The Words of the Cooper Family |
Want to build an authentic outreach? take time to study together A lot of people are giving out Rev Moon's Autobiography, and we have just made an order to have another 8000 printed. But I haven't heard so many stories on this site of people's experiences of studying the text together. Partly because our communities don't really post much, but that is another story.
So, here is one story, with a tangible useful outcome.
It is the conclusion to part of a process that Martin and Huguette Moloney have been engaged in with a small group of friends. As a group they created a process through which they chose their 25 favorite passages from the book. Their belief is that unless blessed family members come together in their own time and homes then it is hard to develop authentic sustainable outreach in our local neighborhoods. Martin says in an email:
We finished our Autobiography study this evening, which we began on Oct 11th 2011 (12 weeks). We have 25 extracts which have been chosen by our 'panel of experts' which we will now study during January and hopefully when we meet again in February 2012 we can choose perhaps 8 to 12 of those, depending on size, which we might include in an autobiography outreach leaflet. That is the plan, so let's pray for those Winning extracts from each chapter of True Father's Autobiography:
Chapter 1
P. 7 "To heal a world where there is no hope, and which is lacking in love, we need to go back to the pure hearts that we had as children".
P. 38 "Even the smallest grain of sand contains the principles of the world, and even a speck of dust floating in the air contains the harmony of the universe. Everything around us was given birth through a combination of forces so complex we cannot even imagine it."
P. 38 "Developing sensitivity to nature is actually more important than developing our knowledge…it is only the person who enjoys resonance with nature who can be said to have true character"
Chapter 2
P. 73 "I still believe that to develop good character a person needs to experience many difficulties before turning thirty. People need to go down into the crucible of despair at the bottom of human existence and experience what that is like." (18)
P. 76 "Upon finally returning to Korea I found that nothing had changed. Japan's tyrannical rule was becoming worse by the day. The entire land was soaked in blood and tears…I kept detailed diaries of all the new realizations I had each day…I was receiving answers to many of the questions that I had struggled with over the years. It was as if my years of prayers and search for truth were being answered. It happened in a short time, as if a ball of fire were passing through me" (19)
P. 107 "People often don't know that salvation is just beyond the next obstacle." (18)
Chapter 3
P. 110 "Almost nothing was left of the soles of my shoes…I might as well have been walking barefoot. The fact was simply that I was the lowest of the low, a beggar among beggars, There was no work to be had, and we had no money in our pockets. The only way we could eat was to beg." (9)
P. 112 "I found lodging in a shelter for laborers located in the Choryang neighborhood. My room was so small that I could not lie down, even diagonally…but that was the room where I sharpened a pencil and solemnly wrote the first draft of…Divine Principle" (9)
P. 139 "I have lived my entire life praying and preaching, but even now I tremble when I stand before a group of people. This is because to stand in such a position and speak about public matters can mean that many lives will be saved or that many will be lost. …these are the moments when I draw a clear line on the crossroads between life and death." (9)
Chapter 4
P. 184 "On the day before reporting to the Danbury prison, I met with members gathered at Belvedere training center in Tarrytown, New York. It was an emotional gathering…"I am innocent", I said, "I have done nothing wrong"…"I can see the bright light of hope rising from beyond Danbury"…"Don't cry for me, but cry for America. Love America, and pray for America." (20)
P. 186 "I think that going to jail is not a completely bad thing. If I am to get people, who are in the valley of tears to repent, then I must first shed tears" (20)
P. 187 "God is not a denominationalist. He is not bound by secondary arguments over doctrine. There are no distinctions over nationality or race in God's parental heart." (18)
Chapter 5
P. 207 "The family is the only institution created by God. It is the school of love where people can learn how to love each other and live together in peace, and it is the training center where we learn how to build a palace of peace in the world." (13)
P. 212 "The grandparents represent God…a precious teacher who passes all the wisdom he has acquired…(since) the world's oldest grandfather is God…a life of receiving the grandfather's love and living for the sake of the grandfather is a life of coming to understand God's love and of living for His sake." (19)
P. 216 "In 1988, a young well educated man…joined our church…and matched with a Japanese woman… (his) father reacted very negatively…during the Japanese occupation…he had been conscripted into forced labor…risked his life to escape…and harbored a tremendous hatred for Japan…He threatened to disown his son…but his son went ahead…and he reluctantly accepted their marriage but continuously persecuted his daughter-in-law…each time she would shed tears and apologize for what the Japanese had done to the Koreans…for as long as he would vent his anger at her…telling the same stories over and over…she would continue to apologize…this went on for 10 years…and then it stopped…relatives noticed that his attitude had become warmer and he even seemed to like her…and when asked "Don't you still hate her." He replied, " I don't hate her anymore, all the hatred that had accumulated in my heart has gone away." (21)
Chapter 6
P. 234 "On August 2, 1990 Iraqi President Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, igniting the possibility of war in the Persian gulf…On Oct 2, I convened on short notice an emergency conference of the Council for World's Religions in Cairo, Egypt, to deliver my urgent message of peace…a conflict between Christianity and Islam would be far worse than the conflict between democracy and communism. There is nothing more fearful than religious war." (21)
P. 237 "Our experience…leads us to believe that it is not the religions of the world that are in error but the ways the faiths are taught. Bad teaching of faith brings prejudice, and prejudice leads to conflict." (22)
P. 242 "It is easy to talk about peace. But to bring peace is not easy. This is because people push aside the most elemental truth needed to bring about a world of peace….Before we talk about peace among individuals or among nations, we must talk about peace between ourselves and God." (21)
Chapter 7
P. 290 "Religions around the world must understand the destination of the human journey…must pool their wisdom and combine their energies…they must forget the past struggles filled with hatred and work out peaceful solutions." (17)
P. 292 "Similar to a coach who sees things that the players cannot see and gives signals, God sees things that we cannot see and gives us signs…but if the coach sends signs and foolish players either don't understand them or ignore them and play according to their own thinking, the team can only lose." (17)
P. 299 "There are more resources than fish in the ocean. A greater treasure is its ability to provide energy…energy from the hydrogen in the sea represents the future of humanity …the day is at hand when humanity will find itself dependent on the ocean." (17)
P. 317 "…it is better in the long term to teach a person how to plant and harvest wheat and then turn it into bread than it is to give a piece of bread to a person…we need to begin now to study the climate, the soil, and the character of the people in areas that suffer from hunger." (18)
Chapter 8
P. 323 "I became a completely different person when I began to love God. I loved humanity more than myself and was more concerned with the problems of others than with the problems of my family." (16)
P. 343 "My prayer is that every person on earth will be reborn as a peace-loving Global citizen, transcending barriers of religion, ideology and race." (18)
P. 343 "It is only when the knowledge and experience of political leaders are combined with the wisdom of inter-religious leaders that the world will be able to find the path to true peace." (16)