The Words of the Pople Family

General Questions About the Heavenly Constitution

Joy Pople
May 26, 2001

I wonder, by the way, if most of the excesses in our movement aren't motivated by a person's desire to look good in front of True Parents and True Family. Is that motive sufficient justification? Is there any way to temper such desires, or is any extreme justifiable in this historically unique era of being alive at the same time as True Parents are living in the flesh? Compare Jesus' disciples protest when Jesus' feet were anointed with expensive ointment and Jesus' reply that the poor would always be with them, but he wouldn't - John 12:8

Sometimes I'm struck more by the things Father doesn't say than what he does say.

Father just uses the term "money" for the parameters of Article 3. Money, in English, generally refers to a medium of exchange, measure of value, or means of payment. In the most recent speech posted on unification.net, Father expands the scope of misuse beyond money to include knowledge and power. These are intangible. He has also made reference to misuse of "national property" in the scope of Article 3.

Would it be reasonable to assume that wise stewardship of public resources is the broad category covered by Article 3? Since Father's thinking generally covers a matrix of 8 stages, one would also assume Article 3 would include at least a worldwide dimension, if not cosmic. In reading contemporary civics curricula one finds the term "global commons" used to denote the air, oceans and polar lands that transcend national boundaries. Father has often talked about the ocean as the last repository of the original purity of creation, so I would assume he would want that mentioned. I don't remember him ever talking about preserving the purity of the air or the polar lands.

(I've long wondered why Father doesn't get excited about visiting Antarctica. I've seen slides taken by people going on scientific cruise ships to visit the amazing wildlife on the near-polar islands and the incredible beauty of icebergs. Hasn't anyone told Father about this?)

I'm researching materials for the International Educational Foundation to convey Father's thought in terms of citizenship and social progress. Since one way to look at citizenship is how people live according to their constitution, it seems logical to use the framework of the three articles of the heavenly constitution. I'm calling them the three principles of citizenship:

(1) upholding the purity of lineage, which includes maintaining the heritage received from one's parents and ancestry (2) respecting human rights, based on people fulfilling their positions in the social order (3) wise stewardship of public resources, such as money, knowledge, power, and the environment

Has anyone given thought to an explanation of Article 1? Preserving the purity of one's lineage seems a very narrow way of explaining something that could have great breadth and depth: such as maintaining the heritage received from one's parents and ancestry.

I'm assuming that the earlier questions about human rights came from people who are researching how to present Article 2. (By the way, I'd like a copy of anything people have written to explain Father's vision of human rights.)

One could consider these three articles to be a non-theistic exposition of the 3 blessings. Unity is facilitated by centering everything on a vertical axis of lineage.

By the way, why is patriotism so important in the progression of virtues from filial piety to saint and holy son or daughter of God? Are national structures part of the original order of creation? I can understand the call to patriotism for citizens of nations assigned archetypal roles in restoration, but are these roles permanent designations in light of the Heavenly Constitution? What about people from nations not assigned an archetypal role--what is the well-spring of their patriotism?

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