My children, I want you to just forget everything. Let's begin anew. As I said before, little things can sometimes get in the way of our relationship together. For you they are little things, day by day, and a day goes by and we don't talk. And for you it seems not so important, for you think, "Well, tomorrow's coming and tomorrow there will be time." But, as you know, time and circumstance come up each day, and before you know it many days have gone by and we haven't shared. And what you find is, day by day you become more horizontally involved - to put it in a language that you know. And it means taken by many considerations, financial, familial, personal, problems coming up, and after awhile I seem very distant to you.

Don't your own children come to you regularly and renew that sense of love they have? Is one kiss a year enough? Say, "Well yes I know that I love you and, therefore, one kiss in our whole lifetime is enough; it lets me know." No. The nature of a love relationship is renewing itself over and over again, because in your relationship you will go through so many ups and so many downs, and so many twists and turns. And that moment of intimacy is the moment of reaffirming not only that relationship, but reaffirming it through all of the experiences you have together, both easy and difficult. So that's why you "constantly" need to reconnect with one another, whether parent and child or two friends or whatever. You're affirming the "strength" of that relationship through "everything" that happens.

How much "more" important for yourself and Me to reaffirm our relationship day by day? Especially when we have opened our heart together. I know that in the past months and past years we have shared the richest and deepest moments through easy times and through hard times. But if you don't come to reaffirm - especially when those tough times come, it's very heartbreaking. And it's an interesting thing: the time when you get most distant from Me is not the time of greatest challenge; it's those day by day patterns of little problems. Not big problems but little problems (like your broken tape recorder) that you let get in your way, and before you know it we're not meeting anymore on a vital and deep level. When you have "really" big problems, to the point where your eyes are full of tears, those are the moments when we can get together. But it's the little things, day by day, that oftentimes keep you apart from Me. And it's getting into small and surface kind of thinking that lets you forget Me. That's mediocrity. That's what mediocrity is all about. And that's what "this world is so much taken with today".

Mediocrity, "especially" in a nation like yours . . . . I tell you, in the nations that are starving, many times you find people of incredible faith. Perhaps not everyone, but you will find there someone who has gone to the bottom of human suffering, and who has found Me there. It's that quality of communication, that moment of meeting that I value. Of course, I don't long for My children to go to the bottom of suffering to meet Me, but if that's the reality, then it's there, at that extension of themselves, that they can find Me.

Unfortunately, My people oftentimes look for security and, as their nation becomes wealthier, and as the starvation comes to an end, and as the meat is on the table, and the wine, then their sufferings and their problems become far more petty. Far more selfish. Far less catastrophic. And these are the times when they get away from Me. These are the times when "you" get away from Me.

So now, with that thought, I want you to look at the reality of your own institution, this Unification movement. You know, I'm aware of the questions in your hearts that you're dealing with. Without giving them pronunciation here, I know that many look at the movement that they've belonged to for perhaps 15 or 20 or 25 years, maybe 10 years, and they wonder now: "What is happening? Why aren't we going ahead and building the kingdom that we were promised and that has lived in our hearts for so long?"

There are obvious problems. The question is: How will they be dealt with and "who" will deal with them? If it is not you who will deal with them, then I ask you: Who is it?

Someone thinks, "Well, I don't mean anything; I'm not an important person. Someone 'up there' will deal with the problems, someone in that high seat will deal with the challenges we have. Or perhaps God himself may come and judge us for our impurity and get rid of the problems."

Remember the brother in 1987 who came out of nowhere and brought judgment on the movement. Maybe some are thinking, "Well, someone else is going to stand up and do this. "I tell you NO very clearly"! The day of judgment is here, but you are the key figure. No one from Africa and no one in some high seat. It is "YOU" who are crucial in judging. Yet, I want to talk to you about your situation, because your situation is . . . it is one of partial blindness. In your expectation of some kind of supernatural judgment you fail to see that there is a very "natural" judgment that wants to take place, one that begins within you. And let Me tell you that before you can judge anything in the things around you, you must be open to judge yourself.

And I want to talk to you about how that works. It is not enough, first of all, to expect that God will speak through the messiah, or God will speak through this or that key figure in your life, someone perhaps above you, or someone whom you cherish as a spiritual seer. I want to speak directly to you. I want to speak directly to you.

Do you have perhaps a mistaken idea about the meaning of humility? Do you believe that humility is some sort of self-degradation? The true humility is concerned with the person who can't raise his head to heaven? Can't look up and look at Me in the eye?

I tell you, My sons and daughters who are truly humble down through history were the ones who could look up and "look at Me in the eye", because My eye looks right back to you and shows you who you are. And humility is the "longing", the heartfelt longing to truly get to the bottom of yourself, to know truly who you are. It is not degrading who you are; that is arrogance, a perverse form of arrogance that comes out of the Fall and prefers darkness rather than light.

And humility takes courage. It takes the courage to stand up from the patterns that you have established in your life that go round and round and round, like a broken record, and allow yourself to take a "new step" in your relationship with Me. Do you expect that from Me? Do you expect that relationship with Me?

[Tearfully] I expect it every day from you. I long for it from you, day by day, I want it so much, a growing relationship. It's like the story of Pinocchio, the wooden boy, who was created by a woodcutter who wanted more than anything a little son who could respond to him. And all he could do, because he was an old man whose wife was dead, he could carve himself his own precious little boy. And yet he was made of wood and couldn't truly respond to that old woodcutter. And yet at the end of the story, we see, by the miracle of love, that little wooden boy turned into a flesh and blood child, and brings that father such great happiness. This is really the story of the fallen world. So many Pinocchios who don't know how to respond and who can't respond to Me.

But I tell you [still crying] that you are living in an age when that response is called upon by My very direct approach to you, if you can only open your heart and "expect that to be". Don't make scenarios in your head about what you think you can expect or what you think I will do or not do. Leave it open. Throw the door "open" and let the light come in. You don't have to create the light.

But I tell you, if you're going to do that, it's going to take the courage to get out of your old patterns.

If there is any problem in the Unification movement, one prominent problem is this one of which I have just spoken. The collective reality of people who are stuck in patterns and who are stuck in lives without courage, the lives without, truly, the confidence to stand on their own two feet . . .

When you think back in history to those whom you truly respect, it is always those individuals, men or women, who stood on their own two feet, who are often martyred, who were laughed at or mocked because they did not fit in with the crowd. [Tearfully] And yet they seem to have had this unearthly courage to stand and speak and to say what they needed to say as they were guided by their hearts - and so often by Me. This is the quality that I look for in each and every child.

Why do you think the world is the way that it is? It's "not" because everyone is just an evil, evil person. It's because people are stuck in their patterns, and that is what allows evil to take "root"! Mediocrity is the growing soil of evil! And evil will grow out of mediocrity as surely as the sun comes up in the east every morning.

The problems of your movement come out of this problem of individual mediocrity. "Accepting" a life that is lived without courage and a life that, oftentimes, is seeking its security in its environment. Therefore, comfortable positions. Comfortable in terms of relationships. A casual-ness about life that is lethal in the long run. And it is destined to create an institution with these problems, whether it be a Christian church, a Buddhist group, a Unification movement, whatever name you want to give it. People are people, and if they're going to go that way of mediocrity, then there "will be" corruption.

It is only when you, as an individual, will "stand up" and take responsibility for your relationship with Me that you will begin to look deep within and find those things that I put in there. "I PUT THOSE THINGS IN THERE IN YOU", that genius that only YOU have, to be brought out only in relationship with Me!

I tell you, this is a time when those organizations in history that have represented Me have outlived their usefulness. It is not that they didn't bring good, inasmuch as they witnessed the existence of My desire to have that true love relationship with My people - they did good. But what's the ultimate goal of restoration? It is the goal of coming back to the Garden, coming back to being My son and daughter, and establishing that true individual relationship with Me. That's why this is no longer the age to be replacing Me with institutions. And that's why it's going to take "courage" to step into the new age.

The Unification movement began as a call to that kind of courage. It was started by an individual who "felt" that kind of call in his own life. And yet those who have gathered around him in the years intervening, perhaps including yourself, have listened to a different kind of call . . perhaps not initially, but in the long run have become comfortable in positions around that person. Eating at the head table . . with rich meat and wine . . and happy and content to be there with the one who represents their God, and yet, oftentimes, deaf to what I want to say to each one individually . . in the quiet of their own room at night . . on a path when they are alone, by themselves.

Yes, it is possible for absolute mediocrity to encrust itself around the very Son of God, and that is what I, ultimately, cannot stand for. And as much as I can, to whatever heart I can break through and speak to [crying], I want to find a person who has the humility to look Me in the eye and the courage to take a step that mediocre thinkers wouldn't "think" of taking. And that will reform yourself. That will be the step toward reformation of who you really are, because you didn't know, before, who you really are. And you'll begin to see yourself through My eye.

And then I want to tell you, as you look out to your movement, that which you have created, you will begin to see that movement in a new eye. And I want to warn you about one thing. Historically, those who came as reformers or those who stood up as radicals, who called out for the change of established institutions, too often were caught by their own anger, by their own frustrations, by their own "story": "How I was mistreated" or "How I was abused." And if they do not realize the step that I want them to take, they are the next ones in line to become the abusers, the mistreaters, those who become the next generation of wrongdoing and darkness.

First you have to stand on My ground in yourself and see yourself as I see you. The judgment day is here! And it is not I who judges you. It is not the True Parents who judge you. It is not some leader who judges you. It is you who must judge yourself through our interface. And then you can begin to judge that which is around you, with a kind of judgment that is not earthly. With a kind of judgment that no man or woman on earth knows, unless they know Me truly. [Hard tears] You'll see, you'll see the meaning of the day of judgment. So many people are living in fear of their lives being judged by Me or by Christ or by their spiritual leaders. They live in fear and they live in insecurity and they act out of this. That is what makes for mediocrity. Mediocrity is not a comfortable place, finally. It is a false place of false security. But at the very pit, below mediocrity, way down deep there is a raging, nagging fear that one must live with.

But I tell you, I want you to step into a world where there is no fear; there is absolutely no need for self-defense, in terms of the negative variety; there is no need for insecurity; and where you can stand on My ground. It comes down to how willing you are to interface with Me now, to share with Me and to let yourself - allow yourself - to sit on the judgment seat of your own life. And I don't just mean in terms of what's right and what's wrong, throwing this bad thing out and embracing that good thing. It's not a mental exercise. It's an exercise of the deepest heart, and it's there that you find Me. And when you find that relationship with Me in your heart of hearts, this judgment, as I said, becomes a very natural thing, something that you'll find great joy in - not an agonized process. Because at the same time that it is a judgment process, it is a process of a deeper and deeper embrace between parent and child, between you and I. [Very tearful] It's a time of rejoicing, of celebration: 'the Great and Terrible Day of the Lord.' Wonderful! It's wonderful! And it's then that you will be able to look around you, be able to see the mediocrity for what it is.

Let Me say again, mediocrity will never bring "anything good" on this earth. It is the soil in which evil grows. If you want to change your movement, or more deeply said, if you want to go beyond and make something new, then what I have just spoken of is the key. Know it to be true.

[Deep tears] I long for this relationship with you. I don't want to relate with you like some casual friend you meet down on the corner and have a smoke together. I'm not so free to be casual right now. I "can't" be casual when I look at the reality of My world . . people abusing themselves and one another so badly. For every headline you read about the pain, I know of ten million realities that will never get into the newspaper . . of My children being so badly hurt and tortured. You don't "begin" to know how painful it is in My heart.

And yet I know that the victory can come through each of your lives, one by one by one. You might say it's too slow. Wait a moment! I have a connection with "every living soul on this earth"!!! And it's not just first you, and then next we'll try this guy, and then next one we'll go there. No. I can reach each heart as each heart will find Me. And that way the light will begin to come in "many lives" in the same moment. I believe that!

And one thing more I want to tell you. You say: "What can I do? I'm just one small person. You talk about the beauty of God coming through my life, but I'm stuck in a house or living in a very limited situation here in my hometown. I don't have so much high and mighty contact with famous people or with great contacts."

But I tell you, a diamond . . a diamond lying in the tall grass of even a vacant lot maintains its beauty, maintains its quality. It is still a diamond. And whoever finds it will treasure it. You want to complain that you're not the diamond, say, at the center of a necklace worn by the Queen of England? A diamond is a diamond! Where ever you go, that quality will show. It is not your "choice" what quality you have according to who you can speak to and how you can contact the high and mighty. The diamond's quality remains even if it's buried deep within the earth. One day it will be found. And one day it will be treasured. And it will have an impact on the world.

"You" will have that impact. Don't you worry about what you will do and who you will meet and whether it's worth it to find this part of yourself of which I speak. Let Me worry about that. I tell you this is for what you were born. And I give you completely green light to pursue it. I am here. I am here! Don't delude yourself anymore. Don't look for Me in someone else. Don't worship that which is outside of yourself without worshiping that which is within you, for that is "idol worship", and you are "wrong" in doing so!

I love you very much and I leave you with this today. I want to let this be called the first talk of . . let us call it the Autumn Series, 1994. I want to talk to you many times during this autumn, this time of great beauty when the leaves are turning all different colors of the rainbow. This is a time of beauty between us too, when we have much to share. I love you and [crying] please heed what I say. Please heed what I say because it means everything to Me. [Sobbing] It means everything to Me. Honestly, these tears are not tears of sadness; they are tears of reunion, and I wa ...

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