The Peaceful Family Is the Building Block of Heaven

Many Western people live truly lonely lives. Their children
leave home once they turn eighteen, and the parents may
only get to see their faces at Thanksgiving or Christmas.
Many children never visit their parents to just find out how they are doing.
Once people marry, they live with their spouse, independent from
their family, until their parents become so old they can no longer take
care of themselves. At that point, they move into a nursing home. So it
is understandable that some Westerners envy the culture of the East.
Many elderly people in the West think, “In the East, the grandparents
live in the family as the senior members of the family, and it is really
wonderful. The children respect their old parents. This is how people
are supposed to live. What good is it to be lying in a nursing home, not able
to see my children, not even knowing what day it is, just staying alive?”
Unfortunately, though, the Eastern family structure is also gradually
deteriorating. We too are abandoning traditions that have been
handed down to us for thousands of years. We have thrown away our
traditional clothing, our food, and our family structure. The number
of senior citizens living alone in Korea is on the rise. Each time I see
stories in the news of senior citizens alone, it makes me sad. The family
is where generations live together. If family members are scattered and
the parents are left alone, then that is no longer a family. The extended
family system is a beautiful Korean tradition.
I recommend that three generations live together as one family. I do so,
not simply because it is a way of maintaining our country’s tradition. When
a husband and wife have a child, they pass on all they can to that child.
There is a limit, however, to how much the parents can pass on. The parents
represent the present and the children the future. The grandparents represent
the past. So it is only when the grandparents, parents, and children live
together that the children can inherit all the fortune of the past and present.
To love and respect your grandfather is to inherit the history of the past and
to learn from the world of the past. The children learn precious wisdom
from their parents on how to live in the present, while the parents prepare
for the future by loving their children.
The grandfather is in a position to represent God. No matter how intelligent
a young man may be, he cannot know all the secrets of this big world.
Young people cannot know all the different secrets of life that come to us
as we grow older. This is the reason the grandfather represents the history
of the family. The grandfather is a precious teacher who passes on to the
grandchildren all the wisdom he has acquired through the experiences he
has accumulated during the course of his life.
The world’s oldest grandfather is God. So a life of receiving the grandfather’s
love and of living for the sake of the grandfather is a life of coming
to understand God’s love and of living for His sake. We need to maintain
such a tradition in order to open the secret storehouse of God’s Kingdom
and receive His treasure of love. Any country that ignores its old people
abandons its national character and ignores its roots.
When autumn comes, the chestnut tree gradually loses its moisture,
and its leaves begin to fall. The outer shell of the chestnut falls off, and
even the inner shell that surrounds the actual nut dries up. This is the
cycle of life. Human beings are the same way. We are born as infants,
grow up on the love of our parents, meet a wonderful partner, and get
married. All this occurs in the chain of life made up of love. In the end,
we become like chestnuts becoming dry in the autumn. Old people are
not a separate category of people. We all become old. We must not treat
old people disrespectfully, no matter how senile they may become.
There is a saying, “Anything can be accomplished when there is
harmony in the home.” When there is peace in the family, everything
goes well. The peaceful family is the building block of the Kingdom
of Heaven. The family operates on the power of love. If we love the
universe as we love our families, then there is nothing to stop us from
going anywhere we want. God exists in the center of love, as the Parent
of the entire universe. That is why the love in the family needs to link
directly to God. When the family is completed in love, the universe will
be completed.

To Love Is to Give and Forget

The family is the only institution created by God. It is the school
of love where people can learn how to love each other and live
together in peace, and it is the training center where we practice
how to build a palace of peace in the world. It is where we learn how
to become a husband or wife who will live for the sake of our spouse
and how to become a husband and wife who will travel on the eternal
path of love. The family is the base camp for world peace, and it must
be such that the children will say, “We have never seen our mother and
father fight.”
We come up against all sorts of things in life. Even the most loving
couple can have times when they may bicker with each other, become
angry, and raise their voices. When the children come into the room,
however, it all must stop immediately. No matter how angry a spouse
may be, he must relate to his spouse in peace when the children are
present. The children must grow up thinking their family is filled with
joy and their parents always love each other.
Parents are like a second God to their children. If you ask your
young children, “Whom do you like better—God or Mommy and
Daddy?”—and they say they like their mom and dad better, then that
means they also like God. The most precious education takes place in
the family. You won’t find happiness and peace in some other place. The
family is intended to be the Kingdom of Heaven. It would not matter
if a person possesses incredible wealth and fame or even possesses the
whole world. If all is not right with that person’s family, then he cannot
be happy. The Kingdom of Heaven begins in the family. If a husband
and wife are bound together in true love and they build an ideal family,
this will connect directly with the world.
I saw something interesting when I was in Danbury prison. We were
using a bulldozer to level a slope and make a tennis court. When it
rained, we would wait for it to stop, and start up again when the sun
came out. This process of starting and stopping went on for months. We
had a stretch of rain for one period, and we couldn’t work for twenty
consecutive days. When the rain cleared and we went out to start the
work again, we found that some kind of waterfowl had created a nest
where there were some water weeds. It was a place not more than a few
meters from where the prisoners would walk for exercise.
At first, we didn’t even realize that the bird was there. Its camouflage
was so perfect that the bird’s feathers could easily be mistaken for the water
weeds. Once the bird laid its eggs, though, we could see there was a bird in
among the grass. The bird was sitting on some eggs that looked like pieces
of black gravel. Once the chicks hatched, the mother would go find some
food, bring it back to the nest, and put it in the beaks of the chicks. When
the mother was returning to the nest with food, however, she never flew
directly to the nest. She would land a little distance from the nest and then
walk the rest of the way. Each time, she approached the nest from a different
direction. This was her wisdom to make it more difficult for others to
find out the location of the nest where the chicks were.
The chicks ate the food their mother brought them and grew larger.
Sometimes, when a prisoner would walk near the nest, the mother
would fly out and chase him away with her sharp beak. She was afraid
the prisoner might harm her chicks.
The waterbird understood the true love of parents. True love is willing
to give up its own life, and there is no calculation there. The heart
of the bird that was willing to sacrifice its life, if necessary, to protect
its offspring was true love. Parents go the path of love, no matter how
difficult it becomes. A parent is prepared, if needed, to bury his life for
the sake of love, and this is true love.
The essence of love is to cast aside any thought of having others live
for one’s self; it is to live for the sake of others and give for the whole.
Love gives, but then forgets even the fact that it has given and continues
to give without ceasing. This is a love that gives in joy. It is the heart that
a mother feels when she takes her infant in her arms and lets it feed
from her breast.
Parents will suffer for their children until it seems their bones are
going to melt away, yet they never feel that the work is difficult. That
is how much they love their children. True love begins with God
and comes to us from God. So when the parents say to their married
children, “When you like each other, it is because of the grace of your
parents,” the children must be able to respond, “If you had not found
such a spouse for me, I don’t know what I would have done.”
The family is a bundle of love. When we go to the Kingdom of
Heaven and unpack that bundle, a wonderful father and mother will
jump out. Beautiful children will jump out. A benevolent grandfather
and grandmother will jump out. This is the bundle of love. The family
is the space in which God’s ideal is realized and the place where we can
see the completion of God’s work. God’s will is to bring about a world
in which love is made real, and the family is the place where God’s love
overflows.
We only need to hear the word family for us to begin smiling. This is
because the family is overflowing with true love that truly lives for the
sake of all members. True love gives love, then forgets even the fact that
it gave, and then gives again. The love that has parents living for their
children and grandparents for the grandchildren is true love. The love
that lets a person give up his or her life for the country is true love.

Promises That Must Never Be Broken

During our matching and marriage ceremonies, I ask the
brides and grooms to make promises to each other that
must never be broken. First, a husband and wife must
always trust and love each other. Second, they must not cause any
pain to the heart of their partner. Third, they must educate their
children and grandchildren to maintain sexual purity. Fourth, all
members of their family must help and encourage each other so
that they become a true ideal family. Chastity before marriage
and fidelity in marriage are of utmost importance. This is what
I teach so people can live to their highest potential as human
beings, creating and maintaining healthy families.
Marriage is more than a simple coming together of a man and
woman. It is a precious ceremony of commitment to carry on God’s
work of creation. Marriage is the path by which a man and woman
become as one, create new life, and establish true love. Through
marriage, a new future is created: Societies are formed; nations
are built. God’s world of peace is realized with married families at
the center. It is in the family that God’s Kingdom of Heaven is
brought about.
So husbands and wives must be centers of peace. Not only must
there be love between the husband and wife, but the couple must also
be able to bring harmony to their extended families. It is not enough
that the husband and wife live well together in love. All the relatives
must love each other as well. I tell brides and grooms to have many
children. To bear many children and raise them is God’s blessing. It is
unthinkable that human beings apply their own standard of judgment
and arbitrarily abort precious lives given to them by God. All life born
into this world embodies God’s will. All life is noble and precious, so it
must be cared for and protected.
Naturally, a married husband and wife must maintain mutual trust
and nurture their love. The promise I emphasize the most to people
preparing to marry is “teach your children to maintain sexual purity.”
This is an obvious promise, but it has become difficult to keep in
today’s society. The worse the world becomes, however, the more important
it is to strictly keep the promise of sexual purity.
The perfection of human beings and peace in the world come about
through the family. The purpose of religion is for everyone to become
people of goodness who can then bring about an ideal world of peace.
No matter how much politicians may put their heads together, they will
not bring about peace. Formidable military power will not bring peace.
The starting point for bringing about peace is the family.
When I first arrived in America in 1971, the wind of promiscuous
free sex was blowing across the country, and the entire society was in
the midst of confusion. Young people who had received wonderful
educations were being destroyed one by one. Sexual immorality was
so bad that it was becoming the norm. Sexually transmitted diseases
were beginning to skyrocket.
The seriousness of the problem was compounded by politicians,
academics, and clergy. They knew about this problem, but most of them
ignored it. They tried to look away from the ugly reality because they
themselves had not maintained sexual purity. People who are not sexually
pure themselves cannot force their children to be so.
The degradation of sexual morality among adults destroys families
and leads to the ruin of children. Immorality and licentiousness in the
personal lives of adults ultimately destroy the lives of their children. The
reason today’s society does not have a level of happiness to match its
level of material affluence is that families are being destroyed. To save
families, adults must first live proper lives. Then, it is possible to raise
children in sexual purity.
The mother is the fortress that protects the family. No matter how
much society may change, the family can stand as a healthy and peaceful
family only if the mother has the heart to sacrifice and serve. It is in
such a family that beautiful children can grow. In educating our children,
what the children see and learn in the family is most important. A
crab that walks sideways cannot tell its offspring to walk straight ahead.
The parents must show a good example. True children come from true
families. Truth is always very simple.
The most difficult aspect of family life is raising children properly. We
give birth to them in love and raise them in love, but they don’t necessarily
grow up the way their parents desire. What’s worse, today’s materialistic
civilization is destroying the innocent minds of young people. Young
people who should be growing up to become responsible adults capable
of extraordinary things are being lost to drugs. Drug-induced states make
people lose touch with their own spirit. Young people who have lost their
spirits eventually can only fall into crime and sexual immorality.
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. as a peace-loving global citizen .
During adolescence, children think everything should be centered
only on themselves, and so there is the tendency to rebel against things
the parents may say. If the parent does not respond with understanding,
there is the possibility that the child may go to self-centered extremes.
On the other hand, a child in adolescence can be deeply moved by anything
that seems to connect with his heart. Perhaps on an autumn day,
the child will see a persimmon fall from a tree that has lost all its leaves.
The child cannot explain it, but somehow it connects with his heart and
he will smile and experience happiness. This is a sign that God’s original
character is dwelling in his heart.
But if children are caught up in the emotions of love during adolescence,
their perceptions can be clouded and their power of judgment
diminished. When an adolescent boy and girl meet and start talking
with each other, they can feel flushed and there may be a change in
their heart rate. If their minds are not brought into harmony with God’s
standard in that moment, they will surely be moved in the direction of selfcenteredness.
They lose the means with which to control their bodies.
During adolescence, our cells open wide all the doors of love in both
the physical body and the spirit. The desires of our mind and the desires
of our body are meant to become one and function together. When we
acquire the nose of love, we start to love smells that we used to hate.
When we acquire the mouth of love, we start to love tastes that we used
to hate. We want to listen all night to the stories of love. We want to
keep touching the person we love. Adolescents start to think they can
be happy simply by entering into a love relationship.
However, the doors of love are designed by God and are to open only
when the time is right. Children must understand that they need to wait
for the right time. Parents must teach these things to their adolescent
children very carefully. Love is a process by which we grow to resemble
God. Despite what the world may tell us, it is not something to be enjoyed
anytime we please.
During adolescence, a child may want to try really hard to copy the
activity in a thrilling movie. People ask, “What’s wrong with that?” It
is wrong because irresponsible actions lead to destruction. When children
mature and acquire wisdom and knowledge, they can control their
social and environmental experiences and are truly free to do so, but
not during adolescence.
Why do we say, “Do not give a knife to a child”? It is because the child
would wave it around. The child might understand how to cut with a
knife, but he cuts without control. The child might even cut his mother’s
fingers. Because children do not yet fully understand consequences, we
do not give them knives.
The combination of parents not teaching their children the value of
purity and children rebelling against their parents leads to broken families.
Because of this, societies are being broken. Because of this, nations
are being destroyed. Because of this, humanity is being destroyed.

An Incomparable Inner Beauty

My wife and I made a promise to each other after we were
married. We agreed that no matter how upset or angry one
of us might become, we would not allow anyone to think,
“It looks like Reverend and Mrs. Moon had a fight.” We agreed that no
matter how many children we might have, we would not let them see
any sign that we might have had a fight. Children are God. Children are
God with very small hearts. So when a child says, “Mom!” and calls, you
must always answer, “What is it?” with a smile.
After going through such a harsh course for seven years, my wife
became a wonderful mother. All the gossip about her disappeared, and
a peaceful happiness came to our family. My wife gave birth to fourteen
children, and she has embraced each one with so much love. When she
is away from home on our speaking tours and mission life, she sends
letters and postcards to our children every day.
While it was difficult for her to raise fourteen children over the
course of over forty years, she never complained. Several times I had to
be overseas when my wife was about to give birth. She had to bear such
times alone. There were days when I could not do anything for her. Once
a member wrote me about her difficult financial situation. There was
concern over whether she was getting sufficient nutrition. Even then,
my wife never complained about her difficulty. Because I sleep only two
or three hours a night, she has dutifully done the same throughout our
life together. These sorts of matters pain me to this day.
My wife has such a tremendous heart of love and care that she even
gave her wedding ring to someone in need. When she sees someone in
need of clothes, she buys that person clothes. When she comes across
someone hungry, she buys the person a meal. There have been many
times when we have received presents from others that she would give
away to someone else without even opening them. Once we were touring
the Netherlands and had a chance to visit a factory that processed
diamonds. Wanting to express my heart of regret toward my wife for all
her sacrifices, I bought her a diamond ring. I didn’t have much money,
so I couldn’t buy her a large one. I picked out one I liked and presented
it to her. Later, she even gave away that ring. When I saw the ring wasn’t
on her finger, I asked her, “Where did the ring go?”
She answered, “You know by now I can’t keep something like that
when someone has a greater need.”
Once I saw her pulling out a large wrapping cloth, and she was working
quietly to pack some clothes. “What are you going to do with those
clothes?” I asked her.
“I have a use for them,” she said.
She filled several wrapping cloths with clothes without telling me
what she planned to do with them. When she was finished, she told me
she was getting ready to send the clothes to our missionaries working
in foreign countries.
“This one’s for Mongolia, this one’s for Africa, and this one’s for
Paraguay,” she said.
She had a slightly self-conscious smile that made her look so sweet
when she told me. Still today, she takes it upon herself to look after our
overseas missionaries.
My wife established the International Relief and Friendship Foundation
in 1979. It has done service projects in numerous countries, such as
Zaire, Senegal, and Ivory Coast. The foundation gives food to impoverished
children, medicine to those who are sick, and clothing to those in
need. In Korea, she created the Aewon charity organization in 1994. Its
activities include managing a canteen serving free food to the poor and
supporting low-wage earners, the handicapped, children taking care of
families in place of parents, and others. It also provides aid to the North
Korean people. My wife has also been active in women’s organizations
for some time. The Women’s Federation for World Peace, which she
established in 1992, has branches in some eighty countries and is in
general consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the
United Nations as a nongovernmental organization.
Throughout history, women have been persecuted, but I predict this
will change. The coming world will be one of reconciliation and peace
based on women’s maternal character, love, and sociability. The time is
coming when the power of women will save the world.
Unfortunately today, many women’s organizations apparently believe
that standing in opposition to men is the way to demonstrate the power
of women. The result is an environment of competition and conflict.
The women’s organizations my wife leads, on the other hand, seek to
bring about peace on the principle that women should work together,
take initiative, and empower one another across traditional lines of
race, culture, and religion to create healthy families as the cornerstone
of the culture of peace.
The organizations she works with do not call for a liberation of
women from men and families. Instead, they call for women to develop
and maintain families filled with love. My wife’s dream is to see all
women raised as true daughters with filial hearts who can create peace
at home, in our communities, in our nations, and in the world. The
women’s movement being carried out by my wife serves the goal of true
families, which are the root of peace in all areas of life.
During one of the most intense periods of my public work, our
children had to live close to half the year without their parents. In our
absence, they lived in our home, cared for by church members. Our
home was always filled with church members. Every meal in our home
had guests at the table, guests who always received priority over our
children. Because of this environment, our children grew up with a
sense of loneliness that is not experienced by children in other families.
Even worse was the suffering they had to endure because of their father.
Wherever they went, they were singled out as sons and daughters of
“the cult leader Sun Myung Moon.” This suffering sent them through
periods of wandering and rebellion, but they have always returned
home. We were not able to support them properly as parents, but five
have graduated from Harvard University. I could not be more grateful
for their courageous accomplishments. Now they are old enough to
help me in my work, but even to this day, I am the strict father. I still
teach them to become people who do more than I do to serve Heaven
and live for the sake of humanity.
My wife is a woman of incredible strength, but the death of our
second son, Heung Jin, was difficult for her. It happened in December
1983. She was with me in Kwangju, Korea, participating in a Victory
over Communism rally. We received an international phone call that
Heung Jin had been in a traffic accident and had been transported to
a hospital. We boarded a flight the next day and went directly to New
York, but Heung Jin was lying unconscious on the hospital bed.
A truck traveling over the speed limit as it came down a hill tried to
brake and swerved into the opposite lane, where Heung Jin was driving.
Two of his best friends were in the car with him at the time. Heung Jin
cut the wheel to the right so the driver’s side took most of the impact
from the truck. By doing so, he saved the lives of his two friends. I went
to the place near our home where the accident had occurred, and the
black tire marks veering off to the right were still visible.
Heung Jin finally went to the heavenly world in the early morning of
January 2. He had turned seventeen just a month before. Words cannot
describe my wife’s sorrow when she had to send a child she had raised
with love to the heavenly world before her. She could not cry, however.
In fact, it was important that she not shed any tears. We are people who
know the world of the eternal spirit. A person’s spirit does not disappear
like so much dust, just because the physical life is lost. The soul
ascends to the world of spirit. As parents, the pain of knowing that we
would never be able to see or touch our beloved child in this world was
almost unbearable. My wife could not cry; she could only lovingly put
her hands on the hearse that carried Heung Jin’s body.
Shortly before the accident, Heung Jin had been betrothed to Hoon
Sook Pak, who was studying ballet. I had to speak to Hoon Sook about
his departure from this world and what she wanted to do.
I told her I knew it wouldn’t be easy or fair to her parents if she chose to
live alone. I told her it was best to forget the betrothal had ever happened.
Hoon Sook was adamant, however. “I am aware of the existence of
the spirit world,” she said. “Please let me spend my life with Heung Jin.”
In the end, Hoon Sook became our daughter-in-law fifty days
after Heung Jin’s departure. My wife and I will never forget the way she
smiled brightly as she held a portrait photo of Heung Jin throughout
the spiritual marriage ceremony.
It would seem that my wife would be devastated each time she faced
such difficult situations, but she always remained unshaken. Even in
the most difficult and unbearable circumstances, my wife never lost her
serene smile. She always crossed over life’s most difficult peaks successfully.
When church members ask my wife’s advice on raising their own
children, she tells them: “Be patient and wait. The period when children
wander is only temporary. No matter what they do, embrace them, love
them, and wait for them. Children will always return to the love of their
parents.”
I have never raised my voice toward my wife. This is not because of
my character, but because my wife has never given me cause to do so.
Throughout our life together, she has labored to care for me with complete,
loving devotion. She is even the one to care for my hair. So this
great saint of world affairs is also the best barber in the world. Now that
I am old I make many new demands on her, and she always responds.
If I ask her to cut my toenails, she will do it cheerfully. My toenails
are mine, but I can’t see them very well. She sees them perfectly well,
though. It’s a strange thing. The older I become, the more precious my
wife is to me.