I believe that possibly “Absolute Obedience” is actually the wrong translation. I would say “Absolute attendance”. The big difference between the two statements is the ability for each of us to use what God gave us, the ability to think for ourselves. God does not want robots; he wants true sons and daughters.
Absolute Obedience, throughout history has caused extreme
problems (i.e. WW2).
September 4th, 2025
So that we will understand what we are supposed to learn.
What is our attitude of mind when we start reading?
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 is 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.
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 are 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 God, our Heavenly Parent. We will know the meaning of "Living for sake of others".
May 8, 2025
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.
Someone ask this question recently via Facebook, and my response was as follow:
My personal experience has been as follows: After the departure of my husband to the spiritual world October 2012, 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 whole creation.
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 21st 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.
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 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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