When I was a university student in Tokyo, I would ride the electric tramcar on rainy days. When I boarded, I looked for the elderly people and stood next to them. Normally, young people wouldn't like to stand close to shabby-looking old people, but I would. I wanted to stand near them in case they needed any help. I would look at some bedraggled old man and think, 'Suppose this gentleman was my father. What would I do if my father was this wet? Could I run away and abandon him?" It is normal to feel repelled by smelly old women or men, but when I thought of myself as their son, everything about them became attractive, and I felt very affectionate toward them. Old people have a loving heart for their children, and on such occasions I wanted to reciprocate that love. So I would talk very warmly to an old woman, even though she was a total stranger. What beauty there is in such an intimate conversation!

Sometimes I would wear dirty, ragged working clothes and a smelly jacket on the tramcar. I would try to sit next to the most attractive woman on board, someone wearing eye makeup, lipstick, and manicured nails. Ten times out of ten, such women would move away. I was hoping to find someone who would ask herself, "What if this were my husband and he was working so hard for me? If he was suffering for my sake, what would I do?" Then, while these thoughts were going through her mind, we could have started speaking and she could have become the first person to hear the Principle and the first person to join the Unification Church.

I am able to do my mission now because I put myself in many different positions. I want you to understand that the Unification Church was born upon this foundation of sincerity and a genuine, loving heart. Whoever tries to use this foundation and exploit it for his own benefit is a robber, the worst kind of thief.

I want you to become the same kind of person I am and inherit this tradition. That is why I am asking you to go out and endure tribulation.

Still we have not come to today's topic of "Before and After the Blessing," but what I have been talking about is something you find very precious, isn't it? You don't think it's a strange subject; you love to hear these things.

I started out by saying that everyone wants to add something to what they have, so I keep adding on to my speech. You have already been given a great sermon, so you don't need anything more today. You can go out and preach this same message to others.

Have you had the experience of missing me and longing for me? Have you been able to love someone unselfishly? Those experiences will be your assets when you get to the spirit world. Such experiences are the only things you can take from this world to the spirit world.

You have met someone whom you can love. What an incredible blessing that is for you. Think of all that lies behind this marriage. But this love should not be just a horizontal bond between you and your beloved; you must link it to the vertical dimension. It isn't easy to add vertical love to horizontal love, is it? The horizontal links the husband and wife. However, unless a vertical line extends from your family upward, there is no way that the vertical realm can reach down.

The vertical line above you is your nation. You should feel patriotic. Do you pay taxes because you have to, or because you love your country and want to pay them? Those who pay taxes because they can't escape it are in the majority. However, in the original way of serving our country, we should pay taxes because we love our nation more than our family.

When you and your spouse deeply love your country, this creates a reward for the future generations. The intensity of your love for your country will benefit your descendants; your children will receive the reward. Your blessings will multiply and your circle will expand. This is how you will become an ideal family and form an ideal nation.

Once you create the full circle of love, you can dwell at the core where you receive special protection. Also, once the core is established, true love can expand. When you and your spouse achieve the unity of true love for each other, when you devote yourself to loving your country, you will become the core. As you expand your territory of love to your country, you will be protected by it.

It is an Oriental custom always to use both hands when you serve your elders. Also, Orientals have the custom of bowing. To bow means to empty yourself and to convey the attitude, "I am nothing; you are everything." When you bow, you acknowledge your elder as the perfect plus, and you empty yourself totally to that person, becoming a perfect minus. Whenever the plus is perfected, the minus is automatically perfected as well; and the interaction between plus and minus creates energy.

I want you to understand that whenever a man and a woman have give and take of love, a vertical element is always present. You cannot disregard it. God is the vertical element. He created Adam and Eve so He could meet them horizontally. Their love and blessing was to have borne fruit in their children, who would also be objects of God. This is how the heavenly four positions were to come about. When four directions are established, a circle can be formed. Circular movement is the only permanent movement.

What holds a man and woman together? Men and women have interlocking shapes, to keep them from missing each other or sliding apart once they meet. The man has the additional role of anchor, so that when a couple is bolted together, they won't slip and lose their footing. This way, a couple can be anchored and bolted together with true love. There is a space-age glue so strong that something mended with it may break anywhere else, but never at that joint. Likewise, a man and a woman bonded together in complete, true love might get hurt someplace else, but nothing will ever be able to separate their union. True love is the super glue which holds husband and wife together. Do you understand? Don't just laugh. This is an operation of natural law; tell me whether you understand.

I could push, toss, knock down, or kick such a couple bonded by true love and they would never come apart. They will always stick together. I envision such a couple coming out of this Blessing. Are you going to be such a couple?

I would like to take such a blessed couple to a mountain peak and try rolling them off, as a demonstration that nothing could separate them. I think many couples would be reluctant to be put to such a test. They would say, "Father, don't kill me; keep me on level ground, or just gentle hills." But I'm looking for a couple who would protest against an easy course and say, "That is nothing, take us to a bigger hill. Take us to the highest peak!"

What kind of couple would you like to become: one that stays on the plains and gentle hills, or one which challenges the highest peaks? Let's see the hands of those who would challenge the highest mountains. Accidents could happen when you roll down the slopes; you could break your wrist, your leg, or your jaw. Would such a mishap weaken you? Not at all. You would be willing to tackle greater and greater challenges, so that by the time you reached the bottom you would become genuine gold.

At the start of the plunge, you and your spouse are two beings with two purposes; but as you roll down, you get closer together. The two of you get mixed together, compressed, and finally totally one. When your spouse laughs, you would laugh, too, because you would share the same emotions. God will notice such a couple and say, "Hmm, this is a model couple, an ideal couple." God has a museum in spirit world dedicated to the best of everything. He wouldn't choose a single man or woman for the prize display; He wants an exemplary couple. God will pick the most united couple to display in His museum.

A totally united couple is completely one; nothing can break them up. Even if someone drills a hole through them, the dust from the drilling won't leave; it will return and stick to them! You can apply pressure to them until they are flattened out, but when the pressure is removed, they will become round again. Nothing under the sun can alter their unity.

Would you rather be a mediocre couple, or a completed, perfected couple? Therefore, will you be the kind of couple that chooses the easy way? Can you become an ideal couple if you say, "Today I want to stay home. I don't care about Home Church. Why should I go out today?" Can you attain perfection as a couple if your focus is only on having fan and a good time; if you long only to see beautiful sights, smell nice things, eat good food and listen to good music; if you can relate only to good feelings?

If your husband is lazy and sleeps too late, you women should kick him and say, "What are you doing here? What about Home Church? Why don't you go out?" Will your husband complain and threaten to divorce you for repeating such things? The ideal husband would say, "Well, my beloved wife, you are absolutely right. Now give me my Home Church clothes."

When you know you are sending your husband or wife out to suffer, your eyes fill with tears; but if you still push your spouse toward the ultimate goal, you are on the road to becoming an ideal couple. Do you follow me? An ideal parent is not always the one who pats the children and gives them candy. Rather, it is the parent who sternly sends them out and encourages them to do the right things. Knowing that the children will suffer, the ideal parent turns around and sheds quiet tears. Do you think I am telling you the truth? This is the challenge of the Blessing. This is the way to become an ideal couple.

After being a single person so long, it is wonderful to get married because something is added to you. However, in order to sustain that added stature, you need a strong root and a broad foundation. Your roots are your parents and relatives. Anyone who tries to flee his parents by getting married is making a mistake. Once you are married, you cannot think of yourself as an individual but as part of the larger root system. Furthermore, once you are married, you have not only one family to worry about, but two. You have in-laws now-brothers, sisters, mother-in-law, father-in-law, as well as many other new relatives. You should be able to plant yourself firmly upon this new root and foundation.

If you women try to be clever and take advantage of your husband's relatives for your own benefit, you will be kicked out of the house. Here I am referring basically to women; if you act that way, your husband will eventually throw you out.

Marriage is like a grafting process. The root of the man and the root of the woman are grafted together and become one. Your two roots join into one common trunk line, which branches out and produces blossoms, bearing the fruit of both families. A couple is not just one family but represents two families. Your parents and relatives will see your blossoms and rejoice; your in-laws as well will look on and feel joy. Marriage is not just the meeting of husband and wife, not just the union of one individual to another, but the joining of two families. Two roots come together and become one trunk; a new trunk, new branches, new leaves are produced, and then the blossoms, flowers and fruits come.

Would you like to have a broad and embracing kind of tree, or would you rather ignore your in-laws and focus just on your spouse and yourself? Those who disregard the roots and focus only on their marriage relationship may try to justify themselves by claiming: "We are like Adam and Eve. We are the only ones that count. We just want to concentrate on ourselves. Life is simpler and more convenient that way; we don't have any burdens. Why should we bother with the roots and branches?" Is that the right attitude? Unfortunately, however, this is the trend in America today.

One danger in focusing just on your spouse is that your relationship may easily break up. The wife may meet a man who is more handsome than her husband, someone who tells her how beautiful and attractive she is and how her husband is not treating her right. If she has no anchor or foundation, her heart can be affected. Or the husband may meet a pretty woman who flatters him telling him how handsome he is. Perhaps his wife never told him that, and when another woman says it, his heart starts to quiver. He thinks, 'You know, my wife is like a stump; she is unattractive and ugly. She's a good housekeeper but not adequate as a wife." Then the marriage breaks up.

Your marriage needs to be anchored to its roots and secured to its branches. Then when you consider all the foundation upon which you are standing and your commitment to the future, you cannot take your marriage lightly. You should tell yourself, "I am marrying for the sake of my spouse, my parents, and my future children." You are the present. The present could not exist without a past, which is your parents. A future is coming, which will be your children. The past, present and future must be linked in your Blessing.

Who bestows the Blessing? Who makes your Blessing complete? In the past, ministers of a church officiated at marriage ceremonies. But ministers are in the archangel position, so the archangel, in effect, officiates at such a marriage. In the Unification Church ceremony, however, the parents perform the marriage. By officiating, we are saying, "Go ahead and inherit our tradition, our love, and our discipline and pass this tradition on to the future." By blessing you we are saying, "You are now husband and wife; live like your Father and Mother." This is what Unification Church marriage is all about.

Actually, when we give you our Blessing, we are telling you to do more than we have done. You should love each other more than we do. Why do parents want their children to have greater love? That is how families prosper. When the roots and trunk are strong, when more branches reach out, and when flowers and fruit are produced in abundance, this is prosperity. When you love your parents, you strengthen your own roots and increase the blessing your children will inherit. As you become parents yourselves, you are better able to love your parents, and you receive greater protection from them. Don't you want your children to be prosperous? Don't you want to be protected for the rest of your fife? The secret is to love your parents; the more you love your parents, the more you are protected and the greater the blessing you can pass on to your children. So you must serve and love your parents even more than your spouse.

Since you became Moonies and have adopted this attitude, you women have become a different kind of woman, haven't you? You are not ordinary American wives, but very special people. You want to become a trunk, with your parents as the roots and your children as the branches. You may have a good, strong trunk, but can you ever say, "I don't care about the root"? A strong trunk can develop only on the foundation of a strong root. Then vigorous branches can grow from that strong trunk. The parents are the foundation of the tree; therefore, by loving your parents you are strengthening the trunk and the whole tree. You will secure future branches, leaves and flowers.

I explained that if you are to become a giant tree, you must have strong roots. The basic root comes from loving God, who is the first parent of mankind. When you make God your root, you have an invincible, gigantic foundation, and you can become an enormous trunk, producing stupendous branches. When you grasp God as your root, your root spreads to all six continents: Europe, Africa, North and South America, Asia, and Australia.

What kind of trunk would you like to become? An all-encompassing trunk, right? The formation level is the family trunk, the growth level is the national trunk, and the perfection level is the worldwide trunk. You are American families, so you should be grafted onto the American national root. When you have a strong family foundation connected to the national root, your branches and leaves will produce many blossoms; your children are your prosperity.

But further down the line from the American root is an even greater foundation: the worldwide root. When you are anchored upon the worldwide root, will your trunk be an American trunk or a worldwide trunk? It will be worldwide. Then when your trunk is worldwide, your branches, leaves, flowers and fruit also will be worldwide.

In the Unification Church we have a tradition of international marriages. Why do we take pride in our international weddings? It is because we want to form a worldwide trunk, a many-hued trunk, composed of living colors. Then from this one trunk, all kinds of multi-colored branches will spring forth: white, black, yellow, and red. When such a tree bears fruit, its fruit will seem delicious to every kind of taste bud. Whether one is white, black, or yellow it will make no difference; the fruit will be savory to all. Such fruit is suited to every taste, and everyone considers it delicious.

Since such a foundation has not been formed, however, grafting is necessary. Grafting is like welding, or like mending broken bones. A shoot grafted onto a new root must be bound with tape for three years. Whether the plant likes it or not makes no difference. The grafting will work because the two parts are bound together; they have no choice.

While you are struggling with the binding of black, white and yellow, you will notice things changing. When you look down, you will discover yourself sinking worldwide roots, and when you look up, you will see worldwide branches beginning. Soon you will become a grandparent and will be able to travel by plane throughout the world to visit your children. One day you will visit your white grandchildren, the next day your black grandchildren, and the following day your yellow grandchildren.

Why should you try to live this way? Once you are elevated to the spirit world, you will meet the supervisor and owner of all the trees and orchards-God. God is ultimately picking everybody and arranging them in His basket. God visits all His grandchildren in turn, black, white and yellow. That is how God lives and works in the spirit world, so if you live that way here on earth, you can go wherever God goes in spirit world. You will be able to follow God everywhere; nothing will be off-limits to you. So your motivation for this way of life is to become like God.

This is the spirit upon which your Blessing is founded. Do you think I am telling you the truth or not? After you are married, suppose some night a visitor unexpectedly comes knocking at your door and it happens to be me! Would you call me an intruder and run to find your gun? Perhaps you would grumble to yourself, "Why does Father have to come at midnight? He should have come in broad daylight." Would you say that?

I understand that when American parents want to visit their children, they have to call in advance and make an appointment. So if you find me at the door, would you say, "Oh, Father, why didn't you call first?" Or would you jump up-no matter how you are dressed-and say, "Father, how wonderful to see you here? How many of you would say, "Father, do anything you want. Please come to our house"?

There are about 4 billion people in the world. If they were all matched, there would be 2 billion couples. If I spent one hour in every home, I would need 2 billion hours to make the rounds! Would that be physically possible? So you must have good luck to get me to visit your house. It would be like hitting a jackpot, an incredibly rare opportunity. I would like to do that, however. I would like to visit as many homes as possible.

If I arrived at lunchtime, would you protest, "Father, you didn't call me in advance so I could prepare lunch for you. I'm sorry, we have only water"? Or would you quickly prepare something and say, "Even though we do not have the very best, this is what we can offer you. Please stay for lunch"?

This means that you should be prepared at all times. Suppose you spent seven years -- or a thousand years -- getting ready for my visit, longing for and missing me. Then even if I didn't notice your home, God would tell me, "Reverend Moon, go visit their house. I demand it!" Don't you think I would say yes to Him? If you have the spirit of yearning for one visit from, me, missing and anxiously expecting me, what else could be more important? Is there anything more precious?

It is a happy family who lives in anticipation of the heavenly visit. Each day you clean the house thinking that today might be the day, the day God will visit you. Each meal you cook you tell yourself, "Today might be the day!" Day after day is spent in anticipation and love. You rise early in the morning to prepare the meal and make preparations for the visit. If God were to ignore the home of such a couple and not bless it, there would be no such thing as a Blessing and no such being as God.

I, too, have always lived in anticipation of a heavenly visit. There was a time in my life when I would sleep curled up like a shrimp, feeling unworthy of sleeping comfortably, because I expected a visit from God at any moment of the day. I was always ready to spring up to welcome God.

My parents had the tradition of feeding everybody that came to our house. They would offer them whatever money they needed. All kinds of visitors and travelers received food and money for their expenses. At my home, more food than what our family needed was always prepared in case someone came to the door. That is the kind of tradition I grew up in.

You may suppose that my family received many blessings on account of me. But actually, because of me, incredible suffering was brought upon the household. Every single one of my family was exterminated by the North Korean communists, because Kim Il Sung knew me as the arch-enemy of worldwide communism. All these sacrifices were paid in order to establish the foundation upon which you can blossom right here in America today. I am not trying to obtain comfort or riches, either for myself or for my family. That has never been my goal. They have all become sacrifices.

No country has undergone so much political upheaval as Korea. In order to give the blessing to the world, the Unification Church itself has to suffer as well.

Considering all this, if you want to become a trunk and reach out to serve the branches, you must become sacrificial. In this respect, a good-looking spouse is not necessarily the best one. The kind of spouse you should hope for is someone truly loyal, steadfast, down-to-earth, and sincere. That is the best kind of husband or wife because they can provide the utmost sacrificial service for the well being of their children. Handsome or beautiful people usually become arrogant and boastful and think, "How can such a good-looking person as I stay home and serve a 90-year-old grandmother? Let somebody else do it. I should go out and show myself off."

A beautiful woman is often reluctant to nurse her children because she is worried about ruining her beautiful figure. There are two kinds of beauty to consider. One is the external beauty of face and body. A woman who focuses on external beauty spends much time putting on makeup; she tells her child not to come to her breast and disfigure it by nursing. That is one kind of beauty. The other kind of beauty says to her baby, "Well, my love, it doesn't matter how I look," and she smiles at her nursing child out of the joy of becoming a mother. Which is the true beauty?

How dramatic it is when a woman with snow-white skin nurses a very black baby! Don't you think that God would like to witness such a scene? Which would God find most dramatic: a white mother nursing a white baby, a white mother feeding a yellow baby, or a white mother nursing a black baby? From an artistic standpoint, a white mother nursing a black child is the most dramatic scene.

Which time of day do you like best: morning, noon, or evening? Noon is like white people, evening yellow people, and morning black people. Evening is the close of the day and heralds the darkness; darkness ends in the morning when a new day begins. The morning light is very sharp and luminous. The light is conquering all the darkness. In the daytime, everything is clear, because it is already broad daylight. In the evening, as the sun sinks in the west, yellow and orange tones are dominant.

Just as morning is followed by noon and then evening, one dominant civilization or culture is followed by another. In the United States, for example, black people are becoming more and more prominent. Why? It is because white people have become rather lazy. The white people have already seen high noon; they have already experienced the best so they have become sluggish and negligent. They want to have fun; they have no true motivation. But black people have suffered so much under the darkness of oppression that they have more ambition. They want true respect and freedom. Most boxing champions, for example, are black; the same is true in basketball. In all fields of sports, more and more outstanding athletes are black. More than 50 percent of American football champions are blacks.

There are 25 million black people here in the United States, out of a population of 240 million. The ratio of blacks to the population in general is one in nine. Black people have been developing healthy bodies and excelling at sports; next they will move to intellectual achievements. When you black people are educated and guided spiritually, physically, and intellectually, you can become super citizens, the number-one Americans. You can lead America. Why not? You can rise early in the morning, for instance, and clean your neighborhoods so that the black communities become known as the cleanest communities in the whole United States. Wouldn't you like that?

Then white women will say, "I don't want to marry a white man because they are all lazy. I want a black man to be the father of my children." Still the time is not ripe. I had hoped for even more interracial marriages in this last matching.

Look at the Japanese brothers and sisters. They are standing in the forefront of our movement now as the most diligent and hard-working members. Therefore, I am sending them out in leadership roles all over the world. Am I doing the right thing in this case?

The Blessing itself is special, of course, but you must be concerned about what happens before and after the Blessing. This is very, very important. More than your husband or wife, you must serve your parents. God has made incredible sacrifices to come this far. You have achieved your position upon His foundation. If you strengthen your root and sacrificially serve both the root and branches, you will become strong and steadfast people. After your life here on earth, descendants will come and bow down at your tomb, paying you tribute and respect because of the beautiful tradition you have left behind. This is the kind of tradition you should establish in your marriage.

I think about my life this way as well. There will be a tomb for me someday. Visitors will come from all six continents to line up at my tomb; people of every color of skin will bring flowers and incense to pay respect to me. That is the kind of tradition I want to leave behind.

In your home and in your nation, you should follow my example. Then God, the angels, and all of spirit world will come to visit your tomb and pay respects to you. Cemeteries will become holy places. People generally don't enjoy spending time in cemeteries, but when you become an ancestor of love, that will change.

Therefore, please live in love, serve in love, and set the tradition of love. Then you will leave behind the fruit of love and become the ancestor of love. Once you have planted this tradition and disseminated this love throughout the world, when you are lifted up to the spirit world, you will encounter no barriers and will be welcomed everywhere.

In conclusion, set up the tradition of true love based on the family, not on the individual. That is the practice you should establish. The greatest treasure you can give to the nation and the world is true love. The tradition of love is the core of life.

As husband and wife, you should unite and establish a vertical line centered on your nation. When you unite as subject and object centered upon the country, you become the vertical subject capable of spreading your blessing to the world. You will become the core, and the world will be your fence, embracing and protecting you.

When you expand this to the scale of heaven and earth, you will be a victor of love. With such love, you will be welcomed everywhere you go. The bearer of true love is welcome even at the White House. The essence of your mission is to create this tradition of love and expand it to your posterity.

I am sure you haven't talked with your fiancée about all the practical aspects of your future life, but you should have already established the rule that both of you will follow my teachings 100 percent. If you have, you are ready to inherit my tradition of love, practice it, enlarge it, and hand it down to your descendants.

Those who are resolved to carry this out in your family, raise your hands as a pledge. Thank you. Please do well, and serve your parents and brothers and sisters.

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