Life of Faith Toughest School

If you say that a school is good, usually it has an intense and demanding curriculum.  Religious life can be compared to going to school. Do you want to join a very simple, easy-going religion?

Members of other churches go to church Sunday morning and sit on cushioned seats. All they have to do is write out their contribution card and tithe weekly, and that's it. But here you have to raise funds. Some of you have been kidnapped by deprogrammers. There are incredible differences.



Reverend Sun Myung Moon


Of course a person that is healthy is able to digest things that a sick person would not be able to handle.  By the same token, when you have a healthy mind, you, also, can digest anything: democracy, communism, and any philosophy.

Which -ism do you think a movement such as this belongs?  Godism.  Also, Unificationism, which is concerned with uniting things.

Is it easy to unite things?

We each have five senses, plus the limbs, and the beauty of each component comes from its harmony with the whole.  The eyes do not say, "I do not want to belong to that community.  I want to be all by myself."

Even nature observes such laws of the Principle while humanity has turned away from it through choice.

Here, we have five different colors of skin coming from all different parts of the world.  Our goal is to unite them into one family of man.

This church-life of fundraising, witnessing and working around the world for world restoration is complex.

We are into boat building, the fishing industry, and later we will go to the deep mountains digging miles into the earth for minerals.  What are the goals through pushing members into these incredible experiences?

You are being made into people who cannot be defeated.  That is people who are so capable that there is no one who can keep up with you.

Through this difficult training, you are learning how to totally digest many ways of living.  Through the hardships and incredible experiences, you will become great teachers whom people ask for advice.

Then our question boils down to one central point: Is there a God?

We broke down in three previous points how the theory of evolution leaves out God in the answer to the origin of the universe.

Ultimately, our question boils down to one central point: Is there a God?

There are two contrasting "blocs" in our world today.

The two worlds are the democratic world, also called the free world, and the other is the communist world. There are a few basic differences.

People of the free world assert that all of creation began with a thought, through the invisible world of the mind, or God.  The communists on the other hand insist that matter is the essence of everything, and thought is formed from matter.

This is the fundamental difference between them.

However, because of the communistic influence that has captured the world, many people in the free world are not aware of the existence of the mind, or spirit because it cannot be seen.

When such a person gets up in the morning they know that they need warm clothing because it is cold, they don't need spirit.

If they could choose an overcoat, they would like mink or sable.  Is it easy to obtain high-quality, expensive things or is it difficult?

If God does exist in the universe, then He would be important to the existence of the creation.  But if this God was only good for fulfilling the external daily requirements such as meals and necessities, what kind of God would He be?

If God was on a mountain, He would not only be on the highest mountain, He would be at the peak of that mountain.  If there was a tree there, God would be at the very top of that tree.

Is it easy to find and discover God?  If God has hidden himself on the earth, if He dwelt in the desert, He would look for the largest desert, like the Sahara.  This is how we reason.

If God was in the midst of the Sahara, even though many people have died along the way in search of Him, there would be many other people who will never stop searching to find Him.

God is that precious.

If He is the most precious thing, and you knew you can find Him in the desert, would you like to go there?  Even if it was at the risk of your lives?

This is the way human nature is.

If God is at the highest point of the mountain, people would not stop climbing up until they reach that pinnacle.

That is the way man is created.  If He was hidden in a cave miles beneath the earth, men will dig and dig and not give up until they reach Him.  This is what man's spiritual nature is inclined to achieve.

Why is that?

While man is in the process of reaching that highest, deepest and widest point, we overcome everything in between.  Once we finally reach the top we become conquerors. Thinking men always feel they want to conquer something which ordinary people do not reach.

It is mans spiritual nature to reach and strive for the utmost.

Would God place Himself where it was easy or difficult to reach?  God would be at the pinnacle, where people could ultimately reach Him through an extraordinary way.  What place are we?


I really want to give people the most precious thing under the sun. Then should I devise a way of life which is easy to live? Or should it be a path full of overwhelming experiences?  Everyone wants to get a Lincoln, if possible, instead of a Ford or Chevrolet. The most beautiful car is the easiest thing to create in the factory, right? No, the most expensive car requires the most care to make.


A lot of investment, extra effort and all kinds of tests went into making a car.

People who buy cars do not think about how difficult it was to build;they just simply enjoy the car.  Even though one created the automobile and wants to ride it, the owner would tell him that he does not belong there.

But, if his car breaks down, who will he need?  He will need an auto mechanic.

The well-dressed rich man who bought the car and the oily mechanic are both connected to that automobile.  What does this analogy mean for us as people of faith?

Would you want to be the passenger in the expensive car, or would you like to be the dirty, oily laborer who made the car?  Anyone can get dressed up and sit in a nice car, but not everyone can create a car from nothing.


Dumb Reverend Moon took the difficult road instead of the easy one, becoming the dirty mechanic. The mechanic who had the ability to create the expensive car has nothing to worry about. If the car breaks down, he can fix it. Even if there isn't a car, he can create one. He has confidence in himself.


Many Americans are proud of the Empire State Building and the once World Trade Center and so forth, but who built them?  Who designed them?

The Trade Center was designed by Japanese and built by the unwealthy.  Americans are proud of such structures, but are they able to build them on their own?

Even if your ancestors were great, working hard to build the things America is now proud of, what abut you?

Descendants of many great people do not care about such things and rather go clubbing and just enjoy life dancing and having a good time.  What can they be proud of other than that?

Young people today are going after fun with no purpose in life. 

No matter how great their past may have been, these young people will decline.

The children of those who had built such great monuments should be able to do something even greater and bigger to leave for the next generations.  Thus, the nation and people will be able to prosper.  We pledge to be people who will be purposeful and prosper.

We shall be the remnant.

Father speaks about growing up in North Korea and the process of activities that work toward restoring the ideal world:

I was born deep in the mountain country of Korea in a little house. I talked about mankind, the universe, and salvation of the nation. My parents thought I must be crazy.

They said, "You are the son of humble peasants.  Think about how to take care of the fields, how to raise the animals."

People around there couldn't comprehend the things that the little boy was talking about, so they said I was a crazy child, and when I became a little older, they said I was a crazy young man, then a crazy adult.

That crazy boy grew up to be a crazy man, then came to the United States, and is still talking about crazy things. I act like a crazy person. People look at me and say that something must be wrong with my brain.

Recently I have been saying that America cannot afford to have Jimmy Carter as President for another four years. Attacking Carter was almost like hitting a stone wall with my own fist. Who would get hurt?

Even if my hand got hurt, I wouldn't stop. But finally the stone wall gave in.

From the average person's point of view, my ideas are a little crazy. You are the followers of that crazy man. Amazing, though you aren't bothered by being called crazy men and women. You became so crazy that you gave up drugs, gave up discos, and you stopped any promiscuous behavior. You are liberated from that.

We are looking at the entire world and are trying to do something about its problem. If I tell you to gather on the East coast, you hop into vans and drive all day and night, and in three days you are all here. If one driver's eyes keep closing, someone else will open his eyes and drive.

Do you think I am so dumb that I don't know anything about these realities? You fundraising members, for example, go out into the streets every day and people yell at you and spit at you. Sometimes you are even shot at.

The best attitude is to go do fundraising as a researcher who is studying the people who hate Moonies. I am also researching all the fundraising members. I push you out, and in the meantime I study what kind of person you are.

The material fundraising members get to study is the extraordinary treatment they receive.

Some are kicked, some are stabbed, and some are hit. I want to see these records. What makes the men and women who can withstand this remain committed to their purpose?

People do not like to suffer, even for themselves, but here my fundraising people are suffering for the sake of others. Not a single benefit comes to them, but they are doing it for the sake of others and for the sake of the world. This is either extremely bad or extremely good; it cannot be in between.

Certainly I don't enjoy tribulation.

I would much rather go to an easy church. But I discovered that an easy path was not going to bring the solution. An extraordinary route had to be found, and I found it.

Once I found that route, I asked you to go all the way and not give up. Do it until it is finished. What you are doing now is becoming dirty, oily car-makers. You have started to build an automobile, so don't stop in the middle; go all the way.

Your fundraising record will remain.

People will recognize your deeds and your certificate will come. Later, a signature will be placed on that certificate, acknowledging you as a master in your field of fundraising, for instance, and then you become a teacher. When you complete a most beautiful car and then you drive it, nobody will say anything critical to you.

Would you rather build a 1981 Lincoln Continental, or buy one from a dealer?

If you build one, when you drive it you are not just driving a car. You are demonstrating what you are and you can be proud of yourself. But if you only talk about your idea and never carry it out, no one will trust your word.

You may buy a car and be proud of it, but people will say that you are just being snobbish, that you really have no right to be proud. But, when you make it and drive it, then you can be proud of your accomplishment and no one will say anything.

The basic difference between you and me is that you would prefer to buy a car from the dealer while I would rather build the car myself. The Unification movement is like that car. I can be proud of it and no one can say I am taking too much credit.

However, I am still working on this car because I haven't gotten the certificate yet from the US government, for example. But eventually the certificate will be processed and the signature will be put on, and then I will proudly testify and proclaim it to the people. Then they will say they are ready to hear me.

My ambition is to make each one of you my coworkers in the factory. Are you the auto buyer, or a coworker? That means you want to get down to work, don't you? Doing this hard work means being disciplined, pushed and taught. As the foreman of the factory, I will not compliment you too much.

I will always discipline and criticize you instead. This is the only way I can make you into top-notch workers. I want to push you so hard that no one is able to compete with me. I want all customers to agree that the best automobile comes from the Moon factory. Would you like that reputation?

The same principle is being applied to boat making. I told our people to make the best boat under the sun, but to make it the cheapest. The only way they can do that is by sacrificially giving themselves. But through this process the most beautiful boat is created, and no one else has a boat that can compete.

With the same spirit we make a society, a nation. If we Moonies make the best kind of nation for the cheapest price, there won't be room for communism to creep in."


Return for Tomorrow's Post: Become Ideal People for Liberation


This Post was rewritten from the speech Things That Are Important to You

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.