Early Day Internal Guidance
Excerpts from the sermon given at the morning service on August 1, 1991, at Belvedere. Rev. Zin Moon Kim National Messiah to Antigua and Barbuda, ascended to the spirit world on March 3, 2016 (1.25 by the heavenly calendar). Rev. Kim and his wife Pak Gwi-ok were blessed as one of the 430 Couples in 1968.
by Rev. Zin Moon Kim
Part 2 (Click to Read Part 1)
Child psychology
The next point is about children’s psychology. Many adults don’t know the basic psychology and mental attitude of children. For example, when children are around one or two years old, they like to tear paper. They don’t know if it’s an important document or not. They just try to tear any kind of paper. Maybe a hot-tempered parent will shout, “Honey! You can’t do this!” and then snatch the paper away, and the child will cry. That is the parents’ problem, not the children’s.
If the child grabs an important paper that he might tear, quickly grab another kind of paper, like an old newspaper, and exchange it. They don’t care whether they have a newspaper or a document, they just want paper. After exchanging the paper, the parent can then show the child how to tear it. Children like the tearing sound, so parents can make the sound. Then the children are happy, and we can explain to them, “Whenever you want to tear paper, please ask Mommy or Daddy first, and we will give you some paper to tear so you can be happy.” Eventually, they will understand.
Another example: until elementary school, where there are thirty or more children together, children can’t normally concentrate for more than five minutes. Many parents do not understand this. But even schools usually continue classes for forty-five minutes or even fifty minutes.
Elementary school teachers have a very big job. Let’s say, during mathematics class, five or six airplanes suddenly pass overhead. They are jets, so they make a great deal of noise as they pass. All the children automatically look out the window. An immature teacher may say, “Don’t look at the airplane, please look at me!” But a good teacher will go to the window quickly and say, “Come here everybody, look at the airplanes!” And everybody will come and enjoy watching the airplanes disappear. Then the teacher can draw five airplanes on the board and all the children will be looking at that. He can ask, “We saw five planes. One plane disappeared. How many planes are remaining?” This becomes mathematics. This is a good teacher. Children will never have any resistance to that kind of teacher.
We need to know children’s psychology and mental attitude. Many parents are not concerned about that, so the children are suffering at home.
Freedom and responsibility
My next point is connected to the issue of freedom and responsibility. If people don’t understand responsibility and don’t like to practice responsibility, eventually their physical body will suffer.
The first kind of reaction is usually a heart attack. Nowadays people have heart attacks at the age of thirty. At seventy or eighty years old, a heart attack is very common. People’s hearts stop and then they die. But at the age of thirty, forty, or fifty, a heart attack is really a problem. People who don’t feel responsible can become angry very easily.
If we look at American society, people get angry very quickly. Anger easily leads to heart attacks. The heart attack problem in America is more serious than in any other country. We become angry too much and too easily. Why? Because we don’t feel enough responsibility. It means parents don’t teach their children to feel responsible. If we want to kill our children quickly, we just need to stop teaching them responsibility. If we don’t teach them responsibility, we are killing our children.
Many parents don’t think like this. As long as they see the child happily playing, it is enough! Children need very strict guidance. We need to be ninety-five percent strict with our children and only five percent soft. Then in this fallen society, they will grow up without problems. In the ideal world, half-strict and half-soft may be a good balance, but this is the fallen world, so we need to emphasize the responsibility side more than the freedom side. Otherwise, we will have much suffering.
In the ideal world, there is no sickness. Why do we have so much disease in the fallen world? Because we don’t feel responsibility, especially for the public purpose, life for the sake of others. It means we don’t practice a true love life. True love means life for the sake of others. True love is not just smiling and kissing. That is not true love.
To educate children, parents, and adults need to be good examples. If parents are always thinking and acting like “money, money, money,” but are saying, “Please be good children,” it doesn’t have any impact. Parents must be a good example. Around one hundred children gathered when we had family camp. One small boy about four or five years old greeted me, saying, “How are you, Reverend Kim?” None of the others greeted me, even if I greeted them first. Their parents never taught them to greet anybody. Just to say, “How are you? Have a good day!” This is very easy. Children can learn these things very quickly, but their mothers and fathers must encourage them. “Leave me alone, I don’t care about you,” is not a heavenly attitude. Children have problems because their parents have problems.
Your child will receive a spouse through the blessing someday. If a child doesn’t feel responsible, then his or her couple will be a big problem. The divorce rate in America is now as high as sixty percent. Without feeling any responsibility, divorce is imminent. Then what happens to the children? If they go with their mommy, there is no daddy. If they go with Daddy, there is no mommy. What a problem! Then children’s way of thinking becomes twisted, and they can easily become juvenile delinquents.
We think our children are cute. They are cute, but we make them ugly. We need to teach our children by giving them a good example. With children, verbal teaching doesn’t work so well. Action teaching is very effective.
For example, whenever we come back home, we should go directly to True Par-ents’ picture and bow. Whenever we go out, go to the picture first and bow before leaving home. If we do this for two or three months, we don’t need to say anything to our children; they will automatically come and bow, too. My children bow before they go out and after they return home because my wife and I do. I never taught them this verbally. We especially need to show a true love life.
The smaller purpose must serve the bigger purpose. Why must the small live for the big? Because the small needs to be bigger. In order for the small to become bigger, the small need to serve the bigger. So all the time we need to talk, think, do, and pray for the church, for the country, and for the world. We should always think about our parents because our parents are bigger than us. Then our children will think of us more than themselves. Then, the later part of our life will be very happy. If we don’t serve our parents, our children will not have that example and will not be inclined to serve us. Then when our old age comes, it will be very sorrowful.
Individualism downside
Individualism is killing human beings. If my five fingers worked only individually, what kind of person would I be? If I wanted to hold the microphone it would be impossible, because one finger would want to go this way, and another would go a different way. I would not be able to hold it. We have around five percent individuality. Ninety-five percent of human life is public. People should gather to work harmoniously centering on a common purpose. God is mainly a public Being and human beings resemble God. If a human being dislike having a life resembling God’s life, then many kinds of problems will happen: sickness, fighting, war, as the world has now.
The “leave me alone” idea is killing everybody. If the husband and wife think “Leave me alone,” it leads to divorce. If parents and children think “Leave me alone,” it means the family will break up. Nothing good can happen there. A democratic society needs True Parents and Godism. Today’s democracy says that everybody is the same, but everybody has different missions.
In a democracy, by voting, we can elect our choices. In the Unification Church, we are brothers and sisters centering on True Parents. It means we are a family. In the family, do we decide the daddy and mommy position by-election? No. So, also in the Unification Church. We like voting, so Father gives way a little bit to us. It’s the same with the lottery system. However, I can see Father has already decided that this man should be the leader of this region. The archangel Lucifer became individualistic because he felt a lack of love. He thought, “God, I don’t care about you. Centering on myself, I will lead my own life.” This was the starting point of individualism. Don’t try to have a “leave me alone” life.
We can help each other more if there are no compartments. People need to be supervised by each other. If fallen people are alone, then selfish ideas come and go, and they have more problems. Father said we need a big office, like a classroom, with one department here and one department there, so we can look at each other all the time. In the center, there should be one or two telephones on individual desks. Then we can save money. I checked. Many people use the telephone for private, not public, purposes. They take a long time to call, especially those beautiful ladies. We need to reduce telephone use so other people can use the telephone too. “No, I don’t care about other people. I will use it all day!” We have this kind of attitude. Then other people become very inconvenienced. Sometimes convenience causes problems for fallen people. For example, in this modern society, many people become fat because they don’t have to make so much effort physically in their daily lives.
Indemnity and the Ideal World
We are trying to go to the ideal world, but we don’t live in the ideal world. To reach it we need indemnity conditions. Nobody likes it, but we must go to the course. We think about the ideal society, but we don’t think about what kind of process we will go through to reach it. So, after ten years of fundraising, people say, “I am burnt out, I cannot work.” “I can’t work” means “I don’t want to go to the ideal world.” It has the same meaning. If True Parents thought like that, how would Father survive? He is over seventy, yet he spoke to us for over five hours in the hot sun on July 28. We can’t imagine that. All the time, he thinks about how to overcome the indemnity course to reach the ideal world. We must do that, there is no exception. Jesus said in Matthew 16:24-25, if we want to follow him to the ideal world first, we need to deny ourselves and bear our own cross on our shoulders. Verse twenty-five says, if we want to gain our life we shall die. If we lose our lives for public purposes, we can survive. Very clearly Jesus mentioned these things. America, a Christian country, has been neglecting these words. This is why there are so many problems. How can God continue to bless this country? Unification Church members should practice this idea first, so God can take care of this country. God is very sorrowful over the situation America is in. He prepared this country for two hundred years. Even after that, at the finish, how sorrowful He is! How suffering! If we make God sorrowful, we can’t lead a prosperous life.
Arrogance and humility
In front of the children, we need to be humble. If I am the daddy and I say, “You must follow me!” to the children, it won’t work. It may look like it works, but behind the parents’ backs, the children mock them, saying, “We have a problem daddy. ” A military captain just gives orders. We need to be strict with children but based on true love and setting a good example. Then the children can understand. True Father is very strict, but still, we like him. That’s because he is strict based on love. Strictly without love is really a problem. Many of us feel Korean leaders are too strict. However, if we have contact with them for two, three, or four years, we can find that under the strictness, there is steady love. Korean leaders scold us seriously and then some of us think, “He dislikes me.” This is really a misunderstanding. I like you, so if I see you going the wrong way, I will scold you so that you will go the right way. Because I love you, I talk and shout out this so-called bitter medicine. This is usually a Korean attitude. Koreans are very strict but based on love. This is even Father’s attitude. Father sometimes gives a very fearful scolding, but still, we feel love behind the scolding.
Vertical and horizontal love
We need to show children that vertical love is more important than horizontal love. What is vertical love? Love between God and human beings. Love between parents and children. What is horizontal love? Love between husband and wife and love between brothers and sisters. We must think and teach that God’s love and parental love is first. This is the standard. Centering on that standard, we can make a balance with horizontal love. Without a vertical standard, we can’t make a righteous horizontal standard. Today, most fallen people neglect vertical love. So, their horizontal love is always unstable. They divorce or indulge in free sex. Many things happen. We always need to show we love Heavenly Father more than we love anyone else, more than we love our children, more than we love our spouse. Let’s show that we love our parents-in-law and parents more than we love our spouse and our children. We need to show such an attitude to our children.
Usually, at nighttime, we put our children into a small cage. (I call a crib a cage.) We put him or her in the corner of the room so the husband and wife can be together. It means, “We don’t like the vertical love between us and the child. We only like horizontal love between wife and husband.” What will children learn from such parents? They grow up and when they are around thirteen or fourteen years old, they think, “I need my horizontal object. I don’t care about my parents.” It’s because their parents had that attitude. We don’t need a bed for sleeping. The bed is small, so it is too narrow for husband and wife with a baby in between. So, I suggest taking the bed out. Without it, we can sleep very nicely on a soft carpet. Most people who like soft beds have back problems around age forty. Many of us have back problems because of soft beds and chairs. Usually, I sleep on the floor or put a wooden panel on the bed under the sheet. I must take care of my back. American pillows are too soft, too. Our head sinks into it. As much as possible our pillow should be a little stiff. One time when Father came to visit Los Angeles, we bought a pillow, but it was too soft. The next day we made a hard pillow of rice straw and covered it with cloth. A bed occupies so much space in the room; without a bed, the children can play very easily because there is a lot of room. If we have a wide bed, so that three people can fit, okay, we can use that bed.
Internal and external truth
Many of us know the external truth. For example, one plus one equals two. The emphasis is on external truth, but external truth is less significant than internal truth which we usually do not know. One plus one equals two. Everyone will say that is absolutely right. But it is relatively right, not absolutely. There are many cases of one plus one not being two. For example, husband and wife are one body. That is the literal translation. Husband and wife are two bodies by the truth of one plus one equals two, but we never think like that. We just say husband and wife are one body because husband and wife should have one common family purpose. If they work as two bodies, then they will divorce. If husband and wife join together and then embrace and sleep and lead a happy life, they serve each other and respect each other. They become a model couple and many neighbors come to like them and they have many friends and children.
This shows that one plus one equals many, many, not just two. This is very important for human life. Then there is the other way. A husband and wife marry and from the first night, they sleep back-to-back. Whenever they look at each other they are fighting. Can they have a baby? They can’t multiply and they can’t have good neighbors. All their neighbors will criticize them and eventually leave them. So it means that one plus one equals minus many. Internal truth is more important than external truth, yet we neglect it. So, we have an unhappy life. Qualitative truth works in human society more strongly than quantitative truth.
In Korea, we call Thomas Edison the “king of the invention.” He thought of everything in terms of quality rather than quantity. He became the king of inventions and very famous. When he was a boy, people thought he was stupid. In school, his teacher asked him, “What is one plus one?” Tom answered, “One plus one equals one.” So, the teacher became angry. “I’ve told you so many times, but you don’t understand.” The teacher went to Tom’s mother and said, “I can’t teach your son. He is really a problem. He doesn’t even know that one plus one equals two.” The mother said, “Why don’t we ask him why he thinks one plus one equals one.” They asked Edison, and he went out and came back with two lumps of wet mud. He demonstrated how one plus one becomes one as he put the two mud lumps together. They became one lump, not two. He asked the teacher, “Is it one lump or two?” The teacher couldn’t say anything!
One plus one equals two means it becomes quantitatively bigger. Qualitatively there is no difference. Tom was thinking qualitatively all the time. We should be like that. In our movement, we are just a small number of people, but Father scolds us often. The people who think this way only know one plus one equals two. Why does Father say these things? There must be some reason. We must think like that. Then we can understand it positively.
When Heung Jin Nim came, he appeared to many members. He spoke through one Bay Area member in California and said, “We need quality more than quantity.”
Children Need Manners
Children should know quickly what they should do and what they should not do. Parents must embrace their children and give them a big kiss when they do what they should do. Then they are encouraged and will try to do good again. But on the other hand, when they don’t do what they should do, then we need to scold them.
Our children are usually very stubborn because their mommy and daddy are both stubborn. We are still here because we are stubborn. It has directed us to the side of goodness. Two stubborn ones enter into a joint venture and have a baby, so the children are stubbornly squared! (Laughter.) So, we need to be careful about educating our children. If scolding doesn’t work, then as a last resort we spank the child. We spank our children not because we hate them, but because we want to help them become good people. In Japan, there is a saying, “Thunder, earthquake, fire, and father are the same scary beings.” Children must know their daddy is strict. Try to quickly let the children know what they should do and what they should not do from an early age, especially what they should not do.
We must raise children to understand responsibility quickly.