Address to World Summit 2020, Seoul, Korea, February 3-8, 2020
Beloved, Esteemed and Exemplary Women Leaders who hold the highest positions around the globe,
I am honored to be in the presence of so many wonderful and amazing women, especially, our co-sponsor, Madame Debbie Remengesau, the First Lady of Palau, along with all the members of the Women’s Federation for World Peace (WFWP), our honored and cherished global sisterhood, as well as the World Summit 2020 hosts, namely, the Universal Peace Federation (UPF) and our beloved True Parents. Thank you all for your support and your valiant attendance here today in spite of all the dangers afflicting our globe.
True heroes are the ones who live for the sake of others, even at the risk of their own lives. I believe I am witnessing in the World Summit 2020, such a revered global team of superheroes. Wonder woman pales in comparison, when matched to the powerhouse of female strength in this room, uniting to save the world and realizing peace on earth! I salute you all and am delighted to join the pack!
I am also overjoyed to welcome you all to the International Association of First Ladies for Peace (IAFLP) here in the Korean homeland of our benevolent hosts! We are celebrating the centennial birthday of the esteemed, global peace-loving visionary the Reverend Dr. Sun Myung Moon, as well as the 77th birthday of my beloved mother, our heavenly super hero and venerated global peace trailblazer, Dr. Hak Ja Han Moon. I would like to convey to you their heartfelt best wishes, love and congratulations.
I am deeply inspired by the growth of WFWP and its blossoming into this next glorious chapter, our sister branch of IAFLP. We are standing on the proud legacy and powerful shoulders of the 27-year history of WFWP’s accomplishments as a movement, with established, highly respected chapters around the world. With IAFLP, we are reaching to the highest levels of growth and bringing about a peaceful, balanced, harmonious change for all humankind and creation.
As many of you know, my parents, Rev. Sun Myung Moon and Dr. Hak Ja Han Moon, devoted their lives to promoting a vision of universal peace based on the principle of living for the sake of others. They continuously spoke of creating one family under God, a world in which we all live together as brothers and sisters, members of one global family who share a common origin in God, our Heavenly Parent.
Celebrating their 60th holy wedding anniversary, my father in heaven and my amazing mother on earth are working tirelessly side by side, absolutely devoted and steadfast to their global mission to bring peace to this world! They are guided by our Heavenly Parent’s dream and vision for peace, universal values, interdependence, and mutual prosperity for all generations to come.
I am deeply honored and proud to serve, with all of you, in supporting and carrying forward my mother’s foundation, opening a new era in which the long-awaited shift towards balance and dignity for all womankind and families shall be realized.
Although we all come from different backgrounds, we also have much that we share in common. For example, regardless of our religion, race, status, gender, make or mold, we all strive to create love, joy, happiness, goodness, positive relationships and give-and-take partnerships with family, friends, communities, and with creatures large and small. We aspire to live in harmony and beauty with creation. This is our ideal.
Actually, the reason we all hope and dream to live a life filled with love, joy, oneness, and peace is because we inherited that desire from God.
However, although love is the explosive, transcending energy that empowers and inspires all of us and creation, can we say that this current world reflects or manifests this original ideal?
Sadly, we understand all too well that the answer is no. Everywhere we look, we see that humanity is divided, and the divisions seem to be growing exponentially wider. Sometimes it seems like we are living in a nightmare rather than a peace-loving dream. But sometimes, even if we don’t want to hear the sad truths, we must know them in order to resolve them. So bear with me as I will make you suffer a bit with these truths.
We see inequity, ignorance, corruption, crime, and division tear apart our homes, schools, workplaces, governments, churches, and institutions. Tragically, we also see how a fractured world that is driven by revenge, hate, fear, greed, and deep-seated historical rage, fed by unjust persecution, violence, war, and conflict, often generates a cycle of violence that spirals out of control.
Walls of nationalisms are swinging to replace global cooperation. We see trade wars and economic instability, sanctions, threats of war, refugee crises, religious intolerance, poverty, mass migration, and endless suffering mounting up, with no peaceful solution in sight.
At the same time, we also hear the valiant cries and voices of courageous women speaking out—Me, Too and Time’s Up—taking a stand against domestic violence, sexual abuse, sexual harassment, and inequity against women. And yet, despite all courageous efforts, globally and domestically, violence and inequity against women remains a sad reality.
An even sadder reality is that the abuse is trickling down to the most innocent and helpless children of our world. Kidnapping and human trafficking affect 30 million children a year globally. Abuse of minors by traffickers and agents of organized crime, as well as by clergy, teachers and youth leaders, has left an indelible scar on the hearts and souls of our children. Whether you are a man, woman or a child, we observe that true love and peace are hard to find in this world.
However, it does not end even here! While humanity is at war or abusing one another, humanity is on a path that may lead to irreversibly destroying our planet. The devastating scale of environmental abuse could possibly end all life as we know it. Mother Earth—the feminine creation and the sustenance of us all—is being pillaged, polluted, destroyed, and sold out by corruption.
Nothing is more real and factual than what is happening to our Earth, our shared habitat. I bring up the Earth because it is our mother, the feminine creation, the womb of all life on this planet, the nourisher, the nurturer, and ultimate giver of life. And what is happening to our Mother Earth? Is it being taken care of responsibly? We all know the answer. NO.
God’s creation is being devastated by the mass extinction of plant and animal species. Models show that 80 percent of biodiversity is being wiped out and the Earth is drowning in the deluge of historical record-breaking 500-year floods due to rise in sea levels and mass arctic melt zones. Storms, fires, and plagues of deadly new strains of bacteria and viruses threaten our survival. Globally we face a climate crisis that represents an existential treat for all of us, and for generations to come.
What kind of world have we created when children see no hope for their lives past 2050? What kind of parents are we, if children like Greta Thunberg are globally forgoing their education and going on strike for the future of the planet? At every level of life, we are failing and wiping out all the gifts of God’s creation that sustain us.
As our planet’s natural resources are sold out to a select few who profit, and the rest of creation is left to die out, the balance of life teeters on a dangerous ledge. We see this happening all around as the Earth and all life hang off a cliff.
Instead of preserving and living in harmony with our glorious creation we are playing God in labs for profit as true natural health is abandoned and we struggle to pay for health care. The world’s economy vacillates as securities are evermore insecure. As the climate crisis causes immense habitat and agricultural loss, we will see an escalation of starvation and malnutrition, homelessness and joblessness, desperation and mayhem, protest and unrest, mass migration, refugee crises, and political polarization at the domestic and international levels, all threatening past alliances and cooperative interdependence. Divisiveness plagues our communities and affects governments, religions, the media, the academic world and society at large. Selfishness and self-preservation grow, and an ethics of service to others is in decline, leaving the globe evermore insecure.
Peace is so hard to find, as we tirelessly try to hang on to this unraveling thread of our true humanity and purpose in life. So where is the end to all these sad realities? The answer lies in every man, woman, and child.
At the deepest level, there is a crisis of the human heart and conscience. There is a crisis rooted in a failure to understand our true identity.
Our world is deeply divided, and it impacts every sector, including politics, religion, race and ethnicity, gender, the economy, the media, academia and education.
We are at odds globally, tearing apart the very fabric that binds humanity and creation together, and at the very time when we need to unite more than ever. We have lost sight of the only solution to all these divisions. The solution requires that we turn our hearts and minds to God.
We must recover and understand the divine truth that we are all one global family under our Heavenly Parent.
It is only when we come to recognize the depth of God’s reality, and the divine dignity of each person, that we each can become a light, a compass that shows the way out of the chaos that surrounds us, our families and communities.
WFWP was founded to announce the arrival of what my parents termed the “Era of Women,” calling on all women to play a more pivotal role in making peace a reality. After all, just as in any family, a true mother’s nurturing and unconditionally loving heart has the power to heal the deep wounds of humanity that we witness today.
I would like to share with you some words from my Father’s memoirs, titled A Peace-Loving Global Citizen. In this excerpt he speaks about his dream of peace, the same dream that my beloved and courageous mother has carried forward throughout her own life, especially since the time of his passing. It is this dream, this vision that has brought us all together in this great peace forum today.
Throughout history, women have been persecuted, but I predict this will change. The coming world will be one of reconciliation and peace based on women’s maternal character, love, and sociability. The time is coming when the power of women will save the world. Unfortunately, today, many women’s organizations apparently believe that standing in opposition to men is the way to demonstrate the power of women. The result is an environment of competition and conflict. The women’s organizations my wife leads, on the other hand, seek to bring about peace on the principle that women should work together, take initiative, and empower one another across traditional lines of race, culture, and religion to create healthy families as the cornerstone of the culture of peace. The organizations she works with do not call for a liberation of women from men and families. Instead, they call for women to develop and maintain families filled with love. My wife’s dream is to see all women raised as true daughters with filial hearts who can create peace at home, in our communities, in our nations, and in the world. The women’s movement being carried out by my wife serves the goal of true families, which are the root of peace in all areas of life.
WFWP was founded to announce the arrival of the era of women and create a movement of women dedicated to creating a global family. For too long, the voice of women remained in the background and in the shadows. Whatever the causes of this pattern, evidenced in all cultures and civilizations, it is imbalanced, and hence the world is also out of balance.
Indeed, it is precisely as women and men live together in harmony, true love, and equality—in the home, in the workplace, in the centers of political and economic power, and in the places of worship—that we can create a society of true interdependence, mutual prosperity and universal love.
Therefore it is time for the voices of women, the perspectives of women, the wisdom of women, and the capacities of women to be included, welcomed, and encouraged.
If we aspire to peace, we must become the unifiers who lead with the logic of love, forming one global family under God and working together in harmony as brothers and sisters to realize this ideal of peace. If we are to change and transform a world of selfishness into a world of true love, women must play a leading role.
Much of what is needed today is to have a movement that reflects the heart of true love. Love is the highest consciousness, and the attributes of true love are what we are missing in this divided world. We need harmonizers and reconcilers, multitaskers and fearless warriors for good. We need compassion and empathy. We need nurturers and life givers. We need balance and harmony, charity and service, and we need highly skilled female professionals in all fields.
And especially we need women in top levels of our governments to effect substantial change. We also need all educators of the heart, spirit, mind and body for our future generations to prosper. And most important, we need women to know without a doubt that they are divine and of equal value in God’s eyes. Because, when you know your true divinity, God will work through you and your love will transform the world!
Basically, we need divine Supermoms and sisters! We need to bridge the historical divide of millennia that has silenced, denigrated, and repressed half of the planet’s children, creating endless gaps and divisions between men and women, parents and children, between the right and the left, humanity and creation, and which has obscured our true divine identity as God’s equal sons and daughters.
The world also needs its heart healed. Centuries of injustice and hurt take a toll on everyone. But, before we can be healers and transformers, we must be healed and transformed ourselves, with forgiveness, love and unity, with and through each other. We must support, serve, aid and educate our sisters and youth so that they can overcome all past, present and future obstacles.
Let us stand united to break all old glass ceilings; let us rise and liberate women to their original true ideal, as glorious divine daughters of God. As long as women are seen as lacking in divine value, inequity and abuse will always ensue.
We need the complete understanding of God to do this. I did not always realize this point. I grew up in a super religious home, but I didn’t always resonate with religion. My field of study was psychology. But no matter what field I explored, there was always a limit, another glass ceiling, a ceiling of the heart and soul. When God’s love is not part of the equation, the answer is always incomplete. The only umbrella that protects us all as one united peace-loving family is the eternal embrace of God’s unconditional true love.
My parents have always taught that God is our divine Father and our divine Mother, and the only way and path for all creation to be born and to live in harmony is knowing the balanced truth about our Heavenly Parent. It was only later in life that I came to a deeper understanding of Heavenly Parent by understanding my parents’ teachings, and by observing their lifestyle and example. When I asked them why they took such a difficult path, they said that humankind alone, without God, would never achieve peace. They were called to awaken the world to God’s truth and God’s love.
When our founders established WFWP in April 1992, they spoke of the core principles and values we must follow if we are to build a world of lasting peace. In particular, they emphasized the value of true love embodied in the hearts and in the character of mothers, wives, grandmothers, sisters, aunts, cousins, and daughters.
They also asked us not only to think of women’s rights but exhorted us to serve the rights and welfare of all people and live in harmony with our only Mother Earth. They encouraged us to work to build true families on a foundation of true love centered on God. They called us to educate, mentor and support women leaders and to encourage women all around the world to be initiators of peace by practicing true love and living for the sake of others.
WFWP has accomplished a great deal worldwide, but, as I indicated above, we still have much work to do. Through the IAFLP our founders have asked us to go one step further toward bringing sustainable peace on earth. This is not something that can be accomplished by one NGO alone.
We need to work on a higher global scale, networking with like-minded organizations, with governments and NGOs and powerful women leaders of the world, such as yourselves, all working together for peace.
Some may say the First Lady position is a symbolic figurehead, but True Mother knows that the entire nation is moved by your love and the passionate missions you choose while serving in office. You have the power to role-model elegance, grace, character, health, and well-being for a whole nation. You are able to patron important causes near and dear to better your country and effect major change. By networking together and by advocating for your fellow sisterhood across national boundaries, you can bring peace and reconciliation where there was hurt, partner and make alliances with other nations for shared work and knowledge, empowering each other in building better and more prosperous communities, nations and world. Research shows the more you invest in a country’s women the national health, wealth, education, and GDP rise. And the possibilities when we work together are endless.
I know that research will continue to support that working together globally is mutually beneficial and the fastest route to peace. This is the mission of the WFWP, and as we expand our partnership with UPF, the International Summit Council for Peace, and the IAFLP, we can rise to an entirely new level, as I think we have all experienced as participants in this World Summit 2020.
So together, let us work to make a more beautiful world of peace. Following the example of our founders, let us all transform this world and move forward, creating a spiritual and cultural revolution of heart, working together, learning together and loving together until we have brought peace to everyone across the globe!
Once again, congratulations! Let’s work together to create a transcendent, glorious culture of peace, here in our founder’s homeland of Korea and beyond! As my father once stated, “The time (is here) when the power of women will save this world!” And Mother Moon would say, you are all divine daughters of our Heavenly Parents. So I ask you all now, “Can women save the world?” Yes! Aju!
I pray that God’s blessings and eternal love be with you and your families! Wishing you all the happiest and the most glorious New Year 2020!
To conclude, I want to share with you the most precious words that exist in every corner of the globe that can bring about world peace, as my mother taught me: Saranghamnida, “I love you”; and Kamsahamnida, “Thank you!”
Namaste!
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