Pioneering with True Parents

Some of us had met them before in different situations, but upon our arrival in New York, we could sense that this was really our first meeting. Perhaps each experience helping us to grow towards Father requires us to go the process of dying and being reborn into a new and different world with Him. This is how we felt as we arrived in New York, many of us having given up jobs or school.

We knew that this was to be an entirely different thing from anything in our experience. Yes, we had known it was to be exciting and new, but as our Master talked to us that first evening, the very fiber of our beings began to stir, move, and then shake us into a realization of the power we could manifest in really becoming one with him, our True Father. “In ten years, how will you remember this time? You are happy, honored, proud, unified now — but you will slide, skid. Before trying to save the world, you have to save yourself. It is more difficult…” But also he told us of our responsibility to save the world and the mission of our nation. “Have you ever thought which nation should be restored first? The leading nation. If we restore your nation, one sixth of the globe will be restored. No other nation has 7 5 heavenly soldiers. You are the soldiers. You are going to the battlefield right now. Can you make your mind ready…? If you do your best and it does not work out, what will you do? All disciples swore they would follow Jesus, but at the cross nobody believed.”

It was the greatest challenge. Were we really ready to commit ourselves to become the children of God? Yes! We answered. Yes! Yes! Yes! “How many were answering?” he asked us at once. Then when every soul in the room was straining YeeeeeEEEEESSSSS!!! in his desire to be the first in his commitment. Master paused, looked at us sternly, and said, “It is very easy to say yes, but will you meet the daily test?”

It wasn’t just the talks we had with him that brought us closer. We began to realize the significance of his words as we hit the streets. There, away from the tremendous energy created by marching songs and cheers with our True Parents, we were faced with ourselves. New York City! Your streets are filled with emptiness. How much of our blood is going to be claimed by Satan? Were we really equal to the task? Then we began to try…

And it didn’t work. And we would pray for strength and courage and tell Father how much we loved Him and really were going to bring Him the city — if we had to die doing it. Then we would be faced with ourselves again. Sell a ticket… we had to sell a ticket… We had to go out on the streets by ourselves… we couldn’t go in pairs. People were in a hurry or would stop and tell us it was great, but they never came in the city at night. Or that we were good salesmen (a spiritual bribe) but they had another commitment. And nothing worked. Weren’t we giving everything?’ Something deep inside reminded us that there was

something we were holding back, something we were yet embarrassed about or afraid to do. Then we did this thing — honestly, totally — it still didn’t work.

We couldn’t even pray then. It was as if we were entirely deserted… There was to be no blessing for us. We were not made of that material. We were struggling our absolute best and losing before we had even started. It was agony… hell. We weren’t “we” any longer, but lost and rejected individuals, each person in his private desperation. But weren’t we a Family — brothers and sisters fighting the battle together? It didn’t help at all to rationalize together; it was too easy to recognize. To be true children of God we had to defeat Satan by ourselves. It was true that each one of our senses was claimed by evil, even our entire bodies. To defeat Satan, we must defeat ourselves. We really had to be willing to die, and it wasn’t a simple death. It was a long and painful, awful death. One time President Kim told us that only a few people in the world could freely communicate with God under any circumstances, and these had to struggle through all of spirit world to reach Him… through all insanity. Can you imagine that?… All insanity!

Our battle was just beginning, or rather it had not yet even begun. But through our tears and exhaustion we began to find a most awesome power: The Human Will. Conquering death, we set out as new, remade personalities that could fulfill any mission without fear. And it worked! In the people we met, Satan was still cowering, but now he was frightened and on the run. It would start before we would even talk to the person, as we would fix him with our eyes, just as Mr. Kim and Mr. [Mitsuharu] Ishii told us.

Our confidence in God’s ability to work through us if we put ourselves aside blossomed and grew. And people responded. Gathering in small excited, successful groups at the end of the day, we would rewrite Miss [Young Oon] Kim’s words of the Divine Principle, “Man’s heart has three faculties, will, Will, and WILL!” It wasn’t a rejection of reason and feeling, but a newfound discovery of Divine Will, the base for God’s energy. This was really special. We had discovered it through our True Parents.

Yet in one personal victory we could not rejoice, and Father would not let us. He always pointed out to us the relation to the larger goal. And it was obvious to us that what we were doing was not enough. One person, or several persons, may have been successful, but we were to be unified soldiers with God’s goal or it had no meaning. In one city after another the rallies weren’t filled. Empty seats in front of the Lord of the Second Advent, and it was our responsibility! When would we ever prove to him that he could rely on us, and that his energy expended on us would come back and be fruitful? Being around him and seeing his iron determination, we learned to realize the importance of our mission, yet we could see that he was sensitive to our struggle. It made us so happy that we could simply be near where he was working. He gave us gifts that were hard to accept. In New York he called for a pizza and ice cream party right after the third very meager turnout at Lincoln Center. When we left the next day, he had impressed upon us that we had to go back and win the battle.

Our Father is free to feel any emotion to its fullest without reservation… After many experiences, we learned to accept gifts freely too, without accusation, for he was giving them in love. We began to look at ourselves not for what we had been, but for what we could make ourselves be at the moment and continue to grow into for all eternity. It was the same spirit. Father told us one morning after 5 AM service that we only had to worry about the present moment. If so, then the past would be restored and the future would take care of itself. As the sleep began to fall from our eyes that morning, he said, “Have the fullest determination now — then you can do anything.”

Each day brought us a deeper longing to be with our True Parents. We began to dream of them almost every night, and we filled our heart with expectations of how they would guide us next. This was our usual topic of conversation. It was on the West Coast, in San Francisco at a meeting with all the Bay Area members, that we witnessed his anger in force. In response to a question on how the San Francisco group and the Berkeley group would relate in the future, a part of his hurricane-like fury at Satan and the division in the American Family was revealed. “They are one!” he thundered. “There is no Miss [Young Oon] Kim’s group and Mr. [Sang Ik “Papasan”] Choi’s group. There are no groups. They are all Mr. Moon’s group. Missionaries will be recalled to Korea. Members will go through my training, even your president, Farley Jones.”

On this night, members realized the strength and force they have as a united body with a common center. God uses only our True Parents as that common center, and with them it is easy to see whether you are right with God or not. Each member will be reborn into a flesh-and-blood relationship with our True Parents eventually, but we must fulfill our mission first.

I write this the day after the first full house, standing-room-only lecture of our Father here in Berkeley. When I looked around last night and saw the confusion in the aisles because of the lack of seats, my eyes filled with tears of sincere joy. I realized that it wasn’t me, it wasn’t us — it was our Father and True Parents who had done all this. Always before, he told us that we have not yet begun fighting. Now maybe we are actually beginning!