The Words of Sun Myung Moon from 1984
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The Words of Sun Myung Moon from 1984 |
Korean leaders and about thirty to forty department leaders of the New York area as well as Blessed wives of the Elder Blessed Couples attended the celebration of Young Jin Nim's sixth birthday held at East Garden on June 16, 1984.
All of the True Children paid their respects and love to their brother Young Jin Nim by participating in the traditional prayer and meal. Right after breakfast, Col. Pak gave a report on the first French-language CAUSA seminar in Washington D.C., and spoke about the European Parliament election on June 17, 1984.
Father and Mother then were presented with the video tape on the first New York Rally for Religious Freedom. It was obvious that Father was very interested in each of the speakers. With Father and Mother and all of us "children" gathered together, it felt like a typical family Saturday morning at home.
Then Father introduced two Korean elder members of our church: Mrs. Young Chun Oh, and Mrs. So Dam Lee. Mrs. Oh testified about the early movement in Korea, how she was prepared to meet Father.
After she finished, Father elaborated for a few minutes on the importance of the elder Korean brothers and sisters, their sacrifice, and their value (see following excerpts from the speech). Father spoke about various topics such as learning the Korean language, and what a true woman's rights advocate is and is not. He spoke about the origin of the English and the Oriental languages. "The English people are the offspring of Vikings and fighters, hunters... The Orientals are mostly agricultural people."...He explained why hunters and fighters naturally develop a more aggressive type of language, whereas agricultural people, farmers, are more peaceful.
All in all, Father said, "the separation of the languages is the greatest enemy of mankind." God wanted to have one language and one culture. For the unity of the world the separation of language is more detrimental than wars.
He also predicted that "one day the Chinese people will function much the same way as Americans today. The Chinese people are deeper-thinking people than the Americans and therefore would be more suitable to fight communism."
As Father spoke, he was sitting leisurely in his chair, speaking from his heart in a fatherly way.
Report by Angelika Selle
In the early times of our church, all the witnessing was done by spirit world. While members went out witnessing, Heaven perfectly guided them about who to preach to, and where to go. Without their knowing it, Heaven was right behind them. Otherwise nobody could have come to the church; it was that difficult.
In those days we were really as poor as church mice. But I said, "Don't worry. Pretty soon material blessings will come." One day my marriage, the Marriage of the Lamb, took place. From that day forward material blessing would come.
European and Western members especially must pay attention to the testimony of early members, because without them there is no way to be connected with the early church. You must understand that the deepest spot in the ocean was the beginning of the ocean.
If we look only at its surface, we never understand the depth of something. Our tendency is to see only what is visible on the surface. The problem of our church right now is that nobody is willing to go into the depths of the ocean trying to find out how and where it started. If you did, you'd learn a great deal. Instead, new members as well as old members want to live the good life on the shore. And as soon as you plunge your feet into the water you want to move out again. The biggest treasure of the Unification Church is hidden in the depths of the ocean. This is metaphorically and actually so.
We have to discover it.
This is what I am deeply concerned about -- that you dig into the depth of the foundation of our movement, dig into the ocean. But instead you don't think so much about history. You must go back and reconnect to the treasure house; there you can find all kinds of treasure. The only way to do that is to first listen to these old members -- not only once, but several times -- so that you will become familiar with their way of living and thinking. Unless you do that you can never grow.
If you discover the ocean now, but you are only glad to live on the seashore and enjoy the scenery, you say, "There is a fish and there another one." The real treasure deep down in the ocean will laugh at you and say, "Oh, what a trifle they are, missing the deep things." You don't know anything about how the church started, and you don't care to find out the root of this church.
The taller a tree gets, the leaves on the very top are further and further from the root of the tree. The leaves might boast of their height and ability to look down on everything, but they forget one thing: that the nutrition they derive substance from comes from the very root, through all the trunk and the branches reaching to them. You also tend to forget that.
We must know about these things. Without this knowledge, there is no way that we get near perfection. First we must have knowledge.
Which is more precious: the leaves, the twig, or the trunk? Of course, the root is most important. You, as a normal member who enjoys health and growth, should travel all the way up to the top of the tree and then go down to the very root and travel up again. You have to be able to do that freely. Then you will become a normal branch with normal leaves, bearing normal fruit and seeds. Without referring back to the root you become instantly unhealthy.
The first thing Western members must realize is the deep heart of the older members. Also the older the member gets, knowing the limitation of their life here on earth, they are all the more anxious to be of better service to Father. We must become like that. But then here in America maybe members think they will give out everything they've got in their first ten or twenty years, and then try to take it easy as the years go on. Certainly this is against our tradition. This is not really the natural way of developing a person.
Though we accomplish so much in our early twenties and thirties, when we get to the forties we should not ever lament that we get older. We should become deeper. There is no question that young people are valuable; they have a young nature and without them we would simply not get anywhere -- but at times I feel that the depth and the value of the church lies in the older members. Old members sometimes appear to me a hundred times more valuable than young people. A hundred young people cannot match that one old person. This is truly my feeling. And if I feel so, then I certainly know that heaven feels the same way.
When I look at these old Korean family members, I feel from the bottom of my heart that, after all, I have not been a failure. I have been a man of success. No matter what other people may see, I know that.
What about you American members, you hardly are at the age of thinking anything. But starting from now on, you must conduct yourself correctly so that when you reach Father's age, you would be in the same position as Father. It has to be like that. If someone would not be in that position, he cannot escape shame, because this foundation in Korea was created from a desert. Now we are all standing on that foundation. And this foundation saves us tremendous effort and time. So we are better off than the Korean people.
As Mrs. Young Chun Oh told us, one day, twenty or thirty years from now, I would like one of you to come up and speak to the new members, to the world and your own offspring -- your children and your grandchildren. They also might ask you to stand up and talk about the 1980s and 1970s and what you did during my lifetime. This day will certainly come. So what you will be able to speak about is what you do now. Prepare for that day.
What I am concerned about most is this: If we don't live up to God's expectations, if we don't maintain that standard, God simply cannot stay with us. I fear nothing else but that point.
As you may have seen, many old members have nothing to be praised for. Their family, friends, children, and parents all denounced them because they gave up everything. But when you think about it, one cannot do two things at the same time. You have also had to decide between this or that. You had a choice either of staying in the satanic tradition, or of dropping everything to come into the new. Naturally all the old members chose the new life with God. Therefore, everything they did was meaningless in the eyes of outside people, and they were called bad names. But they were never the same again. They understood that they had found an inevitable new course.
When you look from a secular point of view you see nothing really different about the old members. But when they pray they are instantly flooded in tears. When new members pray, it is always after a long effort that their tears are induced. Also the old members were the core workers. They participated when God was making the rock bottom foundation of the Unification Church, whereas we are making the internal foundation of the Unification Church. That's the difference.
You elder American Blessed wives might not realize it, but are watched by the rest of the American family because you are the earlier members. When their families face sensitive problems, they always look at you to learn how you overcame that when you were in their position. It's as if you are not just individuals; you have no choice -- you are looked upon as an earlier Blessed member. And whether you like it or not, they will refer to you for the standard. That is the kind of thinking you should live with every day.
If you survive this ordeal and the test of time, you will be regarded as people who survived, persevered and conquered. You will be the ones. You are the mainstream carriers of the spiritual tradition which these old members in Korea have built alongside Father. We have to inherit that tradition and pass it on to the next generation, and stay very much in that mainstream tradition. We must live up to that tradition.
If you think that I always stress the value of the Korean members or the Japanese members as of primary importance, that is not so. My reason for bringing Japanese and Korean members here to America is to have those Korean or Japanese members, who had gotten so close to me, teach you the right tradition. But you are the target, the goal, not the Korean or Japanese members. And to make you understand about myself is very difficult for me. Americans are neither last nor least important!