God’s Day 1982
By Robert Beebe
After coming to the seminary from MFT in the fall of 1981, this was my first chance to attend God’s Day at the New Yorker’s Grand Ballroom. I was assigned along with 13 other seminarian brothers to help with security during that time. Following are some reflections on that experience from my journal:
Father’s endurance is simply amazing. He began at midnight with a prayer and proceeded to speak to members for the next four and a half hours, devoting great attention to home church. The motto for 1982 was “Victory of Home Church.” The motto for each of the past four years had concerned home church. Father had been repeating this theme again and again. The fact that he kept speaking about this I took as a reflection of our not taking it seriously enough.
He began again at 8am with Pledge and a speech to Blessed Couples, which lasted until 10am. Then he spoke to the general church until 1pm—again about home church. At 7pm, he and Mother returned for the evening celebration at the Manhattan Center. Immediately afterwards, he conducted a meeting to select personnel for the new newspaper, the Washington Times. That lasted until 3am. Then, he was scheduled to address the MFT the next morning at 8am, followed by further Washington Times meetings.
Father’s conduct of the Times meeting was interesting to watch. After everyone sang a holy song, he entered the Grand Ballroom and immediately established his subjectivity and seriousness of purpose by taking the microphone stand from off the stage and walking into the crowd, scattering people before him. He set down the stand in the midst of everyone. This was to be a business meeting, not an entertaining speech.
He began by explaining the Unification Church’s task in this godless and chaotic world, how we had to establish God’s tradition politically, economically, and culturally, and how important it was, for the movement’s own survival, to establish our own network of marketing and distribution. First, we had to become autonomous economically. Then, we would be ready to tackle any task. Finally, he got around to talking about the media and our need to influence it.
As Father spoke, he struck some brothers and sisters on the head while making his points. Soon, one sister was in tears and he sent her away from him. Still, she cried and Father was visibly affected by it. Even as he conducted his business and spoke, his concern for her was so great. Several times he consoled her, saying he didn’t mean anything personally by hitting her, but that she had just been strategically sitting in the wrong spot. He would glance at her many times as he talked, always so sensitive to see how she was feeling.
The leaders present were as children with Father. They were strictly obedient to his command, although playful in their responses as well. Yet, their playfulness did not affect Father. He was absolutely serious and focused on what he was doing. He strolled around choosing this person, rejecting that one, asking for different kinds of qualifications, and consulting with leaders. He chose people from CARP, Ocean Church, state leaders, seminary graduates, and interested members, although UTS President David Kim would not let him touch the seminarians. We came through it all intact.
Earlier in the day, as part of the security team, I was watching Father speak from up in the projection room of the Grand Ballroom. From there, one gets a panoramic view of the entire setting—of a couple thousand well-dressed and colorful members amidst the bright splendor of the crystal chandeliers hanging in the high-ceiling white room. The scene was one of gaiety and love, where Father had imbued the room with his resonating voice and expressive body movement. At one point as he was speaking (with Colonel Bo Hi Pak translating), I took a stroll out of the projection room into another room that looked out onto Eighth Avenue below. The room had not been restored and was as grey and cold as the scene outside. The window was broken and it was raining. As I looked out upon the dreary scene, watching people scurrying to and fro, it dawned on me that here was a world almost totally oblivious to the fact that the Messiah, long hoped for and awaited by millions of people since the time of Jesus, was now speaking to anyone who cared to listen. The world I saw through that window stood in stark contrast to the heavenly atmosphere inside. At that moment, I felt God’s longing heart to embrace his lost children with his love and how much He was depending on us to be the vehicle for that to happen.
all photos from Robert Beebe