Food is love The Joy of Giving Food to Others

I have very small eyes. I am told that when I was born, my mother
wondered, “Does my baby have eyes, or not?” and spread my eyelids
apart with her fingers. Then when I blinked, she said with joy,
“Oh my, yes. He does have eyes, after all!” My eyes were so small that
people often called me “Osan’s Little Tiny-Eyes,” because my mother
was from the village of Osan.
I cannot remember anyone saying, though, that my small eyes make
me any less attractive. In fact, people who know something about
physiognomy, the art of understanding a person’s characteristics and
fortune by studying facial features, say my small eyes give me the right
disposition to be a religious leader. I think it is similar to the way a
camera is able to focus on objects farther away as the aperture of its iris
diaphragm is reduced. A religious leader needs to be able to see farther
into the future than do other people, and perhaps small eyes are an
indication of such a quality. My nose is rather unusual as well. Just one
look and it is obvious that this is the nose of a stubborn and determined
man. There must be something to physiognomy, because when I look
back on my life, these features of my face seem to parallel the way I have
lived my life.
I was born at 2221 Sang-sa Ri (village), Deok-eon District, Jeong-ju
Township, Pyong-an Province, as the second son of Kyung Yu Moon
of the Nam Pyung Moon clan and Kyung Gye Kim of the Yeon An
Kim clan. I was born on the sixth day of the first lunar month in 1920,
the year after the 1919 independence movement. I was told that our
family settled in the village of Sang-sa Ri during the life of my greatgrandfather.
My paternal great-grandfather worked the farm himself,
produced thousands of bushels of rice, and built the family fortune with
his own hands. He never smoked or drank liquor, preferring instead to
use that money to buy food to give to those in need. When he died, his
last words were, “If you feed people from all the regions of Korea, then
you will receive blessings from all those regions.” So the guest room in
our home was always full of people. Even people from other villages
knew that if they came to our home, they could always count on being
fed a good meal. My mother carried out her role of preparing food for
all those people without ever complaining.
My great-grandfather was so active, he never wanted to rest. If he
had some spare time he would use it to make pairs of straw footwear
that he would then sell in the marketplace. When he grew old, in his
merciful ways, he would buy several geese, let them go in the wild, and
pray that all would be well with his descendants. He hired a teacher of
Chinese characters to sit in the guest room of his home and provide
free literacy lessons to the young people of the village. The villagers gave
him the honorific title “Sun Ok” (Jewel of Goodness) and referred to
our home as “a home that will be blessed.”
By the time I was born and was growing up, much of the wealth that
my great-grandfather had accumulated was gone, and our family had
just enough to get by. The family tradition of feeding others was still
alive, however, and we would feed others even if it meant there wouldn’t
be enough to feed our family members. The first thing I learned after I
learned to walk was how to serve food to others.
During the Japanese occupation, many Koreans had their homes and
land confiscated. As they escaped the country to Manchuria, where they
hoped to build new lives for themselves, they would pass by our home
on the main road that led to Seon-cheon in North Pyong-an Province.
My mother would always prepare food for the passersby, who came
from all parts of Korea. If a beggar came to our home asking for food
and my mother didn’t react quickly enough, my grandfather would pick
up his meal and take it to the beggar. Perhaps because I was born into
such a family, I too have spent much of my life feeding people. To me,
giving people food is the most precious work. When I am eating and
I see someone who has nothing to eat, it pains my heart and I cannot
continue eating.
I will tell you something that happened when I was about eleven
years old. It was toward the last day of the year, and everyone in the
village was busy preparing rice cakes for the New Year’s feast. There was
one neighbor family, though, that was so poor they had nothing to eat.
I kept seeing their faces in my mind, and it made me so restless that I
was walking around the house, wondering what to do. Finally, I picked
up an eight-kilogram (17.6-pound) bag of rice and ran out of the house.
I was in such a hurry to get the bag of rice out of the house that I didn’t
even tie the bag closed. I hoisted the bag onto my shoulders and held it
tight as I ran along a steep, uphill path for about eight kilometers (five
miles) to get to the neighbor’s home. I was excited to think how good it
would feel to give those people enough food so they could eat as much
as they wanted.

The village mill was next to our house. The four walls of the millhouse
were well built, so that the crushed rice could not fall through the
cracks. This meant that in the winter it was a good place to escape the
wind and stay warm. If someone took some kindling from our home’s
furnace and started a small fire in the millhouse, it became warmer than
an ondol-heated room. Some of the beggars who would travel around
the country would decide to spend the winter in that millhouse. I was
fascinated by the stories they had to tell about the world outside, and I
found myself spending time with them every chance I got. My mother
would bring my meals to the millhouse, and she would always bring
enough for my beggar friends to eat as well. We would eat from the
same dishes and share the same blankets at night. This is how I spent
the winter. When spring came, they would leave for faraway places,
and I could not wait for winter to come again so they would return to
our home. Just because their bodies were poorly clothed did not mean
that their hearts were ragged as well. They had a deep and warm love
that showed. I gave them food, and they shared their love with me. The
deep friendship and warmth they showed me back then continue to be
a source of strength for me today.
As I go around the world and witness children suffering from hunger,
I am always reminded of how my grandfather never missed a chance to
share food with others.

FOOD IS LOVE What I Learned about Peace While Being Carried on My Father’s Back

I have lived my life with just one thought. I wanted to bring about
a world of peace, a world where there are no wars and where all
humankind lives in love. Perhaps some may say, “How is it possible
that you were thinking about peace even when you were a child?” Is it
so astonishing that a child would dream of a peaceful world?
In 1920, when I was born, Korea was under forced occupation by Japan. Even
after liberation, there came the Korean War, the Asian financial crisis, and other
numerous difficult crises. For many years, the land of Korea has not been closely
associated with peace. But these times of suffering and confusion were not matters
related only to Korea. The two world wars, the Vietnam War, and the wars in the
Middle East show that people in the world continuously treat each other with enmity,
point guns at each other, and bomb each another. Perhaps for people who
experience these horrors of bloodied bodies and broken bones, peace has
been something that could be imagined only in a dream. Peace, though, is
not so difficult to accomplish. To begin with, we can find peace in the air we
breathe, in the natural environment, and in the people around us.
As a child, I thought of the meadows as my home. As soon as I could
wolf down my bowl of rice for breakfast, I would run out of the house
and spend the entire day in the hills and streams. I could spend the
day wandering about the forest with all the different birds and animals,
eating herbs and wild berries, and I would never feel hungry. Even as a
child, I knew that my mind and body were at ease anytime I went into
the forest.
I would often fall asleep in the hills after playing there. My father
would be forced to come find me. When I heard my father shouting in
the distance, “Yong Myung! Yong Myung!” I couldn’t help but smile,
even as I slept. My name as a child was Yong Myung. The sound of his
voice would awaken me, but I would pretend to still be asleep. He would
hoist me onto his back and carry me home. That feeling I had as he
carried me down the hill—feeling completely secure and able to let my
heart be completely at ease—that was peace. That is how I learned about
peace, while being carried on my father’s back.
The reason I loved the forest was also because all the peace in the
world dwells there. Life forms in the forest do not fight each other. Of
course, they eat one another and are eaten, but that is because they are
hungry and need to sustain themselves. They do not fight out of enmity.
Birds do not hate other birds. Animals do not hate other animals. Trees
do not hate other trees. There needs to be an absence of enmity for peace
to come. Human beings are the only ones who hate other members of
the same species. People hate other people because their country is different,
their religion is different, and their way of thinking is different.
I have been to almost two hundred countries. There were not many
countries where I would land at the airport and think to myself, “This
really is a peaceful and contented place.” There were many places where,
because of civil war, soldiers held their weapons high, guarding the airports
and blocking the streets. The sound of gunfire could be heard day
and night. Several times, I came close to losing my life in places where
I went to talk about peace. In today’s world, there is an endless series
of conflicts and confrontations, large and small. Tens of millions suffer
from hunger, with nothing to eat. Yet, trillions of dollars are spent on
weapons. The money spent on guns and bombs alone would give us
enough to end hunger for everyone.
I have dedicated my life to building bridges of peace between countries
that hate each other as enemies because of ideology and religion.
I created forums where Islam, Christianity, and Judaism could come
together. I worked to reconcile the views of the United States and the
Soviet Union when they were at odds with each other over Iraq. I have
helped in the process of bringing reconciliation between North and
South Korea. I did not do these things for money or fame. From the
time I was old enough to know what was going on in the world, there
has been only one objective for my life: that is for the world to live in
peace, as one. I never wanted anything else. It has not been easy to live
day and night for the purpose of peace, but that is the work that makes
me most happy.
During the Cold War, we experienced the pain of having our
world divided in two because of ideology. It seemed then that if only
communism would disappear, peace would come. Yet, now that the
Cold War is past, we find even more conflicts. We are now fractured
by race and religion. Many countries facing each other across their
borders are at odds. As if that were not enough, we have situations
within countries where people are divided by race, religion, or the
regions where they were born. People think of each other as enemies
across these lines of division and refuse to open their hearts
to one another.
When we look at human history, we see that the most brutal and
cruel wars were not those fought between nations but those between
races. Among these, the worst were wars between races where religion
was used as a pretext. In the Bosnian civil war, said to be one of the
worst ethnic conflicts of the twentieth century, thousands, including
many children, were brutally massacred. I am sure you remember the
terrorist incident of September 11, 2001, when thousands of innocent
lives were lost as the World Trade Center buildings in New York were
completely destroyed after passenger planes were crashed into them.
Recently, too, in the Gaza Strip in Palestine as well as in southern Israel,
hundreds have lost their lives as a result of that intense conflict. Homes
have been destroyed, and people are living on the brink of death. All this is
the grim result of conflicts between ethnic groups and between religions.
What makes people hate and kill each other like this? Of course
there are many reasons, but religious differences are almost always
connected. This was true with the Gulf War, which was fought over
oil. It is true with the Arab–Israeli conflict over control of Jerusalem.
When racism uses religion as a pretext, the problem becomes
extremely complex. The evil ghosts of the religious wars that we
thought had ended in the Middle Ages continue to haunt us in the
twenty-first century.
Religious wars continue to occur because many politicians use the
enmity between religions to satisfy their selfish designs. In the face of
political power, religions often waver and lose their way. They lose sight
of their original purpose, which is to exist for the sake of peace. All
religions have a responsibility to advance the cause of world peace. Yet,
lamentably, we see that religions instead become the cause of conflict.
Behind this evil we find the machinations of politics, with its power
and money. The responsibility of a leader, above all else, is to keep the
peace. Yet leaders often seem to do the opposite and lead the world into
confrontation and violence.
Leaders use the language of religion and nationalism to hide their
selfish ambitions. Unless their hearts are set right, countries and nationalities
will wander in confusion. Religion and love of one’s nation
are not evil in their essence. They are valuable if these impulses are used
to contribute to building a global human community. When the claim
is made that only a particular religion or ethnic group is right and when
other religions and ethnic groups are treated with disdain and attacked,
religion and love of nation lose their value. When a religion goes so
far as to trample on others and treat other religions as worthless, it no
longer embodies goodness. The same is true when love of nation is used
to emphasize the righteousness of a person’s own country over others.
The truth of the universe is that we must acknowledge each other
and help each other. Even the smallest animals know this. Cats and
dogs do not get along, but if you raise them in the same household,
they embrace each other’s offspring and are friendly toward each other.
We see the same thing in plants. The vine that winds its way up a tree
depends on the trunk to support it. The tree, however, does not say,
“Hey, what do you think you’re doing, winding your way up my trunk?”
The principle of the universe is for everyone to live together, for the sake
of one another. Anyone who deviates from this principle faces certain
ruin. If nationalities and religions continue maliciously to attack each
other, humanity has no future. There will be an endless cycle of terror
and warfare until one day we become extinct. But we are not without
hope. Clearly there is hope.
I have lived my life without ever letting go of that hope and always
kept alive the dream of peace. What I want is to wipe away completely
the walls and fences that divide the world in myriad ways and to create
a world of unity. I want to tear down the walls between religions and
between races and fill in the gap between the rich and the poor. Once
that is done, we can reestablish the world of peace that God created in
the beginning. I am talking about a world where no one goes hungry
and no one sheds tears. To heal a world where there is no hope, and
which is lacking in love, we need to go back to the pure hearts that we
had as children. To shed our desire to possess ever-increasing amounts
of material wealth and restore our beautiful essence as human beings,
we need to go back to the principles of peace and the breath of love that
we learned as we were being carried on our fathers’ backs.