Seven Principles for Loving Relationships

We speak a lot about the importance of one obtaining mind and body unity.  This principle fosters and furthers true love when it is centered on God.  It is one of seven such principles that underpin both the natural and human worlds.

“There is not a single thing that lacks an inherent principle,” writes the Confucian philosopher Chu Hsi

The Great Learning 5


There are principles and a natural law that govern the nature of each existence.

The principles that govern the natural world and the human world have many parallels to one another.  This is because they both have a single origin, God.  The difference is that humanity has been given free will in order to choose to live in accordance with their own God-given natures or not.

From a different perspective, these principles also reveal much about the Creator to us:

Since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made.

Romans 1:19-20


The Divine Principle gives insight about how true love has a counterpart in the world which tells us a lot about God's characteristics.  We will first define these principles and the general principle that is active within the larger universe.


Principles for True Love

1. Maturing Through Responsibility

As each person fulfills the responsibility of true love, they grow into the fullness of humanity.

Everything in the universe automatically grows in maturity ... except humans.  A person's reaches the mind's potential when the individual exercises his own portion of responsibility.  This portion or free will has been equated to 5% where God's responsibility is 95%.  Human's portion though greatly smaller than God's, take 100% effort in order to fulfill.

Responsibility is a rudder to steer a person into a life of goodness and morality. 

Character educator Thomas Lickona boiled virtues education down to the two major ones of “Respect” and "Responsibility".

He said that educators had found over and over again that respect and responsibility covered all of the virtues.  Responsibility is the major umbrella virtue and is pivotal to a fulfilled life.  It encompasses the development of most other virtues needed for growth of an individual.

When we look at responsibility from the Principle point-of-view, we see that it is a gift from God.  This allows man to become participants in their own creation instead of being born 'ready made'.  God gave us chose in responsibility for the enhancement of human beings instead of making everything automatic which is found in nature.

Reverend Moon has said that if God intervened too much in humankind’s responsibility, their
"honor and dignity would be nullified".  It would be like a mother or father that held onto did all of their child's homework or never let go of the handlebars as their child learns to ride a bike holding them up instead of learning on their own eventually.

As the common saying goes, “What you are is God’s gift to you. What you become is your gift to God.”

We have a responsibility together with God to create and shape ourselves into the types of people we want and are meant to be.  We will do better with our growth when we take responsibility and participate in creating our own destinies.


2. Mind and Body Unity

The previous two posts give a more focused point on how to obtain Mind and Body Unity.

Mind and body unity—the mind leading the body—permits a person to give true love.

All things are composed of external and internal dimensions, with the external following the internal. In the case of humans, the body is to obey the mind.


3. Giving and Receiving

In the universe, all new forces and things arise from two entities forming a relationship and solidifying it through giving and receiving elements of themselves.

We generate and sustain true love through give and take action.  When we give first, investing continually and receiving, true love can come through.

Interaction is an amazing phenomenon.  When we observe nature entities from the subatomic particle to the solar system from male to female animals to symbiotic plants, we see that they all form a relationship and solidify it through giving and receiving of elements of themselves.

From a large nuclear reaction in the heart of the sun to biochemical reaction in a small living cell, what powers all movement is development and reproduction.

Even the very existence of things depends on give and take; the raging drama of a summer storm would not exist except for the intense give and take between hot and cold, high pressure and low, positively and negatively charged.

“All God’s creations borrow from each other,” reads a Jewish Midrash, “day borrows from night and night from day . . . the sky borrows from the earth, and the earth from the sky”

Exodus Rabbah 31.15

Interrelatedness and interdependence abound.



4. Subject and Object Partnership

When a person respects their role in a relationship and fulfills their responsibility, true love flows.  This is true whether they are initiating or responding, leading or supporting.  Every entity establishes one of these position in the course of every interaction in the universe.

People in the subject mode may provide leadership or impart knowledge; those in the object mode may offer support or receive instruction.  For instance, in the role of a family, the parents are in the subject partner role and the children are in the object partner position.

A physician is subject, patient is object, the quarterback is the subject partner in certain football plays while the teammates are his object partners.  A manager and the rest of the employees are also in a subject-object relationship.

Then what would the ultimate subject and object partnership be?  This would be between the Creator and His creation.  When God initiates in the relationship, His object partner which is humanity is to respond.

This is the import of the Christian declaration, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

John 3.16

 God inspires prophets with His Word; humankind responds by heeding it.



5. Masculine and Feminine Harmony 

All entities in nature exist in a paired structure—male and female or positively
and negatively charged—and each attracts its complementary opposite to form
productive relationships.

The harmony between men and women creates a base for true love to develop and become deeper.  Therefore, men and women need each other for support.

Masculine and feminine trying to find balance in order to unite expresses a principle that runs throughout all of existence.  When these two polarities harmonize and give off a beautiful tension, it fills the universe with energy, structure, life, beauty and joy.

We see this exampled in a white frosty mountain overlooking a green valley, a peacock with colorful long tail feathers on display to attract a peahen who in turn will bear his young.  An electron weighs less than a thousandth of a proton, yet they precisely balance to comprise an atom.

Reverend Moon has said, “Beauty arises from the fusion of extremes into a harmonious oneness".


6. Investing Towards Oneness

There is an innate want for unity between complementary partner which initiates the effort needed to realize true love.  Complementarities like male and female begin as separate beings in the world but are drawn into oneness.

We see these natural uninhibited occurrences arise between polarities in nature, but when we look in the human world of man, we see various conflicts.  In real life, men and women are meant to unite their opposite attributes, but do not easily get along.  At times they may seem to be enemies.

If you were to put a group of men and women together in the same room, you will find that the conversation will lean toward the differences and confusion between men and women and possibly their relationships.

“Women talk too much,” “men are so insensitive,” “females are just a heap of emotions,” “all men think about is sex”—the complaints are predictable.

The history of men and women is fret with misunderstandings, mistrust, abuse and exploitation.  One gender has taken advantage of the other's need and natural dependence and used their gifts to overpower the other for eons.

Men have bullied women with their physical strength, women have controlled men through their sexual allure cause this clash between the sexes. This evil legacy began in the very first family at the beginning of history which has been taught in all the great traditions.

This disunity between men and women is also due to the different "culture" that each gender shares. Tons of books speak about the fact that women and men live, think and communicate differently from the other.

From God's point of view this was not meant for disharmony or for power struggle between the two genders, but for them to unite and naturally arises during the course of each gender's development.


7. Unity Around a Higher Purpose

Unity between people when they focus on a higher purpose creates the basis for true love.  When beings have a shared purpose, this will lead toward unity.  In hierarchies, individual purposes serve the whole.

The most basic of shared projects is the relationship itself.

Family members, teammates and business partners may often wisely make substantial sacrifices for the sake of their alliance, what psychologist Terry Hargrave calls “we-ness.”

The vitality of this “we-ness” depends on how much the participants can favor the interest of the relationship over their own interests, and seek to reach their personal goals and meet their individual needs through the relationship instead of around or in spite of it.

Any good sports team knows this.

“In order to have a winner, the team must have a feeling of unity,” says legendary University of Alabama Coach Paul “Bear” Bryant. “Every player must put the team first—ahead of personal glory.”

Long wed couples know this too and make many sacrifices for the marriage. Lovemaking within a caring marriage is a metaphor for this idea:

Each partner seeks to satisfy the other and ultimately comes to surrender to their union.  Ego can get in the way of this union, but one should recognize that rather than losing anything in this surrender, each self gains deep joy and a meaningful connection.


Return for Tomorrow's Post: Where Does Love Begin

Text rewritten and derived from the textbook: True Love, Chapter Mind and Body Unity

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.