Sunday Sermon at New Hope Family Church
Sept. 21, 2008
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Good morning. Good morning. It's truly my honor to be here with everybody this morning at the New Hope Academy. I remember this school when it was first purchased, seeing it grow and develop over the years, and having had many memorable meetings here – I think the last one being that I was here for the Dr. Park tour. I'm once again touched by Washington's embrace and Washington's love, welcoming my family here.
I spent a beautiful hoon dok hae with a group of young people, your children. I got a chance to meet every one of them, and I got a chance to hear about what they're doing in their lives. As I got to know every one of these beautiful ladies and gentlemen, I realized that we really do have something special here. Our 2nd generation are really so precious, and their hearts and their smiles, and the sparkle in their eyes is almost like a fountain of youth for me. It makes me feel young again.
This morning we got to enjoy the oldies but goodies along with a newcomer, Larry Moffitt's son. Even after all these years Dan still has that sparkle in his eyes. Frank Grow is a bit grayer, but still exciting as ever. You know, I realized that this is what makes our community beautiful. We have the old, we have the young. We have the Asian, we have the Western. We have the big, we have the skinny. We have maybe a lot of, here in Washington, financially well-off couples, and some couples that are just starting out and struggling. But this is in a way what makes us who we are. We are all children of God, and we were all hand touched by True Parents in one way or another.
And when I see the 2nd generation... I was telling them this morning, "You guys are so special because you are literally hand-picked by our True Parents." I know that for one thing my children would not be here had my parents not introduced or shoved me down the aisle to meet my husband. They would not be here. All of your children would not be here otherwise. But then I saw something exciting happen. I've met all these young couples who are just recently blessed. Even Rev. Jenkins' son went off to STF in Europe and came back with a wife. They seemed very much in love.
I said to my husband, "Wow. You know. I thought the 1st generation was missing out on something profoundly wonderful, which is the notion of romantic love. Right? We got blessed because we believed in creating a worldwide family, and we have never met our spouses before. Or maybe some of them knew their spouses and maybe were not attracted to them at all, but because we believed in the higher values of life, we walked down the aisle with our spouses.
But in this day and age, because of the sacrifices and the foundation that the 1st generation have laid, the 2nd and the 3rd generation have this incredible opportunity not only to receive the most precious thing in life, which is the blessing, but also to experience and enjoy romantic love. My husband and I were terribly excited because we would love to see that with our own children. We would love to see the world coming together in our individual family.
At this time Father asked me to spend some time with the members. Actually I was thinking about cancelling this Washington event because True Parents are in Alaska right now, so I asked True Parents, "I just finished meeting with the members in New Jersey and I'm scheduled to meet with the members in Washington, D.C., but you're in Alaska. Should I come and greet you?" Father said, "Washington is very important. Washington has always been a very, very important city, so you must go and you must comfort and take care of the members, and remind them how important Washington is to God's providence." So that's why I'm here. (Applause.)
When I think about Washington, and when I think about America - I often talk to my children and to my friends, "What does America mean to us Americans?" Maybe those of you who were raised and grew up here don't really realize what America means to the rest of the world, but America is the land of dreams. It's a land where anybody can come and, based upon their hard work, based upon their desire to move up in society or to get an education, you can accomplish anything that your heart desires. You can be poor, you can arrive with nothing in your pocket, which a lot of Korean missionaries have done who came to this country, but because of their dedication and their persistence and their devotion became the richest people on earth, became the movers and shakers of Capitol Hill, became future presidents. Obama came from a single-parent home. But who would have ever thought when Martin Luther (King) was giving his "I Have a Dream" speech that now we'd be seeing a presidential candidate who's African American? It's just absolutely incredible what can be accomplished in this country.
For the rest of the world you are this country of dreams, you are this country of opportunity. We are so blessed to actually live our lives here, and we are so blessed to have enjoyed our True Parents here for the last couple of decades. (Applause.) They've spent many years of their lives loving you and taking care of you and inspiring you and encouraging you to become great men and women of God, and they brought all of us, my brothers and sisters, to learn your language, to become Americans, if you will, to learn to love America more than my own country.
When I saw this love that my parents had for America while I was growing up... and I still have this vivid memory of a vibrant community of young American men and women. For a child who just arrived in America, coming from a country where everyone's hair is black and everyone's eyes are black, to a whole new culture where you have all these different varieties of people, blonde hair, brunettes, red-heads - for the first time I saw – and all these people just coming and listening and being drunk with the message of true love and with the vision of wanting to create ideal families, and with a dream that they're going to raise great kids. That's the memory of the American membership that I have from when I was growing up.
Yes, over the years we've become a little grayer, and maybe some of us have become a little bit tired, too. I know that many of you suffered quite a bit. But I am hoping that at this incredibly important providential time when True Parents are asking the elder son nation of America to really rise up and fulfill its providential destiny, which is to, in a way, exercise power for God... America is a superpower. America has incredible power over many, many other countries of the world. When you study political science 101, one of the first things that the teacher tells you is, "Power? How do you define power? You define power by saying it's the ability to influence." When America is a superpower, it has an incredible responsibility to have that great good influence for the rest of the world by, in a way, becoming that great country that God wanted to see.
Here in this hall we have a community of Unificationists, and I would like to ask you to maybe take this moment to think about, "What kind of a community are we all about?" When I meet different members and different second generations, one of the things they are always asking me is, "I'm always thinking about an "elevator pitch". How do you define what our movement is in that short time span when you take the elevator up to the first, to the seventh, or to the fourth or whatever floor you're headed towards?" A lot of my outside friends or aquantancies or colleagues have asked me that very question, "What do you believe in? What are you all about? What is Rev. Moon all about? What is the Unification Church all about?" One of the things that I always say to them is, "Well, we believe that Jesus Christ appeared before my Father on Easter Sunday morning and asked him to fulfill his mission. And what is that mission? That mission is to carry on what Jesus could not do because of the crucifixion – that is to find a beautiful wife, to create an ideal family, and to share that message with the rest of the world."
When I say something like that, people usually kind of step back and say, "Wow! I thought you guys were all about brainwashing. Where is the brainwashing in what you guys believe in? I never knew your faith is based upon the Christian teachings, or that you are thinking that you're actually fulfilling Jesus' mission, that he was not able to fulfill because his life was cut short."
Then when they're interested, they will ask me more questions, "What's with the Adolf Hitler manseis that I see on TV all the time?" I always love to tell them, "Mansei in Korean means hip-hip hooray, or literally it means 10,000 years of luck." Then they say, "Wow! I never knew that." Then when they've come to our most recent gathering, they ask me, "What's this thing about Aju? Why don't you say amen?" My response is much easier in the United States than anywhere else in the world. Because I reply that my parents say that America is the elder son country, and have proclaimed America as the second Israel. So in a way, it's "a Jew." (Laughter, applause.) And because historically the Jewish people have given us such a hard time, it's a way for us to remind ourselves to love the Jewish community and to invite our Jewish brothers and sisters in. And for those of us who are already Jewish and a member, well, it's a reminder to say, "Wow! Heavenly Father really loves us!' " (Applause.)
So when you take somebody who's never known our movement, or somebody who was naturally negatively disposed towards our movement, to an elevator ride, and you open the elevator to their floor, many times they don't want to leave. Then when they find out that I'm a mother with five kids, they really don't want to leave. They want to take me to coffee and ask about my life.
One of the things I feel in our own lives of faith is that, whenever you have a new continental leader or a new shift in leadership, there's always an emphasis on what's the new push, new push. The wonderful Dr. and Mrs. Pyung Hwa Kim, who have done incredible work for True Parents in the Philippines and in Taiwan, have done an incredible work welcoming many many thousands and thousands of members into our fold. When I first met them, they said, In Jin nim, our huge push must be witnessing. I said, "Yes, that's really wonderful. And witnessing is incredibly important. But you know, this is not the Philippines, this is not Taiwan. American young people are quite well versed in their own knowledge when it comes to Eastern religions. So to think that we're going to take the example of how many of you joined the church, being met while backpacking across the United States and being invited for a weekend seminar, some of you to Camp K and some of you to 43rd street, and then coming to know the movement that way and being awestruck at realizing that the Messiah is really here and all of that, is wonderful." But at the same time I told Dr. and Mrs. Kim, "The world has changed quite a bit since then. There have been many, many efforts to, in a way, re-start or re-energize the witnessing campaigns over the years. No matter how honest or how genuine these peoples' heartistic attitudes were, the results were not forthcoming. It's because our generation has changed."
They were talking about a target audience of between 18 and 35 years old, the young professionals, or college age kids. I said, "Dr. and Mrs. Kim, most of these kids have something that we never had when we were their age. That is, they have the Web, they have the Internet. I don't know how many young people I've met through my children, and because I'm a musician I've met so many young musicians who in a way came to find their own religion on the Web. Many have told me, I don't like being preached to. I don't like being told what is right or wrong. I like to find what I'm feeling in the quiet of my own office or my own room."
I asked Dr. and Mrs. Kim, "Shouldn't our first focus in terms of witnessing be in a way an overhauling of what our movement is all about? (Applause.) And especially in a way overhauling the image of the Unification Church, or the presence of Unification Church on the Web? (Applause.) Because I know for a fact, I can have great meetings with people, and then the next day they'll call me back and say, 'You know, I Googled some things about your dad, and – whow.' I say, 'Okay, you got the negative lowdown, so come back and let me give you the other side.' I realized how incredibly powerful the Web is and how much negativity is out there."
So one of the first things I said to Dr. and Mrs. Kim was, "I want to focus my energy on cleaning up the Web, so that when people type in Unification Church or Rev. Sun Myung Moon, the good stuff comes up, as well as what they have already." (Applause.)
And then I said, "The next thing that I would like to emphasize to our brothers and sisters is the importance of natural witnessing. What do I mean by that? When you're out on the pavement and you want to teach people about the word of God, or the fact that the Messiah is here on earth, that's great. And I've done that, too. I've gone the course of fund-raising and witnessing for many many years. But I realized that as a mother of five the most effective and the most long-lasting way to witness is what I call natural witnessing. And that is if we truly have something special here, if what our True Parents have taught us is the word of God. And here they've talked for so many years about building ideal families, about one family under God."
But I've often asked different people, "What does One Family Under God look like to you?"
To me it's many many things, but the most important thing is that if we're going to be one family under God, then that means that each and every one of our families needs to be ideal, needs to be beautiful, needs to be shining, needs to be an inspiration. So I know that for so many years. And Rev. Jenkins honestly said to me, "You know, for the last 24 years we really haven't been focusing on our communities because we've been so event-driven and we always had a deadline that we needed to meet."
But I, coming from the perspective of a woman and as a mother, I would like to take this opportunity to, in a way, encourage all the mothers in the audience to basically say, "My most important mission is taking care of my kids. My most important mission is raising up these future leaders that are going to change the world. I am raising world-changers, and I am raising my children to be an agent of change, to be something greater."
And being a mother, I must say to you that actually touring with True Parents and attending speeches is a whole lot more exciting than thinking about your grocery list, and about what detergent you want to buy because you want to save some money here and there, or making sure your checkbook is balanced, and thinking about what program I'm going to provide for my child. It's an all-consuming lifestyle. You're literally there at the mercy of your children. Thank God I have such wonderful kids, but it's really, really tough work. And it's a thankless job. You don't really see the reward of what you're putting in until many, many years later, sometimes many decades later. And some children go the easy path and some children go the difficult path. But the "thank you, mom and dad" comes much, much later.
So I can see how so many of the mothers, especially Korean mothers, they're so excited to just dovetail into what our True Parents are doing, "I am following True Parents! Husband, you take care of the children. I'm doing this important thing, so, mum, take care of my kids!" That's the way a lot of us were raised. When I think about my family, I had eight different nannies before I came to America. Can you imagine? Just when you're getting comfortable with a nanny, you get a new one. And I think a lot of blessed children grew up that way, too. Their parents were never there, and many of them had to fend for themselves.
And growing up in the '80s and '90s was not that easy. We received a lot of persecution. The branding of our movement was haywire; it was very, very negative. People's image of what we're all about was just awful – they said we're deceptive people, we brainwash people, we break families apart, we enslave people. But the real gist of the message, the message of true love, of wanting to build ideal families, of having this concept of a universal family, One Family Under God, is something that to this day I get excited about.
And when I have a chance to share it with my outside friends and now my collegues in the media and entertainment world, you know, they said to me, "Wow! What you are saying is really up to the millennials (generation)." And the millenials, what are they about? Everything is about "show me!" It's a "show me" generation. "Show me the money, what can you do for me?" But if you really understand what True Parents are asking us to be, what they're asking us to be is to raise up a generation of peace, peace-loving individuals, that recognize the importance of interracial harmony, of interreligious dialogue, of intercultural appreciation. Here we have the West and the East. We have the best of both worlds. Here we have a parent or a family where within a family setting the children can bow to their parents in gratitude. Where the parents, out of their love and desire to love and understand their children, invite them to come and talk to them.
In the Eastern tradition you can not talk to your parents. They do all the talking and you do all the listening. But in our community we have the horizontal and we have the vertical. Many times when I experience the families of my outside friends, I realize that they spend a great deal of time trying to be their children's best friends, thereby giving up the parental role. And then they ask me, "Why do my children not listen to me?"
And so many times I explain to them, "One of the wonderful things about this movement is, we have an element of both, an appreciation of the Eastern culture, an appreciation of the Western culture. And in a way this is God's way of allowing us to glean the best, take from the best and learn and become a tapestry. What we are doing is weaving a tapestry of life, and at this time a tapestry of peace."
In New York City where I work at the Manhattan Center, we just had an anniversary of 9/11 for the New York Police Department. They had a huge parade coming down 34th Street and they all lined into the Manhattan Center. When I saw the young men and women that make up the New York Police Department, I was reminded of the firemen who rushed in (to save people), even though the buildings were coming down on them. I said to my husband, "These people are America at their best. The thousands of men and women who gave their lives to allow my country of Korea to have our True Father here... When the allied forces landed and saved my father from execution..." I said ,"These men and women who haven given their lives because they believed in a higher purpose, the men and women who are fighting overseas, believe in the importance of freedom, believe in the importance of democratic institutions, they're giving up their lives for something greater. And these policemen and firemen who literally gave their lives on 9/11 were doing the same thing because they were patriots who believed in America. When I see people exercising their belief system in their daily lives, there is nothing more inspiring to me."
I said to my husband, " These are the best of New York City, and on this anniversary I cannot help but feel that what we went through on 9/11 was because of religious fanatics in the name of religion wanting to harm and kill Americans." I said to my husband, "How can it be that the world has come to this situation where people are literally killing each other in the name of religion and want to hurt America in the name of God and religion? How are we going to settle this problem? It seems like the more powerful America gets, the richer America gets, and the more it becomes an envy of the world, it just becomes more of a target. Because we have so much, America has been so blessed.
How can we, as Americans, young and old, come to a place in our lives where we have to basically say to ourselves, "What kind of world are we leaving for our children?" I ask that question every day. I said, "What difference is my life going to make for the future of my children?" I always say to myself, "If there's one thing I can do, I want to be a great mother. And if there's another thing I can do, I want to raise a generation of peace, where in the knowledge of God's love and in the knowledge of the great vision of One Family Under God we can remind ourselves with true understanding and a true appreciation of each other's culture, of each other's strength and weakness, and how, by coming together, we can create an incredible, incredible gift for God, which is the tapestry of our lives."
So in my daily life, and in the daily lives of my children there are a couple of things that we do every day. I always ask them, "Think about three different action points that you would like to accomplish today. One wonderful way to start off your day is with a sense of gratitude, and what better way to start the day than to thank God and your parents. And what are you thanking them for? For your life, for this opportunity to celebrate life, to practice true love, and to experience living for the sake of others."
When I've heard these words said to me during many, many workshops that I've endured, "Living for the sake of others," I said, "For a child of 15 or 16 it's not too inspiring. Does living for the sake of others mean I totally deny myself, totally kill myself or totally reject what I'm all about? If I am a vessel of God, then shouldn't it matter what I might want to do with my life?" Then once it came to me in my moment of silence, and I said to my husband, "I was really having a tough time with this concept of living for the sake of others because it somehow it felt like a denial. It somehow felt like I was denied a certain kind of lifestyle because I wanted to think about others. But actually I realized that living for the sake of others means fulfilling your life. You have to live first before you can serve others. We have to be breathing before we can reach out and touch somebody. We have to be walking, eating, happy, and we have to be financially independent. We have to live a successful life before we can live our lives for others properly."
I said to my husband, "You know, I realize that many of the 1st generation were struggling with this concept of living for the sake of others because many of us were literally dying for the sake of others. We were dying for the sake of our spouse. We were dying for the sake of our children. We were dying, many of us, for the sake of our Korean leaders. We felt enervated, we felt our inspiration dissipating. We were wondering, what kind of a life is this? What kind of a life is living for the sake of others?"
But if you really, truly understand what Father has been trying to teach us, and has been trying to encourage us all these years, he was trying to tell us, we have to live for the sake of others. We have to live, live, first. And then you can take care of other members in your community.
Everybody knows....Those of the 1st generation who have gone through emotional therapy, psychological therapy, marriage counselling, (you) know that if you are empty as a human being, there is very little you can do in terms of giving, right? So if you're dying for the sake of others, there's not that much to give. But if you are living for the sake of others and you are truly filled with the Holy Spirit and you are truly filled with the joy that you see in your children's eyes because you know they're the best students in their schools, you know they're going to be the future Rhodes scholars, the most brilliant musicians, and you know that because you enrolled your child in a film class when they were in elementary school you see the making of a future Steven Spielberg, then you realize that you're living for the sake of others. At the same time, you're breathing and you're dreaming again.
I mean, if we truly are going to live, we cannot forget our dreams. And it doesn't matter how old we get. I tell my kids, "No matter how old your mommy gets, I'm still going to be an 80-year old firecracker with a lot of dreams in her eyes." (Applause.) And I'm going to encourage my children and my grandchildren to dream big, to dream, again, of changing the world. For those of you who are tired, I don't know if you realize, but quite a few changes have been taking place in our movement, right? All you beautiful, capable, talented American sisters in the audience, who were berated by our True Father – do you remember the "American woman" speeches? I remember them very, very well. Every time you guys got it, my brothers would turn to me and my sisters, and say, "Yeah, yeah, it's true. American sisters. Did you hear that? Did you hear that?" (Laughter.) We would literally die, Ye Jin onni and Un Jin and me. We would write notes to each other like, "Oh my goodness, that person's getting it pretty bad."
But see, God works in mysterious ways. One thing I didn't tell my father recently is the fact that I became a naturalized citizen of this country. So when my father asked me to become the chairperson of Family Federation for World Peace and HSA, I'm you. I'm an American woman. I'm an American sister. (Applause.) So I feel like I'm standing on top of all the love that you invested in True Parents and into the mission. And by being berated by Father, I feel like now this is your opportunity to play an active role in our lives of faith. So not just as sisters now. Many of you are mothers with kids in tow, and many of them well into their 20s and looking toward their 30s. So, American sisters, what are we going to do for this great country of America? If this country is truly a country of dreams, is truly a great country that wields this incredible power as a superpower of the world and has the ability to influence the world, shouldn't we as mothers have a voice in how we want to raise our children? Or how we want to help the young people of this country to wield that power properly for the rest of the world? I ask that question every day.
I never forget that America is the elder son country. When I came to work at Manhattan Center, I was filling, in a way, the role left vacant because my elder brother passed away. I feel like everything that I'm doing now is something that he would have done as the eldest son. And truly as the passionate and incredibly powerful person that my brother was, he had a character that could incite inspiration, but also incite fear. I feel many times like my brother was misunderstood because he was so passionate. What was he passionate about? He realized firsthand the effect that media and entertainment had on his life, and he realized that it has an enormous effect on his friends. And he realized that America is literally suffering under the cult of celebrity.
I was telling the young adults at hoon dok hae this morning, "Why is it that Nelson Mandela is being given the Nobel Peace Prize? Yes, he has suffered in prison, but our True Father has gone to prison six times, and twice thrown out of concentration camps and left for dead. My father has invested billions and billions into this country. Just $2 billion alone with the Washington Times itself. Also numerous hospitals around the world. But more than that, my father and mother have given a spiritual vision to re-inspire the young Americans, and Americans as a whole, to understand America's providential destiny, to understand the responsibility it has towards the world, because it is so powerful."
So when I think about my brother and about how passionate he was about media and entertainment, part of the thing that I wanted to do with Family Federation and HSA is to think about how we want to re-package ourselves as a movement. And I think re-packaging starts by taking everything apart and taking a fresh perspective at what we have and what we are. Yes, outreach witnessing is wonderful. But I feel that the best witnessing starts when we as individual people and as individual couples and as ideal families can practice this natural witnessing, by living our lives for the sake of others, really living and not dying, and in a way giving our children this opportunity to basically see life really as a gift. It's a gift or an opportunity to find your passion, to be as passionate about something as my brother was, to be passionate and be the best. So if you make the best chocolate chip cookies, like Debbie Fields – and I'm a frequent customer, so I should know – then be the best. And at the same time make sure it makes economic sense.
So you take your passions and specialize in something that is uniquely you. Every one of us sitting here in the audience is uniquely talented, is uniquely gifted. Our lives are an opportunity to kind of express who we're all about, who you are all about. As a mother, I feel like my job is almost like a casting director. I have a movie with roles to fill. I look at my son Paxton, he's a really great reader and writer. Maybe he can be the next Shakespeare. And Truxton here, he's a fantastic chef. I plead that it's because of these two young munchies that I can never seem to get in shape because they keep on baking me wonderful desserts and all these baked goods. I can never say no. I said, "You guys might be on Iron Chef one day. You might compete with Mario Battoli there and beat him. That would be fascinating."
Or encourage those who are talented in music, not to just goof off and jam and use music as an excuse to socialize. Don't get in trouble and start drinking, doing things behind your parents' backs. If you really love music, be a virtuoso. If you really love the guitar, be the next Jeff Beck, the next Santana, and at the same time do it for God. And if you are great in singing, it doesn't matter what you want to sing about. Find a voice that's uniquely you and get an education and be the best at what you want to be.
The young people of today, because of your parents' sacrifice, you have an incredible future ahead of you. You have romantic love waiting for you. You have the ability to fall in love and be introduced to somebody that you're attracted to. Now that's something profound, isn't it? Or somebody that you might have a chemistry with, or somebody that you might enjoy doing something with. You guys have that opportunity because your parents laid a wonderful, wonderful foundation of living for the sake of others, and hopefully not dying for the sake of others.
Then if we can empower our youth to be the best in their classrooms, so they become Ambassadors of Peace, they become ambassadors of True Parents, they become your ambassadors in their classrooms, in their internships, in their jobs, in their careers, wherever they are, then there is no reason why we should be always in a position of inviting prominent people to come. We can raise these future prominent men and women of God. (Applause.) We can raise the next president, we can raise the future Martin Luther Kings. We can raise the future Gandhis. We can raise the future Mother Theresa. All these people are incredible, incredible examples of the human persistence, if you will, and the human devotion to something greater than themselves, which is a vision and which is a dream.
If we ourselves, the 1st generation, can be re-inspired and realize what we are holding in our hands... we have precious vessels that are going to be incredible representatives of True Parents to the world. And if we can really encourage them to seek excellence, not just in our spiritual lives, but external excellence as well, then it's just a matter of time before the world comes to realize, "Wow! True Parents are really hip (great) people. They are really quite awesome. Now they are inviting all of us to be True Parents, to have a crack at building ideal families." Then one step at a time, through our natural witnessing, people coming to ask questions like, "Why are your kids so incredible? How is it that they're so respectful toward their grandparents?"
I recently met an STF-er named Matthew who told me about taking a walk with some of his friends near Father's trail at Unification Theological Seminary. A woman approached him, asking about the trail. Matthew not only took her to the trail, but took such good care of her that the woman asked, "How are you guys so different from other teenagers? What organization do you belong to? Where did you learn these things?"
And I said to my husband, "That's the power of natural witnessing. You've already won them over, made them experience what's truly remarkable about our community." So this is really not a time to be lost, not a time to wonder where our future is going to go. Because you guys sitting here in the context of providential history are going to be the St. Marks, St. Pauls, Mother Theresas for the future. What you do today will determine what the future will be. How we raise our children today will determine what kind of a world we're going to leave for our children when we naturally pass on.
I have made a wristband for the 2nd generation, and also for the 1st generation, and for some 3rd generation, as a constant reminder that we need to be a generation of peace, a generation where we are breathing God, and where we are celebrating life, fighting against anything that is violent – violence to oneself, to one's home, to one's community, and toward one's country. Please feel free on your way out to take a wristband for yourself. I hope it can be a reminder. It's really up to you to say to yourselves, "What do I want to do?"
I told my children, "You can start off a global petition together with a group of friends. Ask them, 'Do you want to wear this bracelet? It means you love God and you're celebrating life, you're going to live your life for the sake of others, exercising true love, and you're against violence. It's like a reminder of where we must not go, which is the re-enactment of 9/11 on American soil.' " I told Paxton, "You're just 11 years old, but you yourself could start this global petition, and it could be a worldwide petition. Or maybe in high school you could start a mural project – what does peace look like to a 7th grader? What does peace mean to a 9th grader? Or write an essay and send it to your congressman, visit your representatives on Capitol Hill."
There's so much you can do. Don't ever think that somehow you're limited by your age, or limited by your situation. Whatever you do will be yours alone and it will be that much more meaningful if you can start something that will change your life and that will change the lives of your friends and the lives of your community.
I really pray that you will have a wonderful week. I encourage you to participate in your children's lives.
One of the things I would like to do is break down the barriers or the walls you might have felt in regard to True Family. We're people just like you, and we do need a hug every now and then, so bring it on. It will be wonderful to hear from you as to how I can do a better job at where I am in New York. I look forward to many many years of happiness and living for the sake of others, starting with ourselves. Thank you very much. (Applause.)