How to study religious teaching?

                                            So that we will understand what we are supposed to learn.

 What is our attitude of mind when we start reading? 

• I must understand
• I must follow
• I believe in this book

Believing in the teaching prior to reading it is not a very good start. It will impair our ability to use one of the gifts that God gave us when he created us. Our creative thinking, our ability to discern good from bad, important from useless, and so on.

The best attitude when reading a “new” religious teaching and trust in ourselves, and in God if we already know about God enough to have that trust. And we need an open mind. A mind willing to learn, to discover, and to understand.

I have read many books encompassing the teaching of our True Father, Dr. Sun Myung Moon. I read a few of them more than once. I had three different reactions when reading a particular paragraph or chapter.

• I understood and agreed
• I did not understand what I read
• I did not agree with what I was reading

However, I never stop reading, simply because I did not agree or did not understand. I kept on reading. This attitude, gave me, I least to some degree, the full spectrum of the personality of our True Father and what he has been trying to communicate to each of us throughout his life.

After years of reading, I have a solid trust in our True Parents. I believe in their genuine desire to be the conduit of God’s love and teaching. They have done and still doing today through Holy Mother Han their very best to help humanity understand who we are in relationship to the creator, in relationship to human beings, and in relationship to the creation.

Let us remember that we not yet “another church” but a movement to eliminate the need for churches because each individual and families in the entire world will have their lives connected to one another and our beloved Heavenly Parent. We will know the meaning of "Living for sake of others".

May 8, 2025

All about “Love”

Love is a very popular word used often and most often in our fallen world, misused. One thing occurred to me recently. Though this particular word is often used, it is not understood correctly, and most people don’t even know how to define it.

If you ask a young adult to explain “love” they may very well think right away about the sexuality of it. If you ask young parents, they will automatically link it to the caring of children, and if you ask an old person, some of them will respond, “I don’t know how to explain, it is too complicated”.
Therefore, teaching the definition of love is very important, along with how to practice it.
We are told to “love our enemies”, but we are not told how! How do we accomplish this?

My personal thoughts are as follows:

The very first thing that should come to mind is respect. An attitude of respect is necessary to pursue the ability to love the way God, our Heavenly Parent does. If God had not respected his creation He will have destroyed it a long time ago.
Once an attitude of respect is established then the ability to listen is necessary. If we are able to listen, even rambling, we will start understanding this person or this other group of individuals. Then our ability to listen will allow the other individual or group to do that same, meaning now we can start to speak.

Understanding someone else, or another group of people, is necessary to help humanity progress in creating a peaceful and happy world. Understanding will not come without the 3 bold words above. Practicing true love starts with them. Then, all the other dimensions of love will be able to come and invade our heart.

NOTE: One may argue that serving should be first, yes, it will work but only if the person serving has respect for the person served. Otherwise, the service may not be well received.

 

When do we reach completion stage in our lives?

Someone ask this question recently via Facebook, and my response was as follow:

Some will say that the completion stage starts after receiving the blessing. However, it may not always be the case. One should be able to recognize on their own when their relationship with Heavenly Parent has reached a new level.

My personal experience has been as follows: After the departure of my husband to the spiritual world over 12 years ago, I found myself alone for the very first time in my life. My daughter (and only child) was all the way in California, and my husband was gone. For the first time in my life I was able to think of "me". So, I sat in my living room, in the evening, near my altar and just did nothing. I will look at the altar, I would think of my husband, my daughter but also I will think of me. Pretty soon, I started to read one by one all the books printed about True Father and True Mother's lives and talks. I read all of them, some of them, several times.

12 years later, I realized that my ability to relate to God and understand True Parents most definitively grew tremendously. I was not just a Unificationist because I believe in the Divine Principle. I was a lot more. I could relate to God and think of True Parents with a lot more "true love" not mandatory love.

I believed that I am now in the completion stage of my life. It's about time at 73 years old and 52 years as a Unificationist

PS: According to the teaching of Rev. Sun Myung Moon, we have 3 stages in our lives:

Formation, Growth, Completion. Not all of us reach these levels at the same age, it is a matter of discovering who we are in relationship to the creator our Heavenly Parent (God, the almighty), our relationship with each other, and our relationship with the all creation.

Providential thoughts

             Last night I went to bed two hours earlier than usual, I was very tired and felt that I needed more sleep. During the night I woke up three times. The third time a lot of thoughts came into my mind. I thought of my work.

I have a lot of problem remembering things, and this affect many brothers and sisters who are dependent on me.

Then, my thoughts moved to the providence of today, which in many ways is in a “pioneering mode”. Meaning that the focus are two things. The first is witnessing and the second is the blessing. Both extremely important and needed. Because of it, other, important activities cannot be completed successfully. One of them is taking care of our Special Needs families. I took responsibilities several years ago for it, but I do so little for them.

My thoughts went back to the witnessing and blessing work and I could not fault the focus that we are taking, following True Mother’s guidance. We are in the 21^st century. 21 is a very providential number, and it seems to me that this century of ours should be the one who will see the victorious completion of the providence of restoration. In my personal opinion, it is a priority, therefore witnessing is a priority.

Once, we have the whole humanity comprehend the teaching of our True Parents, then, and only then, can we take care of ourselves in a big way. So, no matter how sad I might be that many of our families do not receive the support and care that they need. We have no choice.

I choose to trust Heavenly Parent and the True Parents. I will remain grateful and continue to live my life to the best of my abilities, even if my abilities are now very limited.

With gratitude, always,

Anne-Marie

PS: the picture is from Hawaii (the big island). An amazing beautiful plant that is able to not just survive but truly become whole even in a very difficult physical environment. Let us do the same.

Personal reflections about “love”, God’s love and parental love.

Do we love our 1st born more than any other children?
Do we love our 1st son more than any other son?

These are expressions that do come from Asian cultures. I am not aware of this kind of “comparisons” in my culture, or the way I was raised.

My answer to both of the questions above is: NO a categorical NO.

Each child is unique and therefore each child will have a different relationship with the parent, and the love coming from the Parent will be unique (and therefore different) for each child, but it is not due to being a 1st born or a last born.

What about God’s love for Adam and Lucifer? Our teachings says that God loves Adam more than Lucifer. I don’t think so. God’s love for Adam and Lucifer, was different, but both were receiving 100% love from God, not 99% or less.

So, what made Lucifer jealous and envious of Adam? His immaturity, as a created being. Though he was “in charge” of the angelic world, it was obviously that it was not enough for him. But, in my personal opinion, it had nothing to do with God’s love for him, and every thing to do with his immaturity of heart.

Translations from Korean to English is not 100% accurate, to no fault of anyone. That is why I take the liberty of questioning some statements, I don't think God minds it or our True Parents. They know that I have the most respect and love for them.

You are my Abel

You were there, in the 60’ and 70’. You follow with a deep heart our True Parents demands. I was not there.
You were the missionaries that pioneers, not just Korea, but the whole world. I was not one of them.

Today, many brothers and sisters, TribeNet members included, are witnessing and teaching the Divine Principle every day. I am not doing that either.

My path was different. Heavenly Parent guided me differently and ask me to do something different. So, I did and still do. I cannot complain. Heavenly Parent need each of us according to our abilities. However, to me, in my heart, mind, and soul, Brothers and Sisters, whose main public work is witnessing and teaching the Divine Principle will always be my Abel.

With gratitude,
Anne-Marie

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PS: “Abel” in the Unificationist language means:
Someone who guide, protect, and lead, someone else in their spiritual journey towards the fulfillment of God’s will.

About Social Drinking

A question I received several years back from a Parent, and the answer I gave. I

think it is very much relevant still today.

Question:  What should we be telling our 2nd gen. concerning social drinking?

Answer:

This question has been the most difficult for me to answer so far.  Not necessarily because I do not know the answer, but I want to make sure that I would not be misunderstood, and/or misrepresent True Parents.  Also, through my answer I want to help not cause additional confusion and possibly alienate blessed children or others.

It cannot be denied that social drinking has been observed among Unification Church members, and we cannot pretend that it does not happen.

This time I am going with bullet points to begin my answer and then elaborate on them.

1)      TF cannot openly approve of social drinking
2)      One must be educated as to the ups and down of alcohol consumption and the mechanisms of addiction
3)      It is best not to judge the behavior of another
4)      Each individual should take responsibility for what they do

I have never heard any speech or read any document where True Father endorsed drinking, including social drinking.  It is obvious to me why True Father would not publicly endorse the use of alcohol.  True Father is not here to micro manage any of us.  But, for example, if he would have said something like, “Social drinking is okay,” would we be capable of knowing when social drinking stops and actual dependency starts?  It would be hard to tell.  It is well known among medical circles that many so-called “social drinkers” are actually dependent on alcohol and, therefore, way beyond social drinking status.

Peer pressure is what usually causes a young person to start drinking, but this is not the best reason for starting to taste alcohol. The more knowledgeable about the pitfalls of drinking alcohol, the better the chance a young person will have not to start.  The more immature reason for starting to drink is to do it because others are doing it.

I am French; in the French culture drinking alcohol starts at baptism and, at least when I was there, never ended!   I drank growing up in a French household, however, I am not a drinker.  I have done it on occasion in the past and observed that actually even though I do like the taste of a sweet red wine, my body does not like it.

Young people are very judgmental, it comes with the territory, and it is important that we guide them to make decisions that they can be comfortable with for a very long time.

Hopefully, by the time a parent is dealing with late teen difficult questions such as “social drinking,” there is enough of a trust element between the parent and the child for the conversation to be truthful and helpful.  One element that is very important to teach one’s child is non-judgment.  Judgment belongs to God, not to humans.  If we start judging other people’s behaviors, we limit ourselves in our ability to comprehend others and see them from God’s point of view.

Many religious leaders in the past and present have lost their flocks because they were not able to live according to the standard they were demanding from their followers.  Does that mean that their religious principles were false?  Not necessarily.  Religious people throughout history have failed miserably to follow basic principles taught by most faiths.  Does that mean that we should not try to follow God’s principles?  Yes we should try--forever try to be the best people we can be.  If a blessed child talks him or herself into the idea that it is okay to drink simply because they have seen church leaders, their own parents, or their peers doing it, they are passing judgment, and their motivation for drinking is not necessarily the best.

One will have to make up one’s own mind according to one’s conscience as to whether it is okay to drink a glass of wine or a beer in a particular setting.  And one will have to live with the action of doing so. One’s spiritual growth is dependent on every action taken throughout one’s life.

I am reminded of one of the most famous Buddhist stories passed from one generation to the next. It goes like this:

In the old days man was close to nature and it was easy to become silent. This story belongs to that time. One day two Buddhist monks were returning to their monastery in silence.

A small river used to flow close to their monastery. Walking slowly, meditatively, they came across the river.  They needed to cross it but there was no boatman.  A beautiful young lady was waiting for a boatman to cross the river. The sun was about to set and darkness was spreading its kingdom.
They all waited for some time for the boatmen and eventually decided to cross the river on their own. The younger of the two monks carried the lady on his shoulder, and three of them then managed the crossing. On the other side of the river the lady thanked the monks and went on her way. The two monks started moving towards their monastery, again in a meditative state. After some time the older monk broke the silence "I will tell everything to Master." The young monk was surprised and asked, "And what will you tell Master"?  The old monk said, "That your reputation is spoiled. You have carried a woman on your shoulders, and it is a sin for a monk to touch a woman.” The young monk replied "I only dropped the woman at the river bank. But you are still carrying her in your head."

Drinking a beer or a glass of wine once in a while is a bit the same.  If the one doing the drinking is going to carry on the burden of doing so for days on end, then one should not do the drinking in the first place.  On the other hand, if one does drink a glass of wine with a meal for whatever the reason, appreciates it and is grateful for being able to do so without succumbing to drunkenness and addiction, then that person most likely will be able to handle the spiritual responsibility of it quite well.
 
One last point before I close:  education is the best way to help someone’s behavior.  If I was a high school or college teacher I would have my students do research on the effects of alcohol--in the family, and in the workplace.  I would have them research not just the social effects, but also the monetary effect of alcohol consumption and alcohol dependency.

That is the best I can do at this time, I hope it helps,

Anne-Marie