Unification Thoughts, September 2025
Reading last month’s lead article for this newsletter (Fifth Realm of Heart… ) was very encouraging. It pointed out an important teaching about Blessed Families that deserves more consideration. It reminded us of an idea that True Parents stressed largely in the 90s, three decades after the Divine Principle was published. By that time, Their grandchildren had grown, the 40-year course of the church had been completed and the Holy Community was at the doorstep of the post-Foundation Day, Chung Il Guk, Settlement Era. Befitting that, True Parents were guiding the Community into shifting its focus from living by the Principle of Restoration Through Indemnity to actualizing the Principle of Creation. And, as the newsletter’s Fifth Realm of Heart… article mentioned, there’s a role of critical importance for the first generation of the Holy Community to now fulfill. It’s much too large an idea to explain here, but you can find True Parents’ words on it here:
http://truelove.org/csg2/BOOK_3_TRUE_LOVE.html#bookmark03-2.
In addition, this newsletter had delved into this topic for almost three years, beginning at its inception in 2021.
A couple of years later, in June 2023, a remarkable, well-considered and deeply heartfelt article appeared in the final issue of the Applied Unification blog. It was entitled Patient Love is More Important Than Doctrine (https://appliedunificationism.com/2023/06/30/patient-love-is-more-important-than-doctrine/). As the comments following the article indicated, it provoked some soul-searching about the relationships between first generation community members and their children. It also implied some adjustments for future generations as well. It was a poignant reminder that love is greater than truth. The author is speaking as a gifted and expert presenter who, in hindsight, feels that—due to our earnestness but also our inexperience as parents—our generation might sometimes have been a bit heavy-handed with our children. And this idea sat in the back of my mind for a very long time.
I eventually realized that something disturbed me and it slowly distilled in my mind what it was. It’s that if—in an effort to focus on loving—we downplay truth too far, we risk the possibility of downplaying the importance of our uniquely valuable scriptures and of accommodating inadequate appreciation, understanding and therefore practice of them. And at that point, we can merge with the rest of well-meaning humanity who are easily confused or misled by popular but unprincipled ideas. Godism is very clear about specific values and its teachings about them are detailed and substantial. Its ideals are outlined in the first 40 or so pages of Exposition of the Divine Principle. That might have been adequate for the Wilderness Era, when it was useful to have a bit of vision of what was at stake. But in the present age, we can see that much more is needed in order to proceed successfully and correctly. That is why OSDP was floated and especially why so many of the books in both versions of Cheon Seong Gyeong’s Table of Contents (2006, 2014) focus on expanding our understanding of the ideals of Creation.
If the Journal of Unification Studies still existed or was still read, I’d have posted my comment there and strongly supported the sixth Key to Success that appeared in the list of recommendations at the article’s conclusion. But that 2023 article was the blog’s final one. And so I could only think of what my response to the article would have been.
This is one of the things that triggered thoughts about the importance of The Word and thus the injunction of True Parents—as well as the founders and leaders of other religions—to cherish and study their scriptures and guide their lives by the loving wisdom those provide us.
Regarding appreciation of a movement’s scriptures, in our tradition there’s a particular Holy Song that comes to mind. It’s The Father’s Dwelling Place and its chorus goes to the heart of the matter:
May the Word of God, in my heart resound
So eternally, to receive His love | joy | praise
We shall be His pride and delight
Children of the Living God
Into the Garden of Eden regained
Let’s go marching | singing | dancing together!
The chorus celebrates that—with the Word of God alive in our hearts—we first marched, inspired by His love; next we sing, inspired by His praise; and finally we’ll dance, inspired by His joy.
So, as the grandparents of our Blessed Families, we can hope, pray and try to not only represent God’s love to our descendants, but also be the ones who can provide loving guidance based on truth, not only when it’s needed, but with the wisdom and sensitivity of how best to do it. In True Parents’ explanation of the Realm of Grandparents’ Love, They make it clear that God depends on us to be His representative in each and every one of our Four Position Foundations. As last month’s newsletter headlined, at this stage of our lives, we can be Rediscovering Our Calling As Grandparents.