
One of the things we need to recognize is that if we think we are so wonderful -- and indeed the child may be smarter than the parents -- the fact remains that the DNA structure making that child so precious, smart, capable, and brilliant was created through the union of that child's "miserable" parents, and through the blessing of God and our True Parents.
We have to understand that when we trash our parents, we are trashing ourselves. In honoring and respecting our True Parent and our parents, we pave the way for future generations to respect us as a byproduct of our good work and of living a good life.
In many instances this trashing of the other is not just in the context of a parent–child relationship; it may also appear between a husband and a wife who seem to need to trash the other publicly. A lot of people want to be the victim if something is not going right. "I am working so hard. I am fasting and doing all these conditions, but it's my husband who is awful, my children who are awful," and people become so vocal about sharing their misery and complaint with the rest of the community.
But if we are to create a culture of respect, we must respect other people's ears as well. We asked for an ideal family. We asked and prayed to God for an ideal family. God gave us that ideal family in that he is asking us to deal with all the issues that need to be dealt with, and he is entrusting to our care the responsibility to go about it. If we haven't done so already, we need to get started.
Regardless of how difficult married life might be, we have to be mindful that there are children involved. I've come across a few families in which the wife is totally trashing the husband publicly to everybody, and for the first time feeling so great because she has the attention of the full community -- "Look how horrible my husband is." And everyone loves juicy gossip. She has everyone's attention, but she doesn't realize that while she is enjoying this attention from her community with everybody listening to her, perhaps her husband might also have a story or two! Listening only to the wife, taking her side, is basically empowering her to go on trashing the husband in front of the kids.
As a mother and as somebody who has been married for a long time, I know that there are times when life is good and times when life is bad. There are times when marriage has its ups and times when marriage has the deepest downs. But when you truly live for the sake of others, not just being respectful of your community and friends, but also being respectful of your children, you cannot trash what is half of your child. You cannot trash your husband or your wife publicly in front of your child because you're basically teaching your child that half of your child's self is evil, half of your child's self is wrong, half of your child's self is horrible. The emotional and spiritual damage done when parents are not responsible for their own problems is huge, and it will take a lifetime after the child grows up to deal with all the different issues that must be dealt with in adult life and marriage.
So, as a community that wants to empower each other to create a culture of respect and an attitude of gratitude, all of us must be responsible for our own problems. When we need to talk with somebody, we should talk with a minister, a therapist, or some professional who will respect our privacy and be discreet with what our family is going through, so we're not just inviting whoever into what we're dealing with and perhaps making the situation worse, not better.
When we are engaged in difficulties, we have to seek a relationship with God and our True Parents, and go about it in the right way. We need to be mindful and respectful of our friends, our community, and our children who are in our care. In the process of developing this new culture of respect in which we honor and esteem each other as being extremely valuable, each family has to give one another space to work it out.
Sometimes best friends can be the worst enemies in that situation, because a best friend will tend to side with you and trash the other along with you, when what you really need is to talk to the other, talk to the spouse when you're having a problem. Or when a parent and child are going through the throes of difficulty, the parent and child should talk together, not talk to all their other friends about how monstrous the parent or child is, because then the parent or the child is getting only one side of the story.
In our community we need to be mindful that each of us as an individual has a great power, like a nuclear reactor, to do great good or great damage. We have to decide we are going to be the kind of people who honor and esteem other people as valuable, which means not taking advantage of the other person's ignorance, and therefore not throwing them bags and bags of complaints that really should be taken care of by ourselves. We need to be more responsible and not degenerate into the kind of people and community that takes delight in assassinating each other's characters.
Another thing we should think about in creating this beautiful culture of family and a movement of peace and love that truly respects one another is breaking free from what I call the prison mentality. Many times we imprison ourselves in that we see and stereotype ourselves in a certain way and say, "This is the prison I was born in and therefore I must suffer. There is no way I can get out of it."
If we're really going to build a community of respect, we have to be willing to break this prison mentality. What do I mean by that? I grew up in a culture where the only worthy woman around was a pregnant woman. I was told that the only thing I needed to do in life was to become pregnant, and if I didn't do this, I would be worthless as a woman. I come from a culture where women are very much seen as something of a production line, something that is almost like a factory for new life, as if we in our essence don't have the right to be divine daughters of God, divine beings with infinite potential.
As a proud mother, I would be the first to say that there is nothing more beautiful and profound than being a mother. But I also know that life is much more than that. If I tell myself that I am a woman and therefore I can find my worth only when I'm pregnant, it would make it very difficult for me to do the kind of work that I am doing now.
It reminds me of the years when I was in graduate school. I had quite a few friends and most of them were Western. When James was studying for his Ph.D., he had a couple of Korean friends, and we were invited to a Korean night out. I had never really been to a Korean night out for that age bracket of graduate students because I grew up primarily in the West. When we went to the party, there were a couple of men seated lotus-style in the living room, huddled together, no women in sight. I asked, "Where are the wives?" The men turned to me and said, "Kitchen." I said, "Aren't we going to have dinner together?" They said, "Yes, go check if dinner is ready."
I walked into the kitchen and found four or five women preparing dinner while they gossiped about their husbands and their work. I didn't quite fit in because I really don't like to talk about my kids or my husband or gossip about what he did or did not do. I'm usually a party-pooper in that kind of setting. I very quietly cleaned up the garbage and started doing the dishes. The ladies totally ignored me because I wouldn't give them any juicy tidbits to share.
When the meal was prepared, they took a beautiful table out to the living room and had table settings for the men. I said, "This is not enough for all of us." The ladies looked at me as if I were an alien or something. They said, "What do you mean, all of us? We're eating in the kitchen." I said, "No, I'm not going to eat in the kitchen. We should all come out and join our husbands and have a fantastic evening of conversation."
The sad thing is that these ladies had a prison mentality. They were not going to do that. They were going to go back into the kitchen and gossip because their conversation was not worthy of the men's ears. When I said, "I'm not going to eat in the kitchen," they saw me almost as a heretic. "How dare you say something like that! Our husbands are Ph.Ds. They have very important things to talk about their -- their theses, what advisor to work with. You're going to interfere in their success."
I said, "I don't really think of it as interfering. If we were not cooking and cleaning, I don't think they'd be doing that great in their work anyway, since they would be doing the cooking and cleaning themselves." I said, "If you ladies are not going to come, I'm going to take my plate and join them."
When I walked into the living room, all the men looked at me as if I were a monster or something coming to crash their party, which is exactly what I wanted to do. I was not getting support from anybody. No one was moving, so I said, "I would like to share these side dishes with you, so could you please move over?" They just looked at me. I asked, "Did you not hear what I said? Please move over. Let's eat together." Then they begrudgingly moved over. Nobody said anything. I said, "So what were we talking about before I came in?" Nobody would say anything. They just looked at each other and stared at me.
I said, "You know, I'm an Ivy League student, too. I can talk, and I can listen." After a while they started eating their food, letting me know in a very passive-aggressive way that they didn't like my being there. The wives one by one would come in and out bringing more water, more kimchi, more salad, looking at me like, "You should leave. You really should get up." I said, "Well, I'm very comfortable here, thank you. You should join us."
That evening was a very interesting experience for me in demonstrating that we have these prison mentalities of what we should be like, not realizing that it's the concept that I am supposed to be this way that prevents us from truly accomplishing or satisfying the possibility of being something incredibly great that God is waiting for us to become.
That day I was not really able to make much of a dent in how things are done when it comes to Korean graduate students, but at least I gave them some fodder for thought. What it did for me as a woman was to help me tell myself, "I am not going to imprison myself in that state of being; I refuse to see myself being a prisoner in that prison."
God is asking all of us to be the agent of change. Through our True Parents, God is saying, "Women, this is the Pacific Rim era. Re-imagine yourselves as the original divine, eternal daughters you were meant to be. Thousands of years of history have told you otherwise, but imagine yourselves as being beautiful and powerful in your femininity." We don't have to be masculine to be beautiful. We can imagine ourselves as having a sense of worth and understanding that we can be just as effective in an area of faith as in anything else because we come from God, we have that divinity, and we were blessed with the creativity to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and stand tall as God's daughters.
We are not to stand tall on top of our brothers but to stand tall while having them come along with us, work together with us. We are to help our brothers re-imagine our life together, in which they work with the sisters, they work with women, and they respect their mothers and their sisters and so on.
Bound
feet
It's always been interesting to me that in certain societies the women's feet are bound, basically deforming their feet so they cannot run -- cultural practices like that have taken place in China and Korea for centuries. My grandmother was the first woman in her lineage to escape that torture of having her feet bound. When she was growing up, her relatives were making fun of her, saying, "You have such ugly feet. They are so big, like a Westerner's." But my grandmother had a profound sense of pride that something was changing. She was imagining herself as something whole, as something beautiful, not something meant to remain as basically a captive of the home. When your feet are bound and deformed, you cannot run, you cannot walk quickly without succumbing to the pain and having to sit.
All these abuses that have taken place are something that we as a culture need to grow out of, and I'm not talking here only about women. I'm talking about the prison mentality that we ourselves have had over the years in being members of our Unification faith. We have had the understanding that we have to be forever miserable, suffering, and not successful. But we have to understand that if we do our job right, and if we raise our kids right, regardless what kind of suffering we went through, our children can be highly successful.
As our children continue to be successful while being mindful and respectful of the community they come from, they will naturally honor, embrace, respect, and take care of the First Generation. Then we'll have not only a sense of progress, but also a sense that the ones making the progress, or the ones effectuating that change, are the ones looking back from time to time and thanking the community they come from, so that the First Generation doesn't feel like all its suffering and sacrifice was in vain.
The First Generation's sacrifice and suffering were the fertilizer that has allowed the Second and Third Generations to grow beautiful, to grow up strong with amazing potential. But it's then the responsibility of the Second, Third, and upcoming generations to understand this and being grateful to live a life of gratitude, respecting our parents and our True Parents, honoring and esteeming them as being wonderfully valuable.
One of the great things about the Eastern culture is its natural deference to older people. We don't see grandparents as something to be discarded; we see them as a great source of wisdom. We have our True Parents, who are like the great-grandparents right now, but there are some who want to eradicate them as being senile, worthless, old, and decrepit. But you have to understand that our True Parents are the alpha and the omega, the one and only True Parents, now and forever. There will not be another True Parents. The True Parents are the eternal True Parents, and really the job of the True Children is not to make ourselves into another True Parents, but to be the respectful children of God, sons and daughters of God, truly honoring and esteeming our Parents as being incredibly valuable and precious.
A child who does not esteem his or her parents as wonderfully valuable cannot claim the respect, honor, and esteem of the community. You cannot disrespect your parents while expecting respect for yourself. Ours is a movement built on the give and receive action. By honoring our parents, we help our children learn how to honor us, the parents, and so on and so forth.
Just as the band played today "Real Love," we, as a movement, church, and community, need to stress genuine feelings, genuine love for each other. It's far better for me to deal with a person who comes up and says, "You know, I don't like you." Then I can say, "Thank you for that bit of honesty." I welcome that much more than, "In Jin Nim, I love you, you're wonderful" -- but then I hear back, "Oh, this person said this and this and this about you." We have to be genuine people in that the front and back are the same. If we don't like somebody, we need to have the courage to go up to that person and say, "I don't like you." Give the other person the dignity and the respect to say, "I don't like what you're doing." But also give them the dignity and respect to let them answer back.
If you really, truly love that person, then honor and respect him or her with your love, but be willing to be a person of real love. If we can come together knowing that we have been given this rare opportunity to share the breaking news with the rest of the world that our True Parents are in our midst, and they are here to be shared with the rest of the world, then our community of proud Unificationists can be the ones to release our True Parents from the misconceptions the world has of them.
We have to be the eternal sons and daughters saying, "I want to release my parents from the misunderstandings that arise. I want to be the one to proclaim their truth, their goodness, their honesty to the world." We have to be able to do that. And in so doing, by being the proud son and daughter of God, we end up becoming champions of not just our own families or our own lives, but of our nation, the world, and the cosmos.
We have to understand that we are all champions-in-the-making in that we have been anointed with the task of sharing the breaking news with the world about the glory, dignity, and profundity of our True Parents. Brothers and sisters, if we truly understand what it means to be a proud Unificationist, we will live a life of respect, being ambassadors of our True Parents wherever we go, representing them in the flesh, and being agents of change, starting with ourselves. In that way, we can effectuate and bring about a beautiful community with a heavenly culture centered on respecting, honoring, and esteeming each other because we are practicing living for the sake of others every day.
Sun
Myung Moon and family, May 1, 2011
Many religious scholars have told me, "Your movement is one of the most successful movements in the world when it comes to the history of religion." We are the most successful in that we continue to thrive while the founder is still alive. Think about what we're going to be in the next 50, 100, or 150 years. Our movement and the message that our True Parents bring to the world is surely going to usher in the next millennium as the era of true love in which love, harmony, and peace can be realized.
Brothers and sisters: Be proud. Young people: I send heartfelt congratulations to all the graduates. But we have a responsibility to fulfill in our lives. So let's do it with a grateful heart, a grateful attitude, and a sense of respect, and may God bless you. Thank you.
1: Therefore, my brethren, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm thus in the Lord, my beloved.
2: I entreat Eu-o'dia and I entreat Syn'tyche to agree in the Lord.
3: And I ask you also, true yokefellow, help these women, for they have labored side by side with me in the gospel together with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the book of life.
4: Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.
5: Let all men know your forbearance. The Lord is at hand.
6: Have no anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.
7: And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
8: Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.
9: What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, do; and the God of peace will be with you.
10: I rejoice in the Lord greatly that now at length you have revived your concern for me; you were indeed concerned for me, but you had no opportunity.
11: Not that I complain of want; for I have learned, in whatever state I am, to be content.
12: I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound; in any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and want.
13: I can do all things in him who strengthens me.
14: Yet it was kind of you to share my trouble.
15: And you Philippians yourselves know that in the beginning of the gospel, when I left Macedo'nia, no church entered into partnership with me in giving and receiving except you only;
16: for even in Thessaloni'ca you sent me help once and again.
17: Not that I seek the gift; but I seek the fruit which increases to your credit.
18: I have received full payment, and more; I am filled, having received from Epaphrodi'tus the gifts you sent, a fragrant offering, a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God.
19: And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.
20: To our God and Father be glory for ever and ever. Amen.
21: Greet every saint in Christ Jesus. The brethren who are with me greet you.
22: All the saints greet you, especially those of Caesar's household.
23: The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.
What you want (hooo) baby I got it
What you need (hooo) you
know I got it
(Hooo) all I'm asking (hooo) is for a little
respect
(Just a little bit) when you come home
(Just a little
bit) hey baby (Just little bit)
When you come home (Just a Little
Bit) Mister
I ain't gonna do you wrong while you're gone
I ain't gonna do
you wrong 'cause I don't wanna
All I'm asking is for a little
respect when you come home
(Just a Little Bit) Baby (Just a little
bit)
When you come home (Just a little Bit) Yeah
I'm about to give you all my money
And all I'm asking in return
honey
Is to give me my propers when you get home
(Justa Justa
Justa) Yeah baby when you get home
(Just a little Bit) Yeah (Just a little bit)
Hooo your kisses sweeter than honey and guess what so is my
money
All I want you to do for me is give it to me when you get
home
(Re re re re spect) Yeah baby whip it to me
(Just a little
bit) when you get home now (Just a little bit)
R-E-S-P-E-C-T find out what it means to me
R-E-S-P-E-C-T, Take
care, TCB ohhhh (Sock it to me,etc.)
Oh (sock it to me, sock it to me,
sock it to me, sock it to
me)
A little respect (sock it to me, sock it to me,
sock it
to me, sock it to me)
Whoa, babe (just a little bit)
A little
respect (just a little bit)
I get tired (just a little bit)
Keep
on tryin' (just a little bit)
You're runnin' out of foolin' (just
a little bit)
And I ain't lyin' (just a little bit)
(re, re,
re, re) 'spect
When you come home (re, re, re ,re)
Or you
might walk in (respect, just a little bit)
And find out I'm gone
(just a little bit)
I got to have (just a little bit)
A little respect (just a
little bit)