David Hill finds lost Speech by Sun Myung Moon

A Hill family portrait taken in October 2011. From Left to Right: Kevin Lynn (son-in-law), Jennifer Lynn (daughter), David Hill, Kathy (Corrigan) Hill, Ji-eun Bae (Korean exchange student), Matt Hill (son), Zach Hill (son), Justin Hill (son).

A small group of Unificationists in Maryland are preparing to honor the 40-year legacy of Rev. Sun Myung Moon, known affectionately as “Father Moon,” or “True Father,” by reading excerpts of a sermon he gave at the Upshur House Church Center in Washington, D.C., Dec. 10, 1972. The speech has been lost to Unification Church archivists until now.

Unificationist David Hill of Laurel, Maryland, recently realized that his cassette-recorded speech, which he had kept in safe keeping for the last 40 years, had never been published by the Unification Church.

The speech, interpreted simultaneously by Mrs. Won Pok Choi, titled “The Point of Rise or Fall,” is about learning to love from God’s point of view, which is the point at which God raises you to a higher level. Hill, a brand new church member at the time, preserved the sermon on cassette.

“I listened to the speech a few times on my cassette during the era of mobile fund-raising teams (MFT) and put it away for safe keeping,” Hill told Unificationnews.com.

“I found the speech a little while ago and I figured the speech had been added to the speech libraries,” said Hill. “I checked to see if it was added, but I could not find it in any of the unofficial church archives.”

David and Kathy Hill in the Belvedere Estate in Tarrytown, New York in 1979.

Without any record of the speech in digital or physical archives, Hill recognized his recording was the only copy of the speech Father Moon gave that day on December 10, 1972. With this understanding, Hill digitized the cassette recording and offered it to Doug Burton, editor of Unificationnews.com, at Burton’s discussion circle after church at the Bladensburg High School in Bladensburg, Maryland. Mrs. Margaret Herbers, a 40-year church member herself, spent many hours transcribing the faintly audible recording.

“When I listen to this speech, I feel all the beautiful feelings from that time at Upshur House, fresh as ever,” added Hill.

“I joined the church on December 5, 1972,” explained Hill. “As a very new UC member, I had listened to True Father speak on Saturday December 9, 1972. “Unification” was the title.”

The next day, only five days after Hill joined the church, he was told that Father Moon would speak after pledge service in the Upshur House basement.

“The basement is the largest space in the house, and we used it as our dining hall,” said Hill. “I arrived at 4:30 a.m. for pledge, thinking I would get a good place to sit. It was packed full of members.”

“Humbled a bit, I offered my pledge in the very back, which was in the kitchen. As I prepared to listen from there, someone grabbed my arm and pulled me to the very front and center. I was given this spot of honor as the newest member.

“When Father Moon began, his microphone stand was between my knees. I spent a good part of the three hour speech looking into his eyes, and he into mine. I felt he gave the entire speech to me. It was on the topic of love. I definitely felt loved. About two thirds of the way through the speech, Father placed his hand on my head and asked, ‘If I were to say I loved this man, would not his ancestors be pleased?’”

“What True Father spoke about in the speech — love, blessed families, God’s love — those things, I have come to understand more and more throughout the years,” added Hill. “It has taken me a long time to really start to get — the vision of what True Father saw for Blessed Families — but I think I made some progress. My understanding of God’s love is personal involvement in everyone’s life,” Hill recalled.

The year 1972 may be considered to be the year of a “new start” for the Unification Church in America. In that year the church purchased the Belvedere Estate in Tarrytown, New York, launched the first mobile fundraising teams, organized the first science conference, expanded Victory-over-Communism education, sent state leaders to all 50 states and supported the first national speaking tour (Seven-City Tour). After Father Moon’s ascension in September 2012, Dr. Hak Ja Han Moon, announced that she will lead a a new start for the Unification Church in America and worldwide..

Upshur House in Washington, D.C

Excerpt from speech “The Point of Rise or Fall”

The following is an excerpt from the December 10, 1972 speech “The Point of Rise or Fall” given by Rev. Moon at Upshur House in Washington, D.C.

“If God is love, and that God likes you 100 percent as the object of his love, you will rise. If it is the other way with you, you are doomed to fall. We know a diamond is unchanging; still, we don’t like to have a small diamond ring but want ours to be a large one. Do you want a 1-carat one or larger one? For God it is the same. God too wants to have many grades of diamonds, each one being unchangeable and unique.

“If you are above the standard of what God defines love to be, you will rise. Otherwise, you will fall. If God has so many grades of diamonds like that, representing each one of you, he is glad. But if he loses one, if he may lose even one of you, he will be sad. If he loses two, three, five, ten, he is a sad God. In other words, to rise means to multiply. To fall means to be diminished…”

“You want to love a person, you love that person and in doing that you love his ancestors and you want to love his future generations too. In other words, you love three generations centering on that person, like a grandfather, father and son put together. God is longing for the love of parents, love of grandfather; all put together, two types of love together. God likes to find that kind of love…

“If you love that person that way, you can love people of the whole world – the whole mankind in the present world and the whole mankind in the future world; you want to take the responsibility.

“The present generation is the fruit of the past generation, and then in that way you love three generations – those belonging to the past, those belonging to the present, and those of the future. If there is a God, would he not love those in the past? Would he not love the people living in the present time? Would he

not love the people of the coming generations? That’s the scope of God’s love, the breadth of God’s love, to love three generations, the past, present and future…”

“So the moment of rise or fall begins from the love between you and me, between two. If those two unite with each other like this and become one, love should be uniting in such a way that nothing ever can separate those two. True love unifies those two and when they are unified in true love, nothing can separate them. When love is broad, it can be defined in our expression that we must shed tears for man, sweat for earth and blood for heaven…”

David Hill and his wife Kathy were Blessed in Marriage in 1982 in Madison Square Garden, NYC by Rev. Moon. Hill is computer network admin at Kirov Academy of Ballet in Washington, D.C. He and his wife live with their four children in Laurel, Maryland.