Sun Jin Moon
January 13, 2018
To 85 leaders at the International Peace Education Center (IPEC) in Las Vegas, NV
Good morning, everybody, I'm so happy to be here. All of you make me so happy. Thank you for welcoming us here to Las Vegas…. I got a lot questions from this ministry group, the youth ministry, and I hear that you're all amazing brothers and sisters, taking care of the younger generation while you yourselves as young people are finding and following your faith and bringing victory with sincere hearts, wanting to create victory for True Parents. I want to say thank you and I'm deeply honored to meet you.
I would like to start…. So many tough questions you guys have for me! [She laughs] You can imagine -- I was like, Oh, my gosh! How do I answer all these questions?
Go to the source
Whenever a question is in my heart or when I get a question that I have to figure out for somebody else, I always turn to Heavenly Parent and to True Parents' words because all the answers are in here. With any question, anything you're grappling with, the truth is all written down already so you have the gift at your fingertips at all times. Utilize this as a tool, whatever you're struggling with, even when you pray, you could open up to a page of Hoon Dok Hae and it might be answered. That is how powerful this resource is. So, to answer these questions, I found a Hoon Dok Hae passage, which I think is relevant to answering as best I can those questions. If it doesn't answer a question, we'll have a heart-to-heart session after Hoon Dok Hae where you guys can ask questions and we can grow together because we're all…. Is there anybody in this room that's perfect? Raise your hand. No, right? I'm not raising my hand. The only people who have perfected their true beings are True Parents. True Father and True Mother are the first examples of perfected man and woman and through them, we can learn. This is why it is so important to go to the source. The best master is True Parents in the physical world and beyond that, it's God, Heavenly Parent. They inherited everything from Heavenly Parent. So, to start, I am going to read; we are going to do Hoon Dok Hae. We love Hoon Dok Hae. We're going to read "Leaving Behind a Legacy of Love."
The teacher with whom we have the closest relationship is our heart. Our heart is more precious to us than our closest friends are and even more precious than our parents. So, as we live our lives, we need periodically to ask our hearts, "Am I living a good life now?" Anyone can hear his heart speaking to him. If he comes to the realization that his heart is his master, he "polishes" his heart and maintains a close relationship with his heart throughout his life.
"Today people can expect to live about eighty years. Eighty years of joy, anger, sorrow, happiness, and all the other emotions mixed together may seem like a long time. But if we take away the private time that a person spends sleeping, working, and eating, and then the time we spend talking, laughing, and having fun with family members and friends, attending weddings and funerals, and time spent lying sick in bed, only about seven years will remain. A person may live eighty years but only spend about seven years living for the public good."
Resumption
You asked many questions about all the difficulties in life all the things that are going on and how to forgive and how to heal hurts and even in Father's chapter he says the most important thing is to polish our relationship with the heart. I know you guys have been studying hyo jeong, understanding a filial heart. This is the start of it all….
At this stage, how can we cultivate more love in our hearts, have a more loving heart and create more joy in our churches and in our experience with each other in our daily lives? That was the intention of all creation, right?...
I'll try to tackle these questions that you guys gave me. These are ten very difficult homework questions. [She laughs].... I'll try to get through these questions in twenty minutes and then open the floor for anybody who has a question. You can think about it as we answer these questions.
Restoring trust and love
How can we reach people who are disconnected or who have been hurt by our movement? That question got the most votes as a major question that you guys are tackling in the field, where people are hurt by the movement or by certain families. How do we help people feel reconnected or gain that sense again? How do we open our hearts once we've been hurt?
The answer to that is, number one, the heart. We have to stop. We have to go back to love. It is the hardest thing to do when you're hurt. When someone hurts you, the last thing you want to do is open your heart. It is just a natural response. You either fight or flee, or you close yourself off, you separate yourself or distance yourself. You do not want to go anymore to that painful place. But then, what happens in your life? Your heart shrinks and your world gets darker. When you're disconnected or hurt, to open your heart and to love is the hardest act, but that's the only way you are going to heal.
Many people think, I'm hurt and if I hold on to this hurt, somehow justice can come. It doesn't come. You are just holding on to anger and your heart darkens, your life darkens, but when you love, when you forgive love and unite -- this is what Father teaches and this is why it works -- you let go of whatever someone else did to you. You choose; you choose to love. You choose to invite in forgiveness or unity, and by doing that, you transcend that darkness. You are growing the light in you. You don't lose anything if you're hurt but still love and forgive. You gain.… This is what Father teaches; love your enemy. This is how we save the world. This is how we surpass all divisions. Even seeing racism in America, religious discrimination -- everything we see in the world is based on people being hurt by people or groups, holding on to hate from past experiences and living that out. That just divides people, separates people. That's the opposite of God's heart. God is here to unite us.
Hurt members are only the start
You're the Unification Church. We're supposed to embrace and bring back everybody and love them. There is always going to be hurt because we still live in an imperfect world. This is not the garden of Eden fully perfected until we reach the 7.6 billion people that Mother is trying to save -- until that day happens, which is going to be 2020 national restoration, until Cheon Il Guk is realized, there will always be an element of hurt. We need to polish our hearts to be able to love beyond that. That's our choice. Only we can do that. When you do that, you'll find that you're free from all that pain, misery and suffering. You might find that when you reconcile or when you forgive, you have greater love and joy. When you overcome a difficulty, when you overcome a hurtful relationship and can forgive a person and reconnect, sometimes that relationship becomes deeper.
As you grew up, you may have fought with your siblings, but did you never talk to them again? You worked it out. Sometimes you fight with your parents but do you disown them or do they disown you? No. We work it out. If we look at the whole human family as our family in the same way we don't quit on family but keep loving them unconditionally–this practice is the only thing that is going to unite us, and the world. So if you have people disconnected and hurt, find their heart of love. Help them polish their hearts to love and forgive, because Satan's tactic is to separate and divide, so bad things happen. People get cut off, separated, divided. They leave -- estrangement. What good does that do? It gets us into more trouble in the world. We have seen that. So, to not let that happen, to proactively make the choice to love is powerful. I hope you choose that and can try that in your lives….
Substance abuse
[She reads] "Alcohol seems to be a topic with many opinions among those in our generation. How should we approach alcohol when addressing those who are younger and peers?" I guess you are all youth ministers and are taking care of young kids now. [Sotto voce] Scary!
I can't imagine being a young person now with social media and all this influence all around you all the time. But… A simple thing is that alcohol is a controlled substance. They're controlled substances because why? Dangerous, right? People when they drink are not responsible. They can hurt themselves or others. First of all, how do we address it? Number one: it's a controlled substance by law. Even "outside law," not spiritual law or church law, says you cannot drink until you are twenty-one. You shouldn't because it's a crime. Just as Father's teachings say, anything that pricks your conscience or could put you in jail, don't do it. Just say No. Don't go to jail. You are so young. You have so many great things to do. You don't want a DUI [driving under the influence of alcohol] on your record.
Sexual practices
The next question is, "How can we approach homosexuality with a loving heart and maintain a righteous perspective?" I guess that's an issue in the modern day with young people. So these kinds of questions I would say, number one, follow the law. Don't disrespect persons if they are of whatever choosing in their lives. We do not hurt people; we don't want to attack people for their choices because that doesn't make us good. By attacking someone doing bad, we just double the bad. Instead of judging them, condemning or attacking them, if we are going to love our community and help our young people get past this, we need to give them practical tools to do that.
Number one, follow the law and then ask, Why would you want to do this to yourself when you could potentially hurt others? Do you want to go down this road? Usually, you will find that people turn to alcoholism, drugs or even homosexuality because they are missing something. They are filling it with these things. They are missing love, true love. Without true love, how are you going to find the will or the heart to live a joyful life? The lack of love in your life is numbing.
If you're counseling young people and they are having issues with this, go to the source of why. What starts the addiction? What starts the want for that? What are you missing in your life? Where is that hole in your heart that needs to be filled with more joy and more love. That is what we should be fortifying. In our communities or in raising children, we want to enhance the joy so that they do not even turn to those things.
I want to sing in a band or I want to swim in the ocean, enjoy nature or play sports, whatever their joy is is what we should be focusing on. Instead of focusing on what not to do, I hope we can learn as a community to focus on what to do. Find better ways for young people to spend their time. Maybe they are bored. How can you make it more enjoyable to be excited about life in these eighty years? You want to milk those seven years of greatness for the sake of the world. If you're speaking to a five year old, it's easy to say, Don't drink. Don't smoke. Don't have sex until you're married or blessed. Being gay is bad. This is bad. That is bad, but beyond that, if you are going to witness to young people and to outside people, just telling people them these things are bad is not going to get your foot in the door to witness to them….
Instead of hating it, look for compassion, empathy and think of ways to love the person more. How can I help this person find the truth, find a happier place, find the blessing, find God and True Parents? That should be your intention. You are all smart young people. Don't start getting on a track, saying, Don't do this, don't do that. They are past kindergarten age. Think of what we should be doing and how we can make an environment in which no one wants to waste time doing those things….