Create an Immortal Masterpiece

Today's Post is the last official post for the year 2012.  I will have a brief update of a previous article about a hunger solution posted tomorrow morning.

If we were to study art work that is still being admired centuries or thousands of years old, we would see a commonality between all of these masterpieces.

Rodin's statue The Thinker and the statue of the thinking Maitreya-Bodhisattva from the Shilla dynasty in Korea, are quite different works of art, even though both have the same theme, namely, a man engaged in thinking.







The latter has as its motif, the heart of the people, waiting for the Maitreya, who was said to have been the most excellent disciple of Buddha and is to come again in order to save all humankind. As regards expression of Inner Sungsang, Rodin's statue displays a strong intellectual aspect, whereas the statue of Maitreya is centered on purified emotions, and, as a result, has become a very noble and holy statue.


Object Consciousness

Creation is an activity whereby an artist, in the position of object, gives joy to the subject, namely, God and the whole (humankind, the nation, tribe, etc.), by manifesting the value of beauty. For that, the artist must establish a sense of object consciousness. The attitude of wanting to give joy to God, the highest Subject, and to manifest the glory of God, is the culmination of object consciousness. The content of object consciousness will be discussed next.

First, the artist should seek to comfort God, who has been grieving with sorrow throughout human history. God created human beings and the universe to obtain joy, and even endowed humans with creativity. Therefore, the original purpose of human life is, above all, to give joy to God.

Accordingly, people's creative activity should have been carried out, first of all, as a means to please God. However, people separated themselves from God and lost the consciousness of wanting to give joy to God. That has been the sorrow of God, even until today. Therefore, the artist should, above all, comfort God for His historical sorrow.

Second, the artist should have the attitude of wanting to comfort the many sages and righteous people, especially Jesus, who walked the path of restoration with God. To comfort them is to comfort God, who shared pain and sorrow with them.

Third, the artist should have the attitude of wanting to express the deeds of the good and righteous people of the past and present. That is, the artist should have the attitude of cooperating with God's providence and Will by portraying the deeds of those people who were, and those who still are, persecuted by the sinful world.

Fourth, the artist should herald the coming of the ideal world, Therefore, the artist should create works expressing hope for, and confidence about the future. Through such works, God's glory is manifested.

Fifth, the artist should have the attitude of wanting to praise God, the Creator, by expressing the beauty and mystery of nature. God created nature for humankind's joy. Due to the Human Fall, however, people came to obtain little joy from the beauty of nature. Therefore, while having a feeling of awe toward nature, which is the manifestation of God's attributes, the artist should discover the beauty of nature, praise God and give joy to others.

Artists who have object consciousness and dedicate all their energy in their creative work, can receive blessings from God and assistance from the spirit world. That is how true works of art are produced. Such works. may be considered the fruit of co-creative work between God and the artist.

Among the artists of' the Renaissance, there were many who created their works of art with object consciousness. For example, Leonardo da Vinci (1432-1519), Raphael (1483-1520) and Michelangelo (1475-1564) were such artists. Beethoven (1770-1827), who perfected classical music, composed music with object consciousness. ¹² That is why the works of those artists have become immortal masterpieces to give joy to generation a hundred years later and beyond.


Return for Tommorrow's Post: Update to Hunger Solution

Photos courtesy of: freedigitalphotos.net

Today's Post was based on the teachings of Dr. Reverend Sun Myung Moon from his Textbook: Unification Thought Chapter: Requisites of Creation.

Divine Inspiration, Get It

"Before you dominate the world, first dominate yourself."


Actually, I dedicate this post to an experience that recently happened to me a little over a month ago.  After 35 years telling and writing stories, even becoming a journalist, I received divine inspiration and wrote my book in a 24-hour period. 

When I came across this text for this post, I was able to align myself to God's will as "more than imaginary" things were starting to develop, now are explained to me after reading this.  When it happens, you will know for sure that a good, high-level spirit or angel is guiding you along and it will not be a question. The same for the person God sends you to be the one, there is no question that God is guiding you.  But, with a gift comes responsibility.

When you establish in yourself the proper relationship between your mind as subject partner and your body as its object partner, you become the microcosm that resonates with the macrocosm, the spirit world and the physical world. You stand as the mediator and center of harmony between the two worlds because you have set up that harmony within yourself.

For its part, the spirit world rejoices to find in you a channel to work its will on the physical world. Although countless spirits long to do good works on earth, they require a responsive mediator through whom to act. By establishing yourself in the proper position, centered on God, you can meet the needs of the spirit world and become the focus of its attention.


Spiritual Inspiration and Our Response

Let us take some examples. It is well known that the abilities of psychics vary according to their emotional state and the spiritual environment. In the presence of skeptics, they are often disarmed and unable to show their powers. Healers testify that their healing works best when the patient is open and welcomes the work.

Even Jesus, the greatest of healers, said to the ones who were healed, "your faith has made you well" (Mark j:34), and could not do many healings in the face of pervasive unbelief. (Mark 6:5-6) This illustrates the principle that the subject-object relationship between the spirit world and the physical world is mediated through human beings. Doubt and skepticism block the relationship, and hence block the spiritual work. Faith opens the door for receiving spiritual help.

Spiritual inspiration lies behind the creative work of all great inventors, scientists and artists. In Dr. Sung Lee's tour of the spirit world, he saw spirits working in laboratories creating the stuff of invention that would be communicated to earthly scientists years later. Why is it that so many inventions and scientific discoveries are made almost simultaneously by several researchers in different parts of the world working in isolation from each other? When the time arrives for a new invention to be bequeathed to the earth, the spirit world will work through several channels at once.

Numerous accounts abound of scientists receiving the key to new discoveries in dreams or in flashes of unearthly insight. One celebrated example is the elucidation of the structure of benzene by the German chemist Friedrich August Kekule. He had puzzled for years over how its six carbon atoms and six hydrogen atoms link together. (Ordinary hydrocarbons are built of straight chains of carbon atoms, but a chain of six carbon atoms with the stability of benzene would require fourteen hydrogen atoms).

One night Kekule fell asleep in his chair, and in a dream he saw snakes biting their tails and whirling around like hoops. He awoke and immediately realized that the six carbon atoms of benzene link together in a ring. With that discovery, all the facts of organic chemistry known up to that time fell into place.

Artists, poets and musicians since antiquity have acknowledged the Muse as the source of their creative genius. The words or music just comes to them, as if from a higher source. Take, for instance, this self-description by Mozart:
When I feel well and in a good humor, or when I am taking a drive or walking after a good meal, or in the night when I cannot sleep, thoughts crowd into my mind as easily as you could wish. Whence and how do they come? I do not know and I have nothing to do with it. Those which please me I keep in my head and hum them; at least others have told me that I do so. Once I have my theme, another melody comes, linking itself with the first one, in accordance with the needs of the composition as a whole: the counterpoint, the part of each instrument and all the melodic fragments at last produce the complete work. Then my soul is on fire with inspiration. The work grows; I keep expanding it, conceiving it more and more clearly until I have the entire composition finished in my head though it may be long.
Mozart was graced with the inspiration of music. He received his melodies from the spirit world. Furthermore, he knew what to do with them. He knew what to keep and what to discard, and how to develop them into a composition in accordance with the best of his art. By the time his "soul is on fire with inspiration" he would already be in the midst of co-creating a work of art whose initial seed had come to him as a gift from heaven.
Spiritual Guidance

Spiritual guidance from heaven often arrives cryptic and vague. Even Rev. Moon's directions, which we believe to be accurate in every respect, often are stated in only a few cryptic phrases. How much more uncertain is the guidance through a spiritualist, medium, palm reader or readers of Tarot cards, who has to hazard an interpretation of words and symbols!

The fact is, spiritual guidance must be couched in this way, with meanings hidden in obscure and ambiguous speech. According to the Divine Principle, people must exercise their portion of responsibility to understand the inspiration given from God and the spirit world. We are not meant to be led around by angels-all spiritual guidance is by nature angelic-but to exercise dominion over the angels as responsible agents through our own wisdom.

Otherwise, if spiritual messages were explicit, we would be little more than servants of those angelic beings, only doing their bidding. To give us the dignity of co-creators, God gave us responsibility to chart our own course with limited information, for example:
God could not instruct Cain and Abel on how to properly make their sacrifices because it was their portion of responsibility that Cain make his sacrifice with Abel's help.
God had directly revealed to John [the Baptist] that Jesus was the Messiah, and... he said, "I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, "Make straight the way of the Lord," and declared that he was the one who had been sent before the Christ. Therefore, John should have realized through his own wisdom that he was the returning Elijah. Even if he not did not realize this fact, since God had revealed to him that Jesus was the Messiah, he should have accepted the testimony of Jesus and, in obedience, proclaimed himself to be Elijah. Our responsibility begins with effort to understand heaven's guidance with a public mind. Any selfishness or conceit may blind us to the will of heaven.
Therefore, when Rev. Moon says not to interpret his directions, he means we should not wriggle out of the path of sacrifice by cleverly reducing Heaven's request into something comfortable. We must anyway interpret what we receive in a cryptic and vague form, but we should do so with a public mind, following the Principle, ready and willing to take on whatever burden may be required. Then we will not go wrong. Our responsibility ends with action. In attempting to carry out a spiritual direction according to the best of our understanding, the direction will often become crystal clear.

All spiritual inspiration goes for naught without the training and motivation of the earthly people to make use of it. Everyone has an occasional flash of inspiration, perhaps the theme for a new song or the idea for a new invention. Usually we don't know what to do with them, so they slip in and out of our heads while we carry on with our ordinary lives. On the other hand, those scientists and artists who received the most exceptional gifts of inspiration invariably knew what to do with them. Because they had trained themselves for many years and had mastered the tools of their field, or because they were at such a high level as to be working on the cutting edge of knowledge, their minds could be responsive to the movement of spirit.

When the inspiration came, they understood its meaning and acted upon it. They had the resources and the motivation to work at turning that inspiration into a physical reality. It is said that invention is five percent inspiration and ninety-five percent perspiration. The spirit world looks for such prepared people to entrust with their most precious knowledge. They want to cooperate with earthly people who will strive every day to bring their spiritual design to fruition in the physical world. Such people will complete the link between the spirit world and the physical world as subject and object partners.


Return for Tomorrow's Post: Create an Immortal Masterpiece


Photos: Courtesy of Freedigitalphotos.net


This text was is based on the teachings of the late Dr. Reverend Sun Myung Moon and taken from the textbook: True Family Value written by Joong Hyun Pak and Andrew Wilson Chapter 5 - Reaching to the Spirit World Part 1

 

 

 

Men and Women Need Each Other

 

Man symbolizes heaven and woman symbolizes earth. Man and woman are to come together and realize harmony.  —Sun Myung Moon

 

 

Opposites attract, especially masculine and feminine. The big, muscular Dad is mesmerized by the tiny frailty of his newborn daughter. The petite, refined teenager memorizes every detail of her heartthrob’s rugged face, strong dark eyes, thick hands, and angular physique. The simple, home-loving woman catches the eye of the sophisticated, worldly-wise man.

This tendency of masculinity and femininity to find and balance each other is an expression of complementarity—a principle running throughout all existence. Indeed, the harmony and vibrant tension of these polarities fills the universe with energy, structure, life, beauty and joy. Frosty mountain peaks overlook green, verdant valleys. The peacock carries around his heavy tail feathers to make the colorful display that will attract a peahen, who will in turn bear his young. An electron weighs less than a thousandth of a proton, yet they precisely balance to comprise an atom.

 

Implications of the Reproductive Organs

But perhaps the design most revealing—in a metaphoric way—about masculinity and femininity are the reproductive organs themselves.

The female organ receives the male organ, so masculinity is active and initiating while femininity is receptive and responsive. The male organ angles upward and away from the body when erect. It is often aroused by inspiration solely within the mind. This is symbolic of the masculine propensity towards “heaven,” the world of ideals and vision. In contrast, the female organ is like “earth” in that it opens deep into the body and is subject to monthly cycles.

This represents the feminine concern for immediate, practical matters. The internal structure of the female organs represents the feminine tendency to emphasize the world of feelings and human relations and to solve problems by changing something within herself.

In contrast, the outward thrust of the male organ symbolizes the natural inclination of masculinity to focus on manipulating things in the outer world. In communication, masculinity tends to be direct and assertive, as the male genitals symbolize, while femininity is apt to be more indirect and round-about, like the female organs.

Apart from physical design, observation of the tendencies of men and women suggest other distinctions between masculinity and femininity. Femininity is concerned with context; masculinity is focused on content. Masculinity emphasizes rules and standards; femininity is mindful of individual differences.

Femininity is egalitarian and cooperative; masculinity is hierarchical and competitive.

It must be said in the end that differences notwithstanding, men and women are far more similar than not, of course. Both genders have personality, the fruit of the interaction of mind and body. Both are spiritual and material beings. Both have heart and conscience. What masculinity and femininity do is to impart a certain slant to these universal human components, creating only a difference of style and emphasis.
 

Complementary Virtues

The diverse characteristics of masculinity and femininity can be reduced to certain strengths or virtues. These are reflected in the qualities that are universally prized in men and women. In all the various family roles of men—son, brother, husband, father— and their social counterparts, among the key virtues celebrated are strength, leadership, courage, justice, discipline, self-sufficiency and providing. In their roles as daughter, sister, wife, mother and the like, there are also certain qualities that are celebrated in women.

These include beauty, support, surrender, mercy, modesty, nurturance, and resourcefulness. The Bible provides a succinct description of the virtuous woman when St. Paul says, “train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be sensible, chaste, domestic, kind, and submissive to their husbands, that the word of God may not be discredited” (Titus 2.4-5). These various virtues are complementary to one another, paired in subject and object partnership.

One stimulates or inspires the other and either can be much more difficult to generate or maintain without the other.  Frequently the virtues are masculine and feminine dimensions of the same quality. In any case, the masculine dimension tends to be intrapersonal, that is, related to vertical mind and body unity.

 

For example, chastity in men traditionally is a testament to self-control, for the purpose of being single-minded, able to serve God or otherwise realize a worthy purpose. In contrast, feminine virtue is more often than not an interpersonal quality, related to horizontal, person-to-person unity. Chastity for women has more connotations of fidelity, keeping love undivided for the sake of its fulfillment.

Complementary Virtues

Masculine            Feminine

Strength                 Beauty

Leadership            Support

Courage                Surrender

Justice                   Mercy

Discipline              Modesty

Self-Sufficiency     Nurturance

 

Strength and beauty

Strength encompasses physical power, stamina and the ability to endure physical and emotional pain to provide for and protect others. It means keeping one’s own counsel when necessary and eschewing easy comfort.

Strength is “beauty” in a man, as reflected in a recent song defining manhood as being as “swift as the coursing river, with all the force of a great typhoon, with all the strength of a raging fire, mysterious as the dark side of the moon.”

In the same way, what we call beauty—being a source of pleasure and inspiration—is an important feminine “strength.” Beauty encompasses grace and graciousness, creating comfort and harmony. A woman’s beauty stimulates love in her husband even as it cheers and encourages her children. Beauty also involves creating splendor around oneself, drawing out the attractiveness of other people and things and harmonizing them.

Both of these virtues are often distorted in the world, interpreted in exaggerated, external terms that become oppressive. The truth of Francis Bacon’s words, “The best part of beauty is that which no picture can express,” is readily forgotten. Women are prone to obsessively focus on their appearance. Likewise, men are likely to forget that real strength is a character quality, as the saying goes:

“The strength of a man isn’t in the weight he can lift. It’s in the burdens he can carry.”

 In their true meaning, strength and beauty encapsulate all the good qualities that distinguish masculinity and femininity. That is, all masculine virtues are regarded as enhancing a man’s strength while the feminine virtues are seen as making a woman more beautiful.

Leadership and support

Leadership involves taking command of a situation, being assertive and taking initiative to get something done. Leadership demands sacrificing oneself to protect and provide for others. It means making decisions in spite of uncertainty and others’ disapproval. It sometimes requires taking a stand that disturbs the peace.

Support, on the other hand, is the ability to facilitate leadership, to respond to what is required, fill in what the leader lacks and influence the situation indirectly. Just as leadership is a kind of support, giving support often involves taking leadership, rallying others and harmonizing them with the leader’s purpose and direction.

The male capacity to zero in on the root of a problem and detach from feelings to make more impartial decisions suits many men to be like the CEO and public affairs director of their families, accountable for their direction, protection and overall function.

 

At the same time, the female sensitivity to relationships and capacity for detail makes most women the ideal person in charge of day-today family matters and connections to the neighborhood—the director of personnel and head of public relations, the one to oversee the health and happiness of the home.

Courage and Surrender

 

Courage and surrender are counterparts to one another.  Courage is acting despite fear, which means to surrender to what needs to be done regardless of risk. Its close cousin is heroism. A prerequisite to courage is confidence, the trust in oneself and in one’s God-given strengths.

Conversely, surrender is the willingness to trust in others and in life, to be vulnerable and yield oneself to a person or situation. This also demands considerable courage to put one’s fate in the hands of someone or something that is as yet unproven. Women are called to surrender in countless ways, just as men need to be courageous to exhibit leadership and other qualities.

Justice and Mercy

Justice is promoting fairness through establishing and enforcing standards, rules and boundaries. It involves making distinctions, passing judgment and discerning right from wrong. Justice is to be impartial, “blind.” Mercy, on the other hand, bends rules and permits special consideration for individual cases.

It softens the dictates of justice to allow for the complexities of the heart. Of course both are vital and depend upon one another for balance: “And what does the Lord require of you,” says the prophet Micah, “but to do justice, and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God”.

Discipline and Modesty

 

These virtues represent restraints upon both strength and beauty, respectively.  Discipline involves self-control and moderating one’s passions. It also includes the humility to submit to a superior’s correction and direction. Both are essential if a man would exercise authority over others. St. Paul bids older men to “be temperate, serious, sensible” and younger men to “control themselves” (Titus 2.2, 6). Modesty is the feminine form of self-restraint. It is reserving one’s beauty and sexuality for one’s spouse alone, guarding what God has entrusted. Both are encompassed in chastity, as mentioned above.

Self-sufficiency and Nurturance

Self-sufficiency is the ability to handle one’s own needs and solve one’s own problems so as to be available to be of service. This is related to independence; men are expected to be strong in themselves so others can depend upon them. The complementary virtue of nurturance means to actively attend to that which is young and undeveloped, believing in its potential and patiently awaiting its full unfolding. It includes relieving distress and providing comfort.
 

Patience and gentleness make this possible. Nurturance also connotes an acceptance of a measure of dependence; generally women are more willing to admit their needs and be cared for.

 

Providing and Resourcefulness

These virtues relate to dealing with things. Providing refers to the masculine trait of acquiring what is needed for the people causes ones loves.

“The best of men are those who are useful to others,” reads a hadithm, The traditional requirement for a boy of the indigenous peoples of the arctic North was to slay a seal as a feast for his community, representing this male virtue. Resourcefulness on the other hand involves carefulness in dealing with what has been entrusted, shrewdly conserving resources to meet the needs of those under one’s care.

 

Traditional recipes and quilts are but two examples of the ingenuity of women to make utility and beauty out of limited resources.

Men and Women Combine Both Principles

Masculinity and femininity as principles or archetypes are one thing; real men and women are another. It must be remembered that all people have both masculine and feminine sides to them. This common base allows women to understand men and vice versa. Real people are a blend of masculine and feminine traits—the virtues just described are celebrated in individuals of either sex.
 

Men may have their feminine side quite developed, just as women may have ready access to their masculine traits. The roles that individuals play will demand sometimes more masculine traits and sometimes more feminine ones. For example, a male kindergarten teacher will require qualities that may come more naturally to most women, while a policewoman will need to draw upon dispositions that probably are easier for most men to access.

 

All men and women have the capacity to develop the traits that are the strengths of the opposite sex. A male orderly in a senior citizen facility can learn to pay more attention to details, just as a female manager in a large company can learn to tune certain details out.
 

Yet at the same time, the greater masculinity within men means that they have certain natural strengths as well as limitations that suit them for certain tasks, just as the greater femininity of women gives them certain advantages and disadvantages. Either gender can take on just about any role, but the fit may not be as perfect.

Author Patsy Rae Dawson offers an analogy:

A six-inch brush is better for painting large surfaces and a two-inch brush is ideal for trim. Either can be used for either task, but it may take more effort to do so, such as painting trim with the larger brush.

So it is with the sexes.  Either can fill in for each other’s duties but it may take more exertion to do so.

Men and Women Need Each Other

Thus for every male or female gift, we can understand there is also a corresponding weakness or shadow. The male penchant for achievement sometimes leads to neglect of relationships; the female

sensitivity to feelings can spell difficulty in overlooking negative experiences. Thus, boys and girls, men and women need each other’s companionship and support. One side of this is humorously expressed by Rogers and Hammerstein in the musical “South Pacific”:

“There isn’t one thing wrong with any man here that wouldn’t be cured by putting him near a real live, womanly, female, feminine dame!”

The needs—or “weaknesses”—of a man only serve to draw out and accentuate the strengths of a woman, just as a husband’s unique assets are revealed and highlighted by the needs of his wife. By investing their strengths into each other as a team, the sexes create a powerful and beautiful whole greater than the sum of its parts.

This is symbolized in mythology by androgynous figures that combine masculinity and femininity and as a result have extraordinary abilities, like the blind Tiresias in Greek mythology who can foresee the future.

“A woman is half of the universe,” states Reverend Moon. “When a woman unites with a man, 180 degrees and 180 degrees come together. In marriage they form a sphere equal in value to the universe.

Submit to One Another

 

This is why the marriage partnership, though tradition speaks of well-defined roles, comes down to the interplay of the husband and wife augmenting each other’s strengths and compensating for one another’s weaknesses.

 

The spouses’ horizontal subject and object partnership means that though there is a certain stable nature to their positions, there is also dynamic movement in which roles stretch and switch according to shifting conditions. A husband’s masculine way of living for the sake of his spouse will naturally define his role and likewise with the wife’s feminine way of serving.

Instead of concern about “manly” or “womanly” tasks, the spirit of mutual service and sacrifice carries the day.  Reverend Moon puts it this way:

 

"In true love, both spouses must be obedient to each other and be willing to be united with each other. We may say, “Why do I have to obey my husband or wife? I want to be free.” But in true love, obedience, loyalty, surrender— everything is possible, and you are not humiliated by it.

"You want to be controlled by your love. In true love then, there is a heavenly dictatorship of one to the other, and you want to live that way throughout eternity."

The New Testament asserts both spouses are to “Submit to one another” out of respect for God (Ephesians 5.21). The husband submits to his conscience and the needs of his family as a true servant leader, especially to respect and care for his wife. The wife surrenders to the needs of her husband and family.

The man’s heartfelt care for his partner will tend to elicit the response he desires, just as the woman’s wholehearted support will tend to elicit the qualities she wants from her mate. Thus there is the call for each husband to “love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband” (Ephesians 5.33).
 

 

Web designer Peter Brown says of he and his wife Kim, “We just tell ourselves that, ‘True love is the boss.’ Although it sounds simple, it has a very real impact in our lives ...

[Both] the wife and the husband must bow down to the ethic of true love."


Return for Tomorrow's Post: Divine Inspiration, Get It!

Photos Courtesy of: freedigitalphotos.net

 

Today's text taken from Textbook: Educating for True Love, Explaining Rev. Moon's Thought on Morality, Family, and Society.

Second Chance at First Love

This topic may seem geared more to the younger set, but it is possible for adults to find a love that is stronger than any relationship they experienced before.  In fact, it is necessary that the love of your spouse surpasses any love, even beyond the first one we all experienced outside of God's realm, if we are to indemnify our past mistakes of not keeping our purity before marriage.

Some of you may be thinking, "God, why did you give me such a person as my fiancée? Couldn't you have picked someone better for me?" If you think your fiancée is difficult for you to love, you will become the king or queen of love if you learn to love such a person.

This is literally true. Do you think God feels you should have a different fiancée and will change you around? No. Each of you has an endless realm of love to connect with if you make a success out of your relationship. Certainly God wants to fill you with everything you need. Every bridegroom should think that his bride is more precious than royalty and cherish her as his queen, and vice versa. For thousands of years the potential of the Blessing has been coming toward you; how terrible it would be if you, knowingly or unknowingly, stopped it. Not only your ancestors but also all the things of creation will accuse you if you prevent their blessings from materializing.

Those of you who are engaged may answer that you are going toward your fiancée. But is your fiancée going forward or backward? Is he or she moving with confidence? Is he or she about to go up, or down? You may say that you never thought about the question and frankly don't care. You may suppose that when you are with your fiancée you will be satisfied. But what good does it do for two uncertain people to meet? If one confused person joins another, what will result? They will become even more puzzled.

Two confused people will collide with one another. Your eyes will clash, your ears, mouths and minds will clash. You might reason that since everyone else lives that way, you should, too. Perhaps you think that you have no other choice. But what about your family? Once you are living together, children will be born to you -- that's virtually automatic! But will your baby be able to see straight, hear straight, think straight if there are two people such as this in a marriage? Perhaps your baby's eyes will be crossed or only able to look in a certain direction. If you truly realize the position you are standing in, you feel some awe or dread. Once you are aware of it, you cannot just casually enjoy life after the marriage blessing.

Reverend Moon, who authored the Divine Principle which every post is based upon, has members who are engaged for five years before they marry. Many of think it is wonderful, but other people call it crazy. What do you think? Is this truly wonderful?

You say yes, but not very convincingly. Something is holding you back. But when you analyze it further, it really is wonderful. Why? Because this is the only way the universe can have hope. This is the proper way for you to go. It is not just these few years that matter, but hundreds of thousands of generations to come will learn solid lessons from the patterns we establish right now. So think about how wonderful this is. You are laughing now and proclaiming with confidence how wonderful it is; but when you are not so sure, it is like clouds being drawn across a clear blue sky. One should be sure.

Perhaps you say you wish you could wait for five more years, so you could do something more meaningful for the world and for history. Would you choose to wait ten years rather than five? When you think how wonderful it is, are you ready to wait that long? Some of you laugh, but I would like to find out why you laugh. Is it because you think it is wonderful or for some other reason?

The couples do not do this to suffer, but through pain and frustration of sacrifice through marriage, there is hope to see a new America reborn. A new standard of marriage in America can be seen with couples like this. Waiting five years is not easy, but we have to conquer it.  After observing American couples, for some odd reason, one sees a large amount of people think they have the freedom and right to get divorced. But I know that the universe does not work that way. Once you choose love, it should last forever and ever. That is the value of love. All human value rests on that.


First Love is Unforgettable

Actually, love develops better when you do things without people being aware. Sometimes you see a man and woman embracing and kissing in the street and wonder what kind of special privilege from the court of the universe they think they have. During their engagements, Reverend Moon's members are told not to kiss or even hold hands, because it could lead to something more. But if you are truly grounded in Principle and ethics, it is hypothetically possible for you to kiss without it being bad, but until the proper time, don't do it.

When you men look at your fiancée, do you naturally desire to touch her face or her body? The body is designed to be touched. Certainly a person's face is important, but the most important thing for a woman is that her spouse has a man's body and vice-versa.

The innocent, pure baby loves his mother regardless of how she looks. Even if his mother is a hunchback with only one eye, the baby wants to be with his mommy. In the same way, men and women should love each other unconditionally; don't try to evaluate each other.

The same way you loved your parents as a child -- purely and uncritically -- you should love your spouse. Are you confident you can do it?

When you give your first love it is always unconditional. Men and women are designed to experience the beauty and purity of first love and live together forever in that love. With that first love, there is no such thing as a racial or cultural barrier. Teenagers have minds of openness and sensitivity to all the joys, tragedies and beauties of life. They normally feel everything so deeply. Even when they see autumn leaves falling, they feel touched by that.

Unfortunately here in America there are not many who have preserved their first love. Most of you already have some kind of past, so what can we do? Realizing the preciousness of that first love and knowing that you have lost it for whatever reason, you should be more humble, repentant, and fervent than before. In order to compensate, be more sacrificial in loving your spouse, ready to accept him or her unconditionally. When you are humble and open to each other, you can compensate for the loss of your first love.

If your conscience was really alive, you could not say to God, "I don't have a good fiancée; he is not the kind I wanted." Your original mind should be saying, "Father, because I am so impure, I don't really deserve any person as my spouse. But since I have received this spouse as a gift from You, I will serve him/her for the rest of my life. I want to deserve this great blessing with all my heart and soul."

Those who do not have the privilege of giving your first to your spouse must be repentful and at the same time most appreciative to God and willing to compensate. In this way you can restore your love and reach the same degree of Heaven.

Couples Are Matched Based on Future Children

Reverend Moon continues to tell how he brings two couples together who can achieve a greater love once they unite centered upon God:

"I will give you my matching secret: I do not match you primarily as husband and wife but I see through you to your beautiful children of the future. Is that against the Principle or according to Principle? No matter what, the Principle persists here in America.

"To make a long story short, let's say your fiancée turned out to be a large, broad woman, and you immediately thought of her as undesirable. But suppose she (or he) has an incredibly warm and wide heart of pure love. Then what would you say?

"On the other hand, many women with beautiful faces possess only a flat, shallow love. Through my research I have learned that the love of an ugly woman is very round and possesses great depth and nobility. It's easy to stand on flat love, while spherical love is harder to balance on, but which kind of love would you prefer in your mate?

"Certainly, spherical love is better. So if you think your fiancée is more attractive than you, you are most likely getting flat love. But if he or she is uglier than you, you are most likely getting spherical love. This rule of thumb applies to both men and women. When you learn to love a fiancée whom you previously disliked intensely, you will give birth to the greatest of children.

"No matter how ugly your fiancée may be, still he or she is the supreme form of creation and therefore more special than anything else in nature. He or she is the crowning glory of God's masterpiece of creation. You may call upon the things of creation to sing a song for you and they would be unable to comply, but your fiancée should. So unless you are able to love nature, you cannot love other people."

Reverend Moon the Matchmaker

What is the secret of being able to match hundreds of couples from around the world? Simply having a loving heart. Love is everything; love has knowledge and power; love can penetrate and understand everything; love endows one with a vision of the future.

Reverend Moon talks to couples who he matched then married them.  They are ungrateful about their spouse even though they had previous relationships outside of God's realm:

"Because I can match with such a heart I am the world's greatest matchmaker. Aren't you glad of that? I have two different reputations. Some people say that I am an excellent matchmaker and others call me a bad one. Those who call me a bad matchmaker simply don't know the facts. After you have lived together for three years, you will discover why I matched you and your spouse, and you will come back and report to me!

"Some of you have already concluded that you cannot accept your match, even though you have never lived together or even gotten to know each other. You have even asked me for new matches, but I have said that is ridiculous, since you don't even know each other. Sometimes I have counseled engaged couples who have come to see me at East Garden. "Did you know that your fiancée had this or that characteristic?" I ask them. Both have been completely surprised, because they haven't gotten to know each other at all. They knew far less about each other than I knew about them.

"In some cases I matched a very sensitive woman to a dull, insensitive man. If she can love that man, her love lungs will really develop. When a sensitive woman can make a dense man become sensitive, she becomes a master genius! Actually, the all-knowing God created only 95 percent of our being, and He asks

"I am an expert on human beings, in a way, because I have dealt with so many different people throughout my life. Many people have betrayed me, and many have been completely loyal; some have exploited me. All kinds of people have come and gone, and I have studied and researched every one of them. My mind is very analytical, and I never let any experience pass by without observing it closely and learning from it. I have considered millions of situations and human variables. So I have millions of mental "index cards" that I can pull out and refer to when I match people. I can see that someone with one kind of nature will need a spouse with a particular characteristic. That is how I match couples."

Through this type of marriage, once a couple stretches their love muscles to become one after three years of struggle, they can overcome their past mistakes in relationships and have a love that goes beyond any relationship they ever had, even their first love.

Marriage was Meant for Eternity

Marriage is a journey that men and women begin together. Where will it end? Can you imagine living for 10,000 years? Compared to eternity, that is just the beginning. Some people realize that. Others think, "Boy, one month is eternity! I can't even stand to look at my wife."

Marriage is like exploring a gold mine. In one month or one year you can barely find one seam of gold. There may be all kinds of foreign elements in it, so unless you dig deeper down, you won't know what's there. That is the adventure of married life.

There are two different kinds of appearance. A Broadway stage can look like a golden palace, but there is nothing behind the facade. On the other hand, a simple mountain may look plain, but when you dig into it you discover limitless resources inside. I always ask whether genuineness can be more frequently found in an attractive person or a homely one. You greedy guys always think you can be genuine and handsome too! Actually, there are always exceptions, so you can be the exception! But generally the unchanging qualities are more often found in the homelier-looking people.

We see women wearing elaborate cosmetics, false eyelashes, high heels and beautiful dresses. They may change their costume three times a day in order to parade down Fifth Avenue. Is that the ideal for a woman? What about a man with flowing hair and mustache, wearing a fancy breast pocket handkerchief going into a bar to find girls? Is that ideal?

Then consider a man who smells bad, even from a distance, and who only has two teeth; perhaps he is almost blind, too. Could someone like that be genuine 24 karat gold? You have to focus your concept of an ideal man and woman.

We must understand that your husband or wife is not your personal property. You come out of the fallen world, yet your mate comes as a gift from heaven, through God. You must be able to read the label that comes on your spouse. That label tells you where the item comes from. "Made in Heaven." That gift is given to you in order that you might consummate true love. It is impossible for love to be consummated by one person alone.

This is the Principle. Husbands and wives, look at each other as representatives of God and the Messiah. Your duty is to love one another, and by doing so you are loving the Messiah and your Heavenly Father. Your journey is to eternity, and the achievement of true love is our goal.

Husband and wife should look at this world like they were looking at the Garden of Eden, in which there is only one man and one woman. What if Adam had happened to be crippled? Would Eve have complained to God, "Oh, no, I want another man!"? Eve didn't have that kind of choice. If Adam had been running around and had fallen down on a bush, he might have become blinded in on eye. Would Eve have said, "God, I don't want a one-eyed husband!"? Consider yourselves as Adam and Eve for whom there only one possible mate; it is your destiny.

You men should look at your wives and think, "She is the only woman in the entire universe; she is the only Eve." You may have been thinking about how ugly your husband or wife was, but when you start to look at your spouse from the proper angle you will see universal beauty in him or her. You should look at each other with universal eyeglasses and then your husband will look like a heavenly movie star. With universal eyeglasses, nothing looks ugly in God's creation. 


Return for Tomorrow's Post: Men and Women Need Each Other

Photos courtesy of: freedigitalphotos.net

This text was taken from the Textbook: Restoration of True Love Chapter 5: The Matching based upon the Diving Principle teaching of Reverend Sun Myung Moon.

Principles of True Love

Welcome to a new week, and the last week of posts for the year of 2012, the Chinese symbol of the Dragon. Let's get started!  Does anyone think that love has rules or principles that are absolute?

True love happens in relationship with others. Even God required an “other” to fulfill His love. He created human beings as love partners, to whom to share the glory of His creation. He needed an object—someone to share with. He needed a relationship in order to experience love fully.

True Love Is Principled
 

Modern cultural notions have it that love is a spontaneous feeling in one person’s heart toward another. Yet, in fact, ethics weighs prominently that in successful and loving relationships. Examination reveals that ethics and morals enable true love.

Love based on feelings alone can be dangerous.

A man may feel he has fallen in love with another woman and desert his wife and children for her, leaving emotional devastation in his wake. A teacher may feel aromantic attraction toward a young student and wind up psychologically damaging the student for life with sexual approaches.

Psychologist M. Scott Peck points out, “Many, many people possessing a feeling of love and even acting in response to that feeling act in all manner of unloving and destructive ways."

In order to benefit the other, true love adheres to ethical principles.

Based upon principles, a truly loving person will behave benevolently toward a person he or she does not feel benevolent toward in the moment. To be kind to a spouse even when the spouse is being surly means a person believes in kindness, even when the other is not evoking it. It means a person believes in preserving and protecting marriage itself. To help the homeless man on the street means a person believes in treating one’s fellow human beings with compassion, even when that fellow human being is disreputable. To love those who have done a person harm means belief in the ultimate redemption of all, including the reprobate.

 

Ethics Enable a Life of True Love
 

Principles help stiffen the will to love the unlovable. They provide the impetus to enact the prodding of the conscience, which tells a person to act caringly even at his or her own expense. Mother Teresa could not have overcome her natural revulsion at the sights and smells of the diseased and dying in Calcutta had she not believed that the image of Christ was alive in each person. When she saw filthy people being gnawed on by rats in the gutters, it did not cause her to turn away, leaving them to the trash pile. Instead, she saw them as Jesus in a “distressing disguise” and asserted their eternal value as children of God. Adherence to a strong belief system enables a life of true love.

The necessity for ethical principles in love may be noted in the visceral reactions people have to violations of right and wrong in their relationships. For instance, learning that a spouse has been unfaithful is always an occasion for great anguish and pain. Marital love is bound up with expectations of loyalty, and these expectations are not just culturally conditioned. The emotional pain—the rage and hurt—that adultery causes is testimony enough to the deep affective content of the principle of fidelity in married love.

 

All other forms of love depend upon principles, too. You may have sensed these principles even in relationship with your friends.  In the love between friends, ethical violations are felt keenly as personal betrayals. The friend who lies, the friend who talks behind one’s back, the friend who passes one over in favor of another,the friend who is always willing to let the other pay the check - all of these kinds of ethical shortcomings cause friendships to flounder.

Ethical expectations accompany every human interaction and relationship—even fleeting ones. A person expects the clerk in the store to be polite and helpful. A driver expects fellow motorists to drive in a safety-conscious way in order to prevent injuries. Passengers on buses expect other passengers to make a minimum of noise, to say “Excuse me” when brushing past, and to move their things out of the way when the seat is needed.

The other-centeredness of these ethical expectations is clearly discernible. In fact, all virtues may be seen to be other-centered in perspective; all vices may be seen to be self-centered. It may be said, therefore, that “living for the sake of others” is the most all-embracing and all-encompassing moral principle.

 

True Love Is Serving and Sacrificial

True love is active. It involves enacting through willpower the promptings of beliefs and principles. Author and Christian philosopher C. S. Lewis noted that the more one feels without acting, eventually the less one is able to feel. This echoes the Book of James:

 

If anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his own face in a mirror, he sees himself, then goes off and promptly forgets what he looked like.

 

But the one who peers into the perfect law of freedom and perseveres, and is not a hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, such a one shall be blessedin what he does.

Many faith and ethical traditions emphasize service and self-sacrifice.   The great disciplines require fasting, prayer vigils, caring for the poor, the sick, the imprisoned, working to bring others into the light of truth, lengthy periods of silence and contemplation, and the giving up of worldly goods and pleasures in order to direct the mind toward God and others. It is as if in order for love to come down from Heaven, service and sacrifice must create a vacuum on earth.
 

Sacrifice in service to others creates a pocket in the usual maelstrom of selfishness—an empty space where God may dwell. As Reverend Moon has said, “God is creator and the originator of the two basic principles of service and sacrifice,” and when those principles are put into effect, God’s true love moves in.

The touching story of Shay shows how sacrifice and service to others creates an open place for heavenly love to come down to earth. Shay was a young, learning-disabled boy. He and his father were walking past a park where some boys were playing baseball.

Shay wanted to play, and his father reluctantly approached one of the boys on the field. The boy said, “Well, we’re losing by six runs, and the game is in the eighth inning. I guess he can be on our team.”

Oddly enough, Shay’s team started to score until they had a chance to win the game. But Shay was up next. Knowing it meant they would lose, Shay’s team still gave him the bat. He didn’t even know how to hold it. Thoughtfully, the opposing pitcher moved forward to throw Shay easy soft pitches. When Shay managed to hit a grounder, the pitcher instead of throwing it to the first baseman, lobbed it in a high arc out into right field. Everyone started yelling,

“Shay, run to first!” Startled, eyes wide, Shay ran to first and past it.

The right fielder then deliberately threw the ball way over the second baseman’s head, and once again, everyone shouted for Shay to run to the next base. The shortstop from the other team even turned him in the right direction. Another wild throw over the third baseman’s head had boys from both teams shouting, “Run home, Shay!” Shay ran home and was cheered by all as the hero who had hit the winning home run.

“That day,” the father said, with tears rolling down his face, “The boys from both teams helped bring a piece of the Divine Plan into this world.” They did so by their willingness to sacrifice their own interests for the sake of a little boy who needed a win more than they did, and who would always remembers the day other created a special space for him to belong.

It is hard to give things up that are in a person’s own self-interest.  Yet when a person does so to serve others, a window seems to open in the heart. It is a window through which the warm sunlight, gentle breezes, and the pure oxygen of the love of God may be seen and felt. For a moment, heaven comes to earth, and the whole world breathes a little easier.


Return for Tomorrow's Post: Second Chance at First Love

Photos courtesy of : freedigitalphotos.net

Today's text was taken from Textbook: Educating for True Love, Explaining Rev. Moon's Thought on Morality, Family, and Society.

Saturday and Sunday is Day Off

Enjoy the rest of the weekend, and if you are in America enjoy your holiday!  I will return on Monday for this blog's final week of post for 2013.  In the meantime, a new blog starting December 15 will focus more on the Divine Principle Bible Study, which this blog is based upon.There is a possibility of a live broadcast of Divine Principle Lecture December 15 and I will keep updated beginning December on that event.  This is of course free if it works and has changed many lives. 

 

By attending this lifestyle for a little over 7 years now, I have seen my family slowly being liberated from the depths of hell, marriages broken for years getting back together, bodies healing and the curse of the young men in my family dying young ceasing.  I know dozens of you from America, Germany, Columbia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, India and the Netherlands visit here weekly and I am happy to share this knowledge thousands of saints, sages and God's people died to obtain and more to understand. I look forward to 2013 to the possibilities.  See you soon!

 

The Danger of a Couple Living Separately

This is the last part of the book about the 20 daily habits of the happiest marriage.  Saturday and Sunday will be AchieveWorld Peace day off.  Then one last week before a December break from daily posting. 

 

Below  the author of the book shares his experience of how unhealthy it is living apart from the spouse and that by taking the test posted yesterday, he had received an F and if he had taken action, problems may have been avoided.

 

Members refer to the author of the Divine Principle True Father for teaching us as a father how to live and become as the Father in Heaven wanted.  Dae Mo nim is a spiritualist who sees and aids members with her spiritual sight into the spirit world, and Cheonpyoeng is where she helps, through God and good angels, members tackle problems that began in the spirit. 

 

 

The Dangers Associated with a Couple’s Living Separately Because of a Job Away from Home

 

My beloved wife, Yasuko, ascended into Heaven at the CheongShim International Hospital on February 14 (January 1 by the Chinese calendar), 2010 as a result of her terminal stomach cancer. She was buried in the Korean Unification Church’s 2nd Wonjon at Chuncheon City. I am deeply grateful to the numerous Blessed Marriage families around the world who kindly prayed and gave warm encouragement for my wife’s healing during her two operations and hospitalization since August 2009, until her ascension.

 

Even though more than five months have passed since my wife’s ascension, I still occasionally receive questions about her fight against her illness or the background of her ascension. This is why I decided to address the two questions related to my wife’s fight against cancer and her ascension, partly selecting from my new Japanese book Makotono Ai-to Zettai Sei-to Kenkouhou (True love, absolute sex, and health), which was published in January, 2010.

 

Thus, finally, I would like to offer here words of my heartfelt thanks to those many members around the world who, with deep concern, kindly cared for my wife and my family with their sincere prayers, communications, and financial contributions, during my wife’s hospitalization and ascension. I have learned anew the real preciousness of the friends in our faith and the classic lesson that “A friend in need is a friend indeed!” I can never thank them enough, for ever.

 

Appendix Q.1: I heard that on the basis of your recent experiences, you have come to strongly emphasize the dangers caused by living alone by taking a job that compels one to leave his family behind. You mention that taking a job away from one’s family has a bad influence on the health of the couple. Could you provide a detailed explanation about this?

 

A: I made and presented objective self-score tables about the “10 habits that make a supremely happy couple” in an Appendixto my Japanese booklet, Kouten Jidai-no Niju-no Seikatsu Shukan which was published in April 2009. Based on these objective self-score tables, I evaluated our couple’s practice of true love during every month of the past few years. It turned out that our couple’s monthly score often repeated: A, F, F, F, F, F, A, F, F, F, F, F, and the average mark for every year was an overall “F (failure).”

 

Honestly speaking, before the strict objective evaluation of our relationship, I was living in a subjective fantasy, and at the end of the process of grading, I finally realized “Oh, we had a problem” and was shocked by the results. Getting an “F (failure)” as the average mark of every year meant that we had not been practicing true love in our life.

 

This also meant that we had not been practicing the rules of health: “Become an absolute Blessed couple of one heart and one body” that True Parents and Dae Mo Nim have taught. In fact, it is impossible for couples to faithfully practice the daily-life habits of true love and True Parents’ rules of health in a daily life wherein one spouse takes a job that results in his leaving his family behind, even if the couples are eager to practice the habits.

 

In July 2009, when my wife was diagnosed with stomach cancer, I was so surprised. It came out of the blue and was a big shock. But then again, I had already had a bad feeling that something was wrong when I discovered the results of the self-score tables that I had made and applied to our couple a few months prior to the diagnosis. That spring I discovered that as a couple, we rated an “F (failure)” for the 10 months during my working alone in Korea every year. It was then that I had a hunch: “Oh, this will be dangerous.”

 

As a result of this, when my wife was diagnosed with stomach cancer, I felt much regret and realized that it happened because we had not faithfully practiced the True Parents’ rules of health: “Become an absolute Blessed couple of one heart and one body,” and because I had continued for over 15 years the unprincipled life of working alone at a job away from home, separated from my family. It is clearly an unprincipled life to work alone at a job that separates an individual from his spouse and family for most of the year. It is an unprincipled life to leave one’s spouse behind in the pursuit of work for many years. It is definitely not the type of life that God is pleased with.

 

My eldest daughter graduated from a medical school in the United States and became a medical doctor (still an intern) at a hospital in Detroit City. In regards to her mother’s diagnosis of stomach cancer, my daughter remarked: “If I kept a small bird in a cage surrounded by several cats, the bird would die soon because the small bird would become severely stressed and would be unable to eat peacefully.”

 

My daughter’s words were not meant to criticize me directly, but it did make me realize my failings. Because I had started my new post in Korea alone, and was away from home for a significant amount of time every year, I did not sufficiently fulfill my responsibility as a husband. I left my wife to face life’s hardships alone for over 15 years, which inevitably must have caused her significant stress.

 

When I look at her situation, I realize just how much stress and difficulty she must have faced. For over 15 years without her husband, she lived in a foreign country, America, where she could not speak, write, or read freely. She was in a completely different culture and society, with foreign rules and a completely different educational system. On top of that she had to raise four children alone and manage her retail business at a small indoor shopping mall, all without her husband to depend on, because I had left my family behind to take my teaching job in Korea.

 

All that my wife had to depend on were her church friends and other secular friends who knew the wisdom of the world. With insufficient support, she fought alone while running about in utter confusion. Because my wife was always busy with continuous work, there was no time for her to eat slowly. She became accustomed to swallowing her entire meal in a very short time.

 

When I look back, I feel so much regret because I should have realized the danger of leaving my family behind. Early on, in 1999, when I had a stroke at Sun Moon University, I should have realized that I needed to live together with my wife. It is so important for a husband and wife to live together because then they can monitor each other’s health. If the husband and wife look at each other every day, and if they are interested in each other’s body, they are more likely to notice if something is amiss.

 

Also, if a husband and wife spend time together and consistently massage painful areas of their spouse’s body, they will be able to check the status of their spouse’s health and catch any problem early on through observation, touch, and massage. If this careful attention and early awareness of potential problems exist, a couple can prevent serious illness by catching problems before they become serious.

 

In 1999, as a result of the periodic medical examinations given to the faculty and staff of Sun Moon University, I found out that I had high blood pressure and that I should take the proper medication to control it. But, because of my busy schedule and work, I ignored it for a while. This neglect caused a greater problem for me later on, a brain hemorrhage. If I had lived together with my wife, we could have managed my health together.

 

She could have helped me take proper care of my medical problems, which might in turn have prevented the bleeding in my brain. During this time, as a result of the brain hemorrhage, I was facing serious health problems, and it was determined that it would be very good for my health if I went to Cheongpyeong Hospital.

 

So, after getting permission from the President of Sun Moon University, Dae Mo Nim, a highly reccommended spiritualist, invited me to be a professor at CheongShim Graduate School of Theology in the spring of 2004. My life in Cheongpyeong has been wonderful. Cheongpyeong has a nice environment that promotes good health. The area is endowed with clean air, pure water, beautiful nature, and woody hills for daily hiking. In addition to the benefits of the environment,

 

I could also receive many benefits spiritually, being able to frequently participate in Cheongpyeong Workshops.

 

Also, the food served at the cafeteria of CheongShim Graduate School of Theology was much healthier than that served at Sun Moon University. The food service that catered to the CheongShim Hospital was also in charge of the meals at our Graduate School, which meant that the food tasted better and was far more nutritious than what I was previously accustomed to. My life as a professor at CheongShim Graduate School of Theology made me much healthier than before because the environment greatly resembles that of the CheongShim Hospital.

 

Thanks to the grace of Cheongpyeong’s environment, my life became very healthy, but the life of my beloved wife continued to deteriorate because she couldn’t have her husband with her since the time he was in Korea. As a result, her situation was like that of a lonely widow. She worked everyday like a workhorse, alone, with nobody to help her, and her hardships continued.

 

 In connection to one’s taking a job away from home and leaving one’s family behind, another decisive factor that has a bad influence on health is a lack of health insurance. If a husband works full time for a company, generally speaking, his dependents (wife and children) can receive the benefits of family health insurance.

 

This policy is, however, usually not applied to dependents living in a foreign country. If my wife and children came to Korea to live with me, they also would have automatically been qualified for health insurance as my dependents.

 

However, they lived in the USA. So they managed with overseas travel insurance for Japanese citizens, which was more economical than the regular private health insurance coverage in the United States.

 

My wife, however, could not receive that insurance any longer; when she became a naturalized citizen of the USA, she lost the qualifications needed to obtain overseas travel insurance for the Japanese. In addition to no longer being qualified for overseas insurance, my wife also faced difficulties in obtaining other cheap health insurance due to my income in Korea that exceeded the level for her to be qualified for the subsidized health insurance in America. This became problematic because when problems with her stomach worsened, she had no health insurance coverage in the United States and could not get a specialist’s timely help, which she needed.

 

In the beginning I did not worry too much because I thought if something serious happened she could always come to Korea and get help. My wife could easily come to Korea where she could receive the health benefits of my insurance and have operations and such if she should get seriously ill. But it was unfair of me to think in this way.

 

A wife should always be able to receive the benefits of health insurance, whether sick or not, and be able to have regular medical examinations without having to worry about expenses. Providing this peace of mind is one of the most important responsibilities of a husband.

 

My wife was very self-sacrificing, patient, and frugal, and avoided spending money just on herself. She would always think of others first and make providing for their needs a priority. When I received the True Parents’ instruction to go to the Czech Republic and Slovakia for missionary work as a Japanese Ambassador for Peace, she willingly agreed with my going there at my own expense.

 

She also willingly agreed with me in borrowing a large sum of money from a bank and lending it to a senior Japanese Blessed family without requesting any loan interest from them, so that they could pay for their family’s hospital charges. But then my wife would hesitate about getting health insurance for herself and paying the expensive fees, because it would be only for herself inasmuch as she was the only one in our family without health insurance.

 

My wife became all the more hesitant about paying for the expensive health insurance around the beginning of 2009, when in the currency exchange market the value of the US dollar visà-vis the Korean won went up sharply, that is, the value of the Korean won vis-à-vis the US dollar fell sharply.

 

That is why I stopped the remittance of the cost of living to my wife in America from my salary in Korean won, telling her to temporarily use the money in her bank account because the value of the American dollar vis-à-vis the Korean won would soon fall sharply just as the value of the American dollar vis-à-vis the Japanese yen had dropped sharply. Therefore, my wife hesitated even more about paying the expensive cost for health insurance only for herself.

 

I recently read a newspaper article about a research study that found that the sum of the husband’s income greatly influences whether the couple can live a long life together. This made me feel so sorry for my wife. In the case of stomach cancer, many experts also point out the importance of early treatment through early detection.

 

For early detection, periodic medical examinations are crucial. After visiting the CheongShim Hospital and seeing my wife’s condition, which failed to improve even after her operations because of the late-stage stomach cancer, Dae Mo Nim emphasized: “All Blessed families should, by any means, receive a medical examination at least once a year.”

 

I strongly recommend that all Blessed families obtain health insurance, get periodic medical examinations, and get a specialist’s diagnosis early on, especially if the stomach has any problem. As a husband who has the responsibility for protecting his wife’s health, I feel so deeply sorry for my wife that I often cannot hold back my tears. Because her health insurance expired and she could not get further coverage, she could not go to a specialist in America to get an exact diagnosis, when necessary.

 

 

Man Was Not Created To Live Alone

 

As a result, my wife’s stomach cancer was discovered too late, and it became terminal. In conclusion, and based on my own experience of taking a job away from home, and leaving my family behind for more than 15 years, I am certainly against maintaining this kind of life for an extended period of time. In Korea, there are many middleaged men who live alone, leaving their wives and children abroad while they study English. This is a big problem.

 

Many of these middle-aged men who live alone have come to suffer from serious geriatric diseases, such as high blood pressure or heart trouble, because of their unhealthy irregular meals and lifestyle. Human beings were not created to live alone. Human beings were created for marriage, and to live as a couple. Being in a marriage partnership is the best state for human beings and can lead to a happy and healthy life.

 

This is especially true if they live peacefully hand in hand with each other every day, if they are interested in the state of their partner’s bodies, if they experience loving physical contact in everyday life, and if they live everyday with a smile. Then, they can reduce each other’s stress, build strong immune systems, and maintain overall physical and emotional health. That is the central message of the “rules of health: Become an absolute Blessed couple of one heart and one body” which True Parents and Dae Mo Nim have taught us.

 

I have eagerly studied these rules of health that True Parents and Dae Mo Nim have taught. The finding of my wife’s terminal cancer, however, made me acutely realize that I had not faithfully practiced them every day with my wife. Consequently, I have come to strongly encourage others to stop as soon as possible their unprincipled lifestyle of taking a job away from home and leaving their family behind because it makes the daily practice of these rules of health impossible. I have also come to emphasize the importance of practicing these rules of health every day as a couple as much as possible.

 

Especially now, the age of paying for the mistakes of our ancestors in history is providentially over, and we are in the new Era after the Coming of Heaven. Therefore, in this new Era, True Parents have also emphasized the importance for Blessed couples to do things (e.g., prayerreport) together with their partner and to participate as a couple in public events such as the Church Holy-Day Celebrations as much as possible.

 

Blog Note: The church has a deep belief in being helped by angels and good spirits in support of our direct work with the Messiah of the Second Advent.  Even True Father and Dae Mo Nim have stated that if a cancer or disease is too far along, it may be too late even for heaven to save that person's body.  When this happens, sometimes a member or person without this understanding can lose faith because a person dies in the church and also may accuse the ill person of paying for mistakes.  The author addresses this from a direct question centered on this.

 

Appendix Q.2: It is reported that in other hospitals, many patients of stomach cancer are completely healed or can live for several years after being diagnosed with it. But your wife passed away within a year after she was diagnosed with it. Is it true that healing angels really work at the Cheongpyeong Training Center and CheongShim Hospital?

 

A: I have never directly received this question from any member of our Church. I felt, however, the existence of this unspoken question in the heart of some members around the world. Actually our second son, Takamasa, said to my wife and me at our home in New York in August 2009, before our departure to Korea for the treatment of her stomach cancer, “I can believe in God, True Parents, and Dae Mo Nim, if Mama is cured or gets better at Cheongpyeong, but I can’t believe in God, True Parents, and Dae Mo Nim any longer, if Mama is not cured or doesn’t get better at Cheongpyeong.”

 

When my wife’s health got worse around December 2009 because of the loss of her ability to eat any food after two operations for her terminal stomach cancer, she was very much worried about our second son’s losing faith in God, True Parents, and Dae Mo Nim (Cheongpyeong Spiritual Works). She regularly participated in the Holy Song (Ahnsu) Sessions at the hospital and made every effort to recover from her illness, not only for the sake of herself, but also for the sake of our children, especially for the sake of our second son who did not have firm faith in God and the spirit world. Nonetheless, the discovery and operations for her stomach cancer were too late for it to be cured, even with the focused help of the angels (I have already explained above the reasons for the delay of its discovery).

 

Our second son and two daughters came to Korea from the United States to take care of their beloved mother in the last days of her life on earth. Our children and I prayed desperately for her miraculous recovery from the cancer during the Special Workshop, but in my view it was my wife that prayed most seriously for our children in her heart on the bed so that they would not lose their faith even if she passed away, as her health gradually deteriorated.

 

Although no miraculous healing happened to my wife during the 15th Anniversary Special Workshop, her earnest and ceaseless motherly prayers to keep or strengthen the faith of our children brought about the small miracle of a photo of our son with angels. When our daughter took a picture of our second son at the Cheongpyeong Training Center immediately after the Holy Song session, a number of balls of light showed up with him and around him in the room. It was our somewhat skeptical children who first told me that “angels” appeared in the picture.

 

Frankly speaking, I was previously not sure about the pictures of angels on the leaves of the Tree of Love, like small light bulbs, when I saw them several years ago. Nonetheless, I could easily agree with our children in their view about angels on the picture because they took it with our family’s ordinary digital camera without adding or changing anything through a computer.

 

As a result of the picture, our second son has become less skeptical, or more serious, about the existence of angels and the spirit world. I have also come to be firmly convinced, now more than before she became ill with her stomach cancer, that healing angels really work at the Cheongpyeong Training Center and CheongShim Hospital, although they may not be able to cure all diseases.

 

 

Yoshihiko Masuda, PhD

 

(Professor, CheongShim Graduate School of Theology

 

CheongShim GST University Press

 

Based on the Speeches of True Parents and Dae Mo Nim

 

Published by CheongShim GST University Press

 

Copyright

 

ⓒ 2010 by Yoshihiko Masuda

 

All Rights Reserved

 

Published in the Republic of Korea by CheongShim GST University Press