The Words The Kwak Family
|
|
The Words The Kwak Family |
I had the good fortune to be able to live intimately with our True Parents for many years. When I joined, Father completely shared his life with us. He had only one room, on the second floor of the church building. Next to his room, we ate together and lived together. The earliest members shared even more closely with him.
After his Blessing, he was a little more distant, but still he lived together with us. Up until now he never had a private house in Korea. Just this year, because of providential reasons, the Korean church bought a house for him. His children as well usually lived in the church building on the second floor. On the first floor there were always many kinds of meetings and training programs in progress; there was noise 24 hours a day. But until he left for America, his family always stayed in the church building. We have much to learn from his attitude and example.
Because of his lifestyle, his own sons and daughters suffered. More than us, they needed True Parents, for they were their only parents. But remember one thing, state leaders have spent more time than the Children have listening to their father speak.
Since I came to America, I have been living at Belvedere. Father asked me to eat breakfast with him every day, and many times I have eaten lunch and dinner with him as well. But only since the beginning of this year have True Children been able to join their parents at the dining table. Until then, they ate with their parents only on special occasions or ceremonies; otherwise, they ate at the kitchen table.
My personal case has been very precious and privileged, having had the chance to be with True Parents in this way. But I am very ashamed in front of True Children and so sorry for them, because sometimes they commented that they supposed that unless the 36 couples were eating with Father and Mother, their food had no flavor! That is how they thought!
Because of this feeling, a couple of years ago I told Father, "It is such a wonderful opportunity for me to be at the dining room table with you; because of this I can get a lot of work done." (It was true, because every day I had to ask Father for advice on many things happening throughout this country and worldwide. Just eating breakfast together with him, I was able to accomplish a lot.) "However, I feel sorry for True Children," I continued. "Please take your meals with true Children and meet with me maybe only three or four days a week, and then I will report everything to you." His answer was simply "No."
I concluded that until his 21-year course was over, he had to follow this kind of lifestyle, and that afterwards, perhaps it could be different. But actually, it has not changed yet.
Father devotes practically all his waking hours for the public purpose. Of the 24 hours in a day, often there were maybe only four hours when he was not with us. I know he never went to the bedroom before midnight, and often it was an hour or more later.
Once I asked Mother about his early morning schedule. She said that he had completely trained himself not to sleep more than three hours. He would always rise early, sometimes at 3:00 or 4:00 a.m. and begin his daily schedule with two hours of prayer and meditation.
This early morning prayer and meditation must be one key to his wisdom. Because I was so close to him, I know well that so many times questions would come to him from various leaders working in many different fields. Whether it was at a public meeting or an informal gathering around the dining table, his answers would be so wise. Even though in many cases, it would indicate a completely different direction from that dictated by common sense, it would always seem so right. Obviously, before he even heard the question, he must have already meditated about so many possible issues and their solutions, and as a result was able to give such unbelievably wise answers so quickly.
At 7:00 a.m., his public schedule begins with breakfast. Those who will eat with him will be there waiting, before 7:00, for him to come down. He never eats alone, always with a minimum of one other person; so he has no private time. Even when he goes somewhere by car, another person always accompanies him. In this sense, we have to respect Mother; hers is no ordinary woman's life, but rather one of complete devotion to him.
When the children wake up, they go to see their parents and greet them with a bow. When they are ready to go to school, they greet Father and upon returning they again greet him, if he is there. But so many days, Father is not home when they return from school; he may be visiting some department or holding some meeting. The children have no chance to listen to his speech or guidance. Often their only opportunity is at the 5:00 pledge service with the family at East Garden, but even then, he has to leave right away for the meeting.
How do you think True Father and lime Mother regard their own children? Because of the love they feel for them, they are so grieved at the lifestyle the children have experienced over the past 21 years. Someone who has so much love inside of him but who cannot give it out feels deep pain. True Parents are the owners of love, but they have not been able to share all of that love with the True Children. This has been a great sacrifice on their part.
If True Parents had invested in their children the tremendous love they have given to us members over the past 21 years, imagine the spiritual, physical and mental benefit the True Children would have received and how much maturity they have attained. In this sense, we have stolen from True Children their Parents' concern, care, time, guidance -- everything.
You truly must re-evaluate your viewpoint of the True Children.
It seems to me that we make two kinds of mistakes regarding True Children. First, we generally expect too much from them. You know, True Children are supposed to be exemplary children, but we expect them to be too different from other children; we expect too much maturity from them.
One time Ye Jin Nim mentioned that she had no childhood. Because she is the eldest daughter, from the earliest times, everybody looked to her, expecting maturity and perfection of her. This is really a terrible position in which to put True Children. Children are children, especially True Children; their nature is that of children.
When they go to school, because they bear Reverend Moon's name, no one can accept them as just ordinary people; everybody has a certain viewpoint of them. Furthermore, in our church, everybody expects perfection of them. Also, they cannot freely bring friends over to visit them.
Our members and leaders, because they expect too much from them, cannot be close to them, and even their parents have little time to spend with them. So what should they do?
Actually, we stole True Children's parents away from them; we robbed them of the precious names of Father and Mother; we monopolized their parents' time and energy. Because of our respect for them and faith in them, we can so easily say Father and Mother, but how do True Children feel? They almost feel that they have been robbed.
At a young age, they must wonder why other people call their parents "Father" and "Mother." How would you feel if you were in their position? Later, as they grow up, they can understand the reason, but still, True Parents' lifestyle does not allow them to spend the time that a father and mother should spend with their children. Many times, children need to discuss something with their father or mother, but True Children have no opportunity.
Why does Father do this? One of the main traditions Father has had to establish is to love Cain; therefore, he has given us, as Cain, more love than he has given his own children. Hopefully, from now on, he will have more time to take care of his children; but actually, he recently went to Europe to begin a new phase of public pioneering life.
In the second place, our mission is to attend the True Family and provide an environment of goodness for their children.
For True Children, and even for other blessed children, Heavenly Father wanted them to live in a pure and perfected environment, where goodness abounds. Our Blessing needs a blessed environment, but our generation in particular receives the Blessing like a bridge; we experience the conditional value of the Blessing. Still, True Children at least should have a pure environment. I have repented for this many times.
True Children have the original mind, of course, and a basic good nature. But unfortunately, we did not provide an environment full of goodness for them. Their nature tends towards a godly character, but they have not had a godly environment in which to develop it.
We should have been able to offer them an education in our own kindergarten, primary school, junior high school, high school and university. But because we did not build this kind of educational system for them, they have had to attend public schools and they have received a lot of influence from the satanic side. This is really unfortunate. Even though we now have in Korea a junior high school and high school, Ye Jin Nim is already attending college.
Because of their original nature and feelings, True Children have had to go through a lot of struggles, internal struggles whose cause or meaning even they do not understand. Their pure, original mind is uncomfortable when surrounded by bad spiritual influence. When members look at them and see them struggling, they do not understand the internal reasons and therefore sometimes judge them. Even the True Children as small babies go through these struggles; they complain, without understanding the reason for their difficulties.
In our daily lives, we sometimes feel uncomfortable, but we cannot compare our feelings with those of True Children; their situation is different. Therefore, you should try to understand the internal situation of True Children.
Although they never complain to us, still we should feel sorry and ashamed in front of them.
Ye Jin Nim, in particular, has suffered from this situation. Because hers has been a pioneer course, who has been her friend? Nobody. During much of her 20 years, she has been so lonely missing parental love; she could have been so easily influenced from the outside, at school, for example.
Just after the matching and Blessing, Father asked for my response to these events. For one thing, I told him, I am so proud of Ye Jin Nim's victory and that she was able to receive this Blessing. Her life over the past 20 years has been filled with constant struggles and battles, but she overcame all these struggles and circumstances and was finally able to receive the Blessing.
Basically, True Children should be blessed with other blessed children. But in Ye Jin Nim's case, there were no candidates, because she is already two or three years older than the children of the other 36 blessed couples, and furthermore, girls' mental development is generally faster than that of boys. She is a very mature child, and from her viewpoint, there were no candidates; the blessed sons of the 36 couples did not seem sufficient.
Our members look forward to the Blessing, believing that Heavenly Father has prepared some wonderful spouse for them. At the time of the matching, there are hundreds of possible spouses. But in Ye Jin Nim's case, she could count only a few potential spouses.
Ye Jin Nim's matching and Blessing is an historical victory; the position of eldest daughter, which is hers, is a most difficult position. In the midst of untold difficulties, she has stood strong, upheld the original standard and overcome everything. Deeply devoted to True Parents, she is a true example of filial piety. Now that she has laid the eternal foundation of victory for herself and for all our members, she deserves our deepest congratulations.