Do we recognize our Heavenly Father’s loving guidance? Part 7

I suppose we all agree that it is not enough to listen to the words somebody says but to listen most of all to the heart of this person – to be aware of the attitude behind the words that are spoken.

We really must look deeper and search always for the heart behind what is being said in order to be able to have the right attitude in front of our brother or sister who is reaching out to us for help or in his or her desire to support.

On March 11, 2011 I received a letter from a person who is well known in our church. I would like to share some excerpts from these lines with you, trusting that you will read them with a prayerful heart and mind in order to recognize unmistakably what our Heavenly Father would like to express through this person:

“I was ostracized and finally I had to bow before the truth of the matter at hand; in other words I had to find the truth in the matter at hand and focus upon it and communicate that truth to others. It was not a matter of me defending myself as it was a matter of me finding the truth and defending the truth…

It is difficult to be in the line of fire to defend one’s self… When one defends themselves, they are putting their heads on the chopping block; and if they do not defend themselves, then others will automatically think that they are guilty as charged.

The truth lies in the heart of the matter, the heart of the situation between people and not necessarily the content of the words that were spoken or written.

We need, at best, to focus on the Heart of one another rather than the content of wording and whether or not content is true or false but what kind of heart the person had when they wrote the words and then address the heart behind the words.

You can even speak to the heart of that person and say: ’ I am sorry that your life has been so painful that you were hurt by this truth, I will pray for your heart to be mended and the truth that will come into your heart to set you free.’

If the person is God-centered then they can receive these words but if the person is self- centered then they will react again.

What is happening here in your dialogue with brothers and sisters on the iUnificationist Meeting House is a representation of a microcosm of the fears and frustrations that are happening in the Unification Church Community…

You may understand that you are a microcosm of all leaders of the UC and this is the reason why your letters have become the 38th parallel on a minute scale as when one looks at a map and sees the location of countries, when one looks at your letters as a map and sees the spiritual aspect of the 38th parallel where God’s Truth confronts satan.

When UC members read your letters they automatically come into the 38th parallel - in symbolism - where they will be divided according to the correlative standard that they have made in their lives of faith.

If their lives of faith are centered upon God, then they will greatly appreciate the opportunity to become purified by reading your letters. But if their lives of faith have become selfish and self-serving, self- centered, the ‘me first’ attitude and then God next, then they will feel judgment coming to them and will react in a violent manner.

But you must realize who you are in God’s Providence and it is true that because you represent the 38th parallel then when you are banished from certain places in the UC movement whether it is through cyber space or on a physical level then occurrences around the globe will manifest just because of who you are and what you represent.

Thank you for persevering and not giving up, in God’s tremendous threshold of the CIG Resurrection.”

Yes, we are on the threshold of Cheon Il Guk where God’s children will live with resurrected hearts and minds. But in order to get there substantially, we need to do our homework and become resurrected people who practice what we were told by True Father at the beginning of this 2nd year of the heavenly calendar.

In my reflections I share with you my quest to find the truth and to defend it. Whatever some people may think otherwise, for those who look deeper it is clear that I am not spending thousands of hours to prepare reflections about essential topics of our life of faith and reality due to some self-righteous desire but because I am longing for Unity and True Love to be restored in our midst.

Let us listen to the heart of the person who is criticising me when she writes: “Sometimes you can see things so beautifully said but search deep down and you can see by your strong senses that something is not right and there’s the danger and when you won’t react because of doubts or fear then gradually you can find yourself being hooked and there’s no return sometimes.”

She refers to doubts and fears that are a hindrance for her, that there may be spirits that try to tell us something, as it is noted in the continuation of her lines where she says: “Only the great truth is that of the True Parents, we can only share our reflections with great humility in our hearts to the words of our True Parents and never interpret based on what we think or what ‘spirits’ try to

tell us because True Parents’ words are God’s words and nobody has the right to contest, question, interpret based on one’s understanding or intelligence or influence by spirit world.”

In a previous message she wrote: “I don’t hate my brothers and sisters but when someone tries to deceive, telling lies, falsities and tries to distort the truth, this I couldn´t tolerate really. I need to be clear myself with my faith and my belief for God and True Parents because I know evil is so wise using even the words of True Parents to lure me to his side that’s why I pray always for wisdom and good heart to discern what is really right and wrong.

Of course it is not easy to distinguish clearly between good and evil and we must pray deeply for a clear discernment of who has what kind of heart, motives, desires, etc. But with what kind of solution does this person come up in respect to her brother Nikolaus?

She says: “What is being written in this blog can be beautiful and well said but the person who wrote this demonstrated no credibility for me to trust to whatever he writes because of what I’ve known about him, no judgement heart but never this person showed repentance and instead showed being always right to what he always says and do even proven wrong, that’s why I could never trust anything he writes and for me there’s always a danger of distortion of the truth that I believe.”

This person speaks about me having been proven wrong, but where is the evidence? Nothing of this kind was presented. Just speculations were made and based on them judgements formed in one’s heart, leading to blocking out one’s brother completely, not even ready to listen to one word he says.

This attitude is expressed when she writes in her next message: “That´s why I don´t read anymore whatever he writes unless I will know for sure that he truly and simply does what is right to be done for himself first.”

In other words, this person joined the discussion based on my having offered a reflection on the theme of uniting and restoring the Heart of being brothers and sisters -without even having read what I wrote!

She says that she will only read something that I say after she knows for sure that what I do is right. How can this person find out when she lives on the other half of this globe and we never met. There is only the possibility that other people tell her that I am a trustworthy person. And there are indeed so many people to testify to this fact, but does this person listen to the testimonies of these brothers and sisters?

As you can see in further messages, she did not take them seriously but just attacked them also. This is a very sad plain fact which shows where her heart stands in reality, judging brothers and sisters all too easily. I am not pointing out the weaknesses of this sister in order to show what kind of heart she actually has, but I do it as an example of what kind of spirit and attitude is present in our church, widely spread and well accepted.

An elder member, who offered a comment, wrote in response to the above quoted lines: “Thanks a lot for speaking out, Ate [elder sister]…. I’ve been receiving private e-mails from Bro. Nikolaus since last year and the only conclusion I can make is that he’s like a lonely spirit seeking for ATTENTION. Anyway, let’s just pray for him and for all self-serving prophets that they could learn to outgrow their ‘childish’ ways and get to find their ‘true selves’, their UNSELFISH SELF. God doesn’t have any sense of self-consciousness. We can only meet God and True Parents at the ZERO point. Glory to God and True Parents and to the Heavenly Tradition of UNSELFISHNESS, AJU!”

Why should I feel lonely when so many people are communicating with me? Don’t you think that I receive many kinds of responses to my reflections that keep me busy up to 24 hours a day to respond to them?

What about me being “a self-serving prophet”? What am I doing for myself? How is it possible that a leader of our church who is organizing workshops for our Second Generation, teaching, working with many projects, etc. writes as I quoted before, “I don´t know how I would have made it through the last couple of years without your example”, is inspired and draw strength to do his challenging mission from a person who is self-serving?

One only needs to look at the facts and to the people who actually know my heart rather than depending on what one feels or thinks about another person. This is a simple basic task, but most sadly, it is poorly put into practice in our own ranks as many comments that were sent to iUnificationist Meeting House have shown.

When Elise and I had been already banned from this website, one brother sent the following message: “I also have been receiving Nikolaus’ emails for some time. I find much value in what he says; he writes from the heart. His words are not Father’s words nor God’s words, but he speaks about Father’s words, Father’s life, and our members’ life of attendance to True Father. He encourages us to consider those things more deeply and many times offers a different perspective than what we hear through ‘official’ channels.

Are his messages interspersed with self-justifications? Yes, but probably no more than other people. Each of us exercises personal responsibility when deciding which words and messages contain truth. For me, one thing is clear: Nikolaus loves God and True Parents.

I feel bad about the accusations that our dear sister [name] makes against Nikolaus. Someone has poisoned her mind against him. I do not see anyone lying, I only see that each is speaking from his/her own perspective.

Nikolaus sent out an email which I read this morning. He says that on March 10 he tried to access iUnificationist but received the message: ‘You have been suspended from iUnificationist Meeting House. Sorry, Nikolaus Beutl, you can not access iUnificationist Meeting House as you have been suspended. If you think you’ve been suspended in error, you can contact the administrator…’

It looks like another injustice is being committed here. Sincerely,..“

In response to this post one sister wrote: “Dear brother [name], I truly appreciate your sincere heart and respect for Nikolaus, because you share very honestly your personal experience. And I agree that it is Gods and True Parents wish that we simply Love and Respect each other as True Brothers and Sisters.

However I do need to inform you that there is something that Nikolaus is claiming which is not true. Just yesterday I received an Email from an Sister, who wrote about Nikolaus, and she said that he told her that he is the Head or Leader of all Western NM’s, also you can find his own words here were he talks about, him being the representative of all Western NM’s. But fact is that Nikolaus is not representing the Western NM’s! As you might know that any official position on a National Level or International Level needs to be approved by the HQ to be legitimate. What is true is, that Nikolaus was a coordinator at an NM workshop, but this does not make him automatically a permanent representative. None the less, I *Thank you dear Brother* for your caring & sincere heart to speak up for our brother Nikolaus Beutl. sincerely your sister …”

It is true that I wrote that I am representing all Western National Messiahs but it is false that I said that I am their head and leader. The person who is quoted here wrote in a later message: “I would like to let you know that I wrote them based on a misunderstanding which has now been clarified…and I would like to apologize for the wrong light that was thrown, in this way, on brother Nikolaus because he never said this to me; but it was only my personal understanding…

This brother, Nikolaus, has helped me to overcome a great spiritual struggle in my life of faith that I have been going through alone since 2005; with no one in the UC who could understand it enough to give guidance. That is when God sent Nikolaus to help me…where no one could before that time.

Please understand the seriousness of this matter…and that it is my fault that I gave wrong information and I hope that with this short letter, it will be clear that false accusations, against brother Nikolaus, were made and have spread here on iUnificationist - concerning how he sees himself in relation to his fellow national messiahs.”

Because one national messiah asked me some questions about this point I had clarified it already on March 9, 2011 responding to this person who meanwhile erased her comments from the site, so I cannot quote her. Even though this issue had already been clarified through my statements on the following day one sister came forth starting with the words: “Wooow, Mr. Beutl, you again lying!” In reality it was this person who began at that point to spread lies about her brother in the iUnificationist Meeting House.

Responding to this person the brother quoted above wrote: “Dear [name of this sister], I have never seen Nikolaus claim some official position other than having been named a National Messiah by True Parents. Each blessed couple is a representative of True Parents. I as an American am a representative of the USA. When Nikolaus speaks of himself as a representative of Western National Messiahs I see no difference.”

Even though this brother who was just quoted here, clarified that there is nothing wrong with what I said the accusing person wrote in her next post concerning my having been kicked out of this internet group: “No injustice is committed here, Mr. Beutl caused it by lying once again and here we need transparency, no lies and no distortion of truth.”

It is proven that this person was spreading lies about me on iUnificationist, and as she is calling for transparency I am offering a detailed explanation of facts in this series. It is done for the sake of this person and all others who are not clear how the facts look in this and in other issues.

It was in the last hour before the midnight prayer (a few years ago) that the president of our church in Korea emphasized in front of thousands of members that had gathered in preparation for God’s Day, that they are representatives of God and True Parents. I watched the video recording a couple of times, so I am certain of what I heard in Korean and English.

Are now all members leaders of True Parents because they represent them? Of course not. But still it is assumed that I see myself as a leader or head because I speak of being a representative… False concepts in the minds of people create not only all kinds of misunderstandings but severe accusations, in my case that I am a liar and pretender or whatever people may see in me.

In one of the messages responding to the national messiah who deleted her posts I confirmed what this person wrote and asked a question: “I agree with you, [name of this sister] that all NMs are under the direct Authority of True Parents but in what way is this fact understood by continental directors and national leaders?”

There are so many issues that need clarification but how many in our own ranks are ready to face what True Father actually said and not rely on what they are told by this or that leader? I am writing reflections about Father’s words and the reality in our church for the sake of supporting the goal that our worldwide movement truly lives in line with the teaching of our True Parents. Most of all we need to help each other to get rid of our fallen nature.

One person referred to this task when writing the following lines to me: “Dear Nikolaus, Yes…this is very true and I whole-heartedly agree that we are hindered by our fallen nature…what I have discovered though in my life of faith as a UC member is that if we are to work together to help one another to remove our fallen nature, we need to have a sacrificial heart and a heart of service to truly take care of one another.

I remember in my early years of living in church centers, there was usually a brother or a sister that I did not like or they did not like me. I really had to pray and ask God why He/She loved that person and then I made a condition to serve that person that I didn’t like. I prayed for them every day and served them in some way, without them knowing who was serving them…and soon I started to see them with God’s eyes and started to love them with a parental heart.

It is true that sacrificial love will remove our fallen nature. True Father talks about this in the Peace Messages. To live for the sake of others and to embody True Love.”

May we all be ready to take more responsibility for one another’s internal standard. This is my hope as I conclude the 7th instalment of this series about recognizing our Heavenly Father’s loving guidance, trying to help us resolve issues that burden our hearts.