World Peace Through Ideal Families
A memoir by Robert Beebe
Photo submitted by R. Beebe
Preface
“This is the way you must live: feeling God’s presence with you in every action, feeling that God is going before you.”
Rev. Sun Myung Moon
When one decides to write a memoir or autobiography of one’s life, that person is confronted with the question: Why? Why am I writing this? For whom am I writing it? And why would anyone, among the billions of people living in the world, be interested in reading my life story and reflections? As I set to writing, I wonder: who’s going to read this stuff? What should I talk about—mundane things about my daily life or high ideals? Is there a connection between the two?
For me, this memoir will have value insofar as it bespeaks a message that transcends any culture, if it reveals through my experiences and journey a truth that is universal in nature, which any person could understand and relate to. On the one hand, we are creatures of our own culture, language, beliefs, and time period, influenced by what has preceded us and around us. At the same time, as human beings, we all yearn for the same things: love, happiness, and beauty. This I have discovered to be true after having traveled the world (51 countries, to be exact). We have much more in common than we often realize.
Despite our common yearnings, we continue to live in a world of strife and confusion. People wander through life, asking “Where is God?” It has always seemed so. But through the Unification Movement and Divine Principle (DP), I have come to discover that God is very much alive and is with us no matter what we are going through, whether we realize it or not. I have come to see history and the world from God’s viewpoint and to understand the reality of God’s situation, which is:
God is not an almighty Lord sitting on a throne watching everything dispassionately, but a deeply loving Parent who rejoices with our successes and grieves with our failures.
Our movement’s founders, Rev. Sun Myung Moon and his wife Dr. Hak Ja Han, whom we call our True Parents, also have given me a profound understanding of the “essence of Jesus.” He was not only the Messiah, the Christ, but a new Adam, who was sent into this world to restore completely what was lost in the Garden of Eden due to the Fall of Adam and Eve. This means that he was meant to find his Eve and together create a True Family as the foundation for a new history multiplying God’s lineage on earth.
Tragically, the people of Israel did not realize that Jesus was the promised Messiah prophesied in the Old Testament and they sent him to the cross. His sacrifice and subsequent resurrection became the foundation for Christianity and the spiritual salvation it offers. However, this was a far cry from what God had originally intended, i.e., the establishment of His original ideal, the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth. The world has had to suffer through 2,000 more years of wars and violence of all kinds waiting for the Second Coming.
The concept of a Second Coming ought to give us pause: Why does Jesus need to return at all? What did he not accomplish 2,000 years ago that requires him to come again?
To understand what Jesus really wanted to do and what remains to be accomplished, we must know what was lost in the Garden. What if Adam and Eve had not eaten the fruit? In two places, the New Testament likens Jesus to Adam (Romans 5:19, I Corinthians 15:45). We might regard him as the Adam who did not eat the fruit. If so, who was his Eve? In other words, might the whole of God’s providence boil down to looking for a new Adam and Eve who would fulfill what the original ones could not?
Along this line of thinking, what if the people of Israel, who had been prepared by God for thousands of years to receive the Messiah, had realized Jesus was that very one? Obviously, then, he would not have been crucified. Might he have found his Eve and finally restore what was lost in the Garden? Because he could not, he must return to complete what he originally had come to do. In the context of the Second Coming, the Book of Revelation speaks of the Marriage of the Lamb in which the returning Messiah finds his bride (see Appendix A). God would have finally found his perfected Adam and Eve through whom that original ideal, lost so long ago, can finally begin.
The implication is that the Second Coming is all about establishing the kinds of ideal families that God had intended to start with Adam and Eve. As restored Adam and Eve, the returning Messiah and his wife will set the example and seek to multiply such families throughout the world. These families would be the seeds for the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth. Thus, the title for this book: World Peace Through Ideal Families. This is the essence of the Unification Movement.
In his autobiography, Rev. Moon explains the significance of marriage and family as such: Marriage is more than a simple coming together of a man and woman. It is a precious ceremony of commitment to carry on God’s work of creation. Marriage is the path by which a man and woman become as one, create new life, and establish true love. Through marriage, a new future is created: Societies are formed; nations are built. God’s world of peace is realized with married families at the center. It is in the family that God’s Kingdom of Heaven is brought about.
This memoir is a personal testimony of how God came into my life and guided me through its many stages from a shy kid in New England who, despite his academic successes, struggled with a lack of confidence to become a leader in various contexts and a public speaker. It has been a life of struggles, challenges, and victories. The greatest victory is depicted on the cover of this book: my marriage blessing to a wonderful wife and the subsequent building of a family of beautiful children and grandchildren.
The first two chapters covering my childhood and young adult life include short stories mostly written at a time when I was aspiring to be a writer. These stories, with slight modifications and written in italics, dramatize some of my early experiences in life. The rest is written in standard autobiographical format. Nearly all the photos herein contained are mine. This memoir ends in the present day with the continuing growth of a lineage of grandchildren and beyond. Enjoy!
Robert Beebe, July 2026