EAST GARDEN, August 1984
Part 1
This interview with Hyo-jin nim took place when he was in his early twenties. It was first published in Today’s World magazine, and has been edited slightly for length for inclusion in this series of testimonies by early members. Hyo-jin nim’s testimony is both informative of his outlook on the subjects he addresses and refreshing as a personal perspective on how his life was unfolding.
From my adolescence I have wanted to be a leader, so for me the workshop for blessed children was special. All my life—at school or with my friends—I tried to discover what I believed to be true, and to be a guide for others. Many of the people that I knew misunderstood my point of view. Many came from unfortunate backgrounds and were guided poorly as they grew up. I tried to understand their situations and help them to become better people.
I stand up to people and fight for what I believe is true, or against what I feel is wrong—I even fight physically. I was like this from my childhood. So I had many, many problems. I want to tell you honestly where I am coming from.
When I first came to America I was 10. At that time it didn’t even occur to me that any prejudice existed in the world. All I had seen of America were picture postcards, of beautiful scenery and smiling people. But when I came here it was a totally different story.
Tough love at school
I met with prejudice as soon as I started school. First, I was an Oriental. Secondly, I was Father’s son. People seemed to feel superior, maybe because America is a great nation. Anyway, because I am Father’s son, I started to get a lot of persecution, in ways that were incredible! They joked about brainwashing, made fun of me, and called my father names. I wouldn’t have cared if they had only called me names.
Father told me, “You have to hold it in. You have to forgive them. You have to understand them. They are just little kids. Their vision is so shallow. They cannot see into the future; they only see and act according to what they see and feel at the moment. You have to understand this.”
So I tried and tried, but they didn’t stop. I tried to talk to them, to reason with them. I tried to talk to them in ways they could understand, but it didn’t work. It all kept on getting worse.
Kids like to follow bullies, follow a leader. When one kid started doing it, it became like a fad—everybody followed. They put me down just to be somebody. They would snicker at each other, “Hey look at him,” and then they would make a joke about me and slap each other, giggling. I really did not like that. But because Father had told me to, I tried to hold it in.
But everything has a limit, I guess. That kind of anger reached a limit in me. I couldn’t hold it in any more. How could I? I wasn’t weak. I was strong. I could beat those guys physically. And that seemed to be the only language they understood.
I knew I had to be quiet and forgiving, to overcome myself for 10 or 12 years, coping with this every day! The kids at my school made fun of me and criticized me for nothing, for no reason. Just to get up in the morning and go to school was living hell!
One day I said to myself, “I can’t take this anymore, or there will be no end. Even for their sake, I have to do something. Tell them strongly, in a language they can understand, that they are not right. They are wrong.” The bully of the school was a big kid. He was the boss and all the kids hung around with him. They followed him and acted just like him. The next day he came up to me and said the same thing he always said: “How many people did your father brainwash today?”
I said, “Well, I don’t know. I haven’t seen one get brainwashed.”
“Yeah? I hear you saying this all the time,” he said, and he started to call me names, those four-letter words.
I said to him: “Don’t do that. I try to be nice to you. I try to understand you. I try to digest what you are saying, but I can’t take that anymore. For your sake, not for mine. If what I do now was for my sake, I would have beaten you up a long time ago. The first day you talked like that, I would have beaten you up. But for your sake, I thought and thought, and I think the only language you will learn by is this.” So I punched him and we fought.
And it stopped. The persecution stopped. At least the kids didn’t say anything in front of me. They were all afraid to come at me, because I beat up their bully, their leader. He thought he was almighty, but I humbled him.
I told Father that I had punched the bully. And you know, he just looked at me and smiled. He wasn’t angry.
We have to embrace not only people at the highest intellectual level, but people who are down and out—they are God’s children, too. Some way has to be found to restore them, to embrace them. That means I have to know about their thoughts and their life, their environment, how they think. How else can we bring them back? I really became a leader of those kids by being the toughest kid in school. But then everybody started depending on me in a physical way. Sometimes kids got beaten up by some bully or some gang from another school, and they relied on me….
About beautiful things
Think about how boring it would be if the world were only made of flowers. No trees, mountains, cliffs, or waterfalls—just flowers. How boring! I wouldn’t want to live in such a place for more than a week. All these things combine together—high-rising cliffs, gigantic waterfalls, great standing trees which show such patience, standing there for hundreds of years. How beautiful. Look at the great plains—how vast you can be, if you wanted to be. You have dominion over all God’s creation. Mountains that stand with stubborn patience—all these things combined together bring unity and harmony into life. The same is true with everything else, music too. Beautiful music, strong music, eye-opening music, amusing music, soothing music, fun music—all are needed. Just the concept behind it in the present time is wrong.
Being wild or “cool”
Kids are wild; they want to be wild. What is wildness? When I see someone who is wild and strong for righteousness, that’s good, but as long as it’s for God. That’s what I am trying to do right now. That’s why I am staying on this course. I have a mind of my own. I don’t just follow because Father is my father. No! Because it is true, I follow. If something is true, I follow it. I am that kind of person. If it wasn’t true, if I didn’t believe it was right, I’d say forget it. People in the world think that being wild is having a midnight brawl or weekend parties. In their mind, that’s the meaning of wild.
The hippies had good thoughts, but they didn’t fulfill them. They stirred a whole generation. “We won’t fight! We won’t stand for wars! We want peace!” That’s good. Who would deny that? Who in the world wants war? Nobody. But those people who yelled it out, those “voices of freedom,” were confused. Their beliefs might have been good, but the way they carried them out was wrong. They gave a whole new meaning to hell…. When people reminisce about those times [before beginning to live a religious life] when they thought that they were “cool,” they may think it was fine, that they were having a good time. But that’s wrong.
I mean, we are here to change all that. You really have to have pride in yourself. Pride for God—not for yourself, but pride for God. You have to believe in yourself. If you don’t very strongly cut off that tendency to worry about whether you’re “cool,” and just push it away, you’ll always suffer.
About Heung-jin nim and the value of having someone to love
I loved Heung-jin very much. I would have given anything to him. When I got my first car I would wash it every day and make it shine. But I was going back and forth to Korea to study, and when I went to Korea, Heung-jin drove my car. I never told him he could, but he drove it and he wrecked it. When I came back he said, “Hey Hyo, I’m sorry, I crushed the car.” He joked like that. I said, “Well, did you get hurt? It’s okay, it’s only a car. I love you more than my car. You cannot compare yourself to my car. I can fix it, that’s okay.” We had that kind of relationship. “What’s yours is mine and what’s mine is yours”—It was that kind of relationship. I would go to his room and wear his clothes. He would come to my room and use my stereo when I was gone.
We shared so much. We shared a room together since we were very young. For 10 years we shared a room. We had a lot of quarrels, too, but we really loved each other. It’s very hard to relate to God sometimes, because we can’t see Him. He is not there when you want Him to be, you cannot touch Him when you want to. You cannot embrace Him anytime you want to. He is not there, but Heung-jin, he was.
What I want to suggest to Unification Church members is, find somebody you can embrace like that, someone you can love like that inside this movement. That will give you strength to go on. That’s why Heung-jin in the spirit world is telling you that you have to unite with True Parents and their family.
Continued next week….