Author: Richard Urban

Cheon Seong Gyeong 2249

    If parents, motivated by true love, invest in and sacrifice themselves infinitely for their children, those children will feel infinite gratitude for having received this true love and their parents will experience great joy in place of their sacrifice. In this way, the power of sacrificial true love initiates a give and take action that establishes an eternal relationship of joy and peace in the true family and world. It is here that the ideal world of eternal life is manifested.
    On the other hand, the family, nation and world that lack such true love are nothing more than an empty shell, and will become the breeding grounds of all manner of distrust, animosity, and immorality.
    It is in the true family that our pure, true love grows and is perfected. The true family is the initial stage on which true parental love, true conjugal love, true filial love and true fraternal love are put into practice, and jointly grow to fruition. The true family is the fundamental nucleus of a peaceful world, for it is here that we learn about God’s true love through true parental love; it is here that we are trained by means of true fraternal love to acquire true universal love for the true nation and for all people of the true world. Not only that, but the true family is the basic unit of historical connection, for it is through true love being handed down from parent to child that the generations of past, present, and future are connected together in a consistent value system of true love. (288-199, 1997.11.28)

Cheon Seong Gyeong 766

Our life is too short. Ten years can pass and we are barely aware of it. Everything will be decided within thirty years after your marriage. In this way, the path of life does not wait for you. It is busy going on its own way. We all have to die some day. Do you think you won’t die? Can you be sure that you won’t die? You have to die. Where do you go after death? Do you know that there is a spirit world? I am staking my entire life on this work because of the spirit world – because I know the spirit world – even as I manage the entire world. Life on this earth is but an instant. It is like the ten months you spend in your mother’s womb. (143-333, 1986.3.21)

Society

Exemplary Leadership

2. A Leader Strives to Be a True Parent, a True Teacher and a True Owner

Now a bishop must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, sensible, dignified, hospitable, an apt teacher, no drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, and no lover of money. He must manage his own household well, keeping his children submissive and respectful in every way; for if a man does not know how to manage his own household, how can he care for God’s church?
    1 Timothy 3.2-5 Continue reading “Our Life Is Too Short”

Cheon Seong Gyeon 2268

The ultimate goal of God’s Kingdom is the perfection of true families. Within true families, there must be the ideal of a true nation and world. The term absolute sex emerges here as the tradition of true love that can influence a true world and nation. Absolute sex refers to that which is absolute, unique, unchanging, and eternal. Everything that has to do with being harmonized in love with a reciprocal partner to whom you are linked through love – an attribute of God – is bound together in sexual relations. (281-282, 1997.3.9)
Richard: In a nutshell, this is the core teaching of True Father Sun Myung Moon.

Cheon Seong Gyeong 997

You have to long for God until your eyes feel like crumbling and your nose is full and stuffy. If a person cries excessively, his chest aches. That’s how much you have to long for God. Even when crying out, “Father,” you have to say it as if you were a son who is being dragged to the execution ground or as a son who is leaving for a far off country. In order to call out “Heavenly Father,” we must have a higher standard than that. (50-288, 1971.11.8)

Society

Exemplary Leadership

THE BEST LEADERS ARE THEMSELVES EXAMPLES of virtue and righteousness. A society will be blessed when its elite members—politicians, business leaders, professors, celebrities and sports heroes—recognize their duty to be examples of honesty, integrity and morality. When they become role models, the common people will naturally follow their example.
We can identify three aspects of exemplary leadership. First, it begins in the family. The manner in which a leader cares for his or her spouse and children and manages the household is the starting point for his or her work in the wider spheres of government and social responsibility.
Second, it is leadership that governs by educating hearts and minds. In China, Confucius and his followers set forth the ideal of exemplary leadership against the views of Legalists who taught that leadership flowed from law and its vigorous enforcement— “power by the barrel of the gun” as Mao Zedong would later put it. Confucius countered that all the state’s power would not banish discontent if the leaders were corrupt; on the contrary, the people would only learn violence and oppression.
These qualities of exemplary leadership are summarized in Father Moon’s teaching called the Three Subjects Thought. The standard of leadership is to be a “true parent, true teacher and true owner.” Such leaders partake of the nature of God, our Heavenly Father, who superintends this world as its Owner, cares for all its creatures with deep parental love, and continually educates us to the true way of life.

1. An Exemplary and Virtuous Personal Life

If a ruler himself is upright, all will go well even though he does not give orders. But if he himself is not upright, even though he gives orders, they will not be obeyed.
    Analects 13.6 (Confucianism) Continue reading “The Best Leaders Are Themselves Examples of Virtue”