Cham Bumo Gyeong: Episode 39

Cham Bumo Gyeong
Book 2: The Birth of True Parents
Chapter 3: True Father’s Childhood and Youth
Section 1: Love for Nature, paragraph 12 -22

12 I knitted my own socks and made my own clothes. When the weather got cold, I made a hat and wore it. I am the one who taught knitting to my older sisters. In order to fulfill your mission for the Will, you must train yourself to be self-sufficient. When I needed underwear, I got a roll of cloth, cut it to a pattern and made some. When I put them on, they fit perfectly. I even made Korean socks for my mother. She said, “I thought you were making them for fun, but they fit me so well!” You should be able to do all these kinds of things based on your own study. You should know how to make your own clothes, socks and hats. If you can do that, even if you live alone you will be able to accomplish your responsibility for the Will.

13 These days, there is one kind of food that I miss. I have tried all the famous dishes in the world. Is there a food anywhere that I have not tasted? Yet, I still miss this one food. In the olden days in the countryside, farmers had to pass through a period called the “May potato challenge.” Having used up all our grains through the winter, in the month of May we had only potatoes to eat. Then finally the spring barley harvest arrived, after which we had barley to cook and eat. The barley that I am talking about is not the pearl barley that you buy at the store, but uncracked barley. The grains have to be soaked in water for some time before cooking them. When we put them in our bowls, if we pressed them down firmly with a spoon, individual grains would break loose and fly out of the bowl. I remember eating it mixed with Korean hot pepper paste. This is the dish that I miss even now. It is not tasty if you mix it with anything else; it must be hot pepper paste. Whenever I put a spoonful of that reddish barley into my mouth, the grains would constantly come out through my teeth. I closed my lips tightly in order to eat it. I had to take time because it was so difficult to chew. I miss those olden days.

14 Living in the country, you can have a lot of fun and many wonderful experiences. That is where I learned everything I needed and collected all the necessary information to prepare myself to build the monumental house of God’s Will for the future. The many experiences I had doing things in nature were how I taught myself to be an expert in whatever I did. When I go to a rural area I can become a farmer, and when I go to the sea I can become a fisherman. When I went out net fishing, I left home early in the morning and totally invested myself with the conviction that I would set a new record. I went out with the cry of the rooster at the crack of dawn and did not return home from my labors until the stars came out. All my life, my personal motto has always been to do my very best to set a new world record. That is why wherever I go, whatever I do, I think that I will never be defeated by anyone. And actually, I am never defeated. I also keep this standard when it comes to making conditions of devotion.

Training of heart

In his childhood, True Father shed many tears. He was an extremely deep-hearted and compassionate boy. When he was raising birds or fish at home, if one of them died he was drawn by compassion to shed tears for it, thinking of its mother who would grieve for her young. He defended his friends when they were bullied by stronger boys. Whenever he heard that someone was going hungry or starving, he would take rice from the rice jar at home and bring it to him or her, without letting his parents know. When he happened upon a mother who had just given birth but had no food to eat, he brought her rice and the seaweed to make the soup that Korean women eat after having a baby. When his friends’ parents could not afford to buy them the new clothes that were customarily prepared for children on traditional holidays, he gave them his own new clothes. These are some of the ways he expressed his deep heart for whoever was suffering hardship.

15 I became mature enough to feel compassion for others shortly after I turned seven, the age when I started going to the village school. I used to figure out when the pregnant women in the village were about to give birth by looking at the size of their bellies. One day I found out that one of the women who was pregnant had no rice at home. So, one month before she had the baby I gave her rice and seaweed for the seaweed soup all mothers have after delivery. This is why the poor people of my village confided in me all of their secrets.

I felt responsible to care for people who were having difficulties, whatever their situation. Every year in the autumn I would pick chestnuts for them. I would save some of the stock of corn at my house and bring it to their homes. It is the only way I could feel at peace. It is from this kind of background that I have a foundation even to think of feeding all the people of the world.

16 When I was young, my family was quite well off. When my friends who were poor came to school with cooked millet or barley in their lunch boxes, I traded my lunch box with them. I could not just eat my own well-prepared food with rice while watching them eat such meager food. If my friends mother or father was sick but had no money to see a doctor, I would go to my mother and father and tearfully ask them for money, explaining my friend’s situation. When I was about 11 years old, I told my father that I was going to sell rice to help someone out. But even before he approved, I helped myself to as much rice as I could and scooped it into a bag. I was in such a hurry that I did not even tie the mouth of the bag. Then I carried it over my shoulder and walked some eight kilometers to the market to sell it. I should have tied up the bag with a string. But since I did not, I had to hold on tight to keep the rice from spilling. I walked as fast as I could, fearing that my father would come after me. You have no idea how much my heart pounded and how hard I gasped for air. I cannot forget it to this day; I do not think I will forget it for the rest of my life. All those experiences enabled me to stand in the position to take the path for the Will.

17 My nature is such that whenever I saw a shivering beggar passing by my house during the winter, I could not eat or sleep. So I would ask my mother and father to bring the beggar into our main room and feed him well before sending him off. Don’t you think that this is a basis to be loved by heaven? Whenever I heard through the grapevine that someone in my neighborhood was starving, I could not fall asleep at night wondering how I could help him. I would scoop rice out of my family’s rice jar and give it to the hungry person without letting my parents know.

18 I like rice cakes; so I used to ask my mother, “Please make some rice cakes.” But she was always too busy farming, weaving or making clothes in preparation for the marriage of her children. My mother indeed had no time to rest. But I kept asking her to make me rice cakes, and finally she would make some simple ones, such as red bean rice cakes or steamed rice cakes. She made them in a large earthenware steamer. But they would not last even three days because I would share them. That is how I was. Whenever I had some concern for my village, I could not fall asleep. I realize that heaven has been guiding me since childhood to have such a caring heart. That is why whenever I saw someone in my village who was poor, I wanted to help that person in any way I could. When there was a problem in the village, I did everything possible to resolve it. I believed that this was my job, not someone else’s.

Without having this core nature within me, I could not be who I am today. It had to be my inborn nature. There is a Korean maxim, “The water at the surface must be clear for the water at the bottom to be clear.” The “top water” is the leader who sets the example. Human beings are spiritual. So, when we have the quality of pure water, others will want to come and live together with us. They will lean on us for support.

19 When I was young we had a bee farm with hundreds of hives full of bees. When you do bee farming, you have to set up honeycomb frames; then the bees make their homes there and when they make their honey they save it there. Honeycomb frames were expensive. Normally the frames with their empty honeycombs were stacked and stored on a cabinet, but I found them and mashed the waxen honeycombs together to make candles. Many people in the country had no light at night because they could not afford to buy kerosene. So I gave them the candles that I made, thinking that since I could not give them kerosene, at least I should give them candles. I had to do it because otherwise I felt so uneasy; I could not bear doing nothing for them. That is why I mashed all the honeycombs together to make candles and distributed them to each house. At that time I was just a child, so I had no idea how expensive they were! After finding out what I did, my father scolded me severely. Yet I never admitted that I had done anything wrong; how can it be wrong to help those in need? So after scolding me for some time, my father just gave up and stopped.

20 A disabled couple lived in my village. The husband was blind, and his wife was crippled. Even so, this couple was regarded in the village as an exemplary couple. Though the wife limped while leaning on her cane, she always guided her husband everywhere he needed to go. Her mouth was crooked and she had all sorts of physical problems, but her husband loved her very much, more than he would love a beauty queen. They had no place to live, so when the winter came they would stay in my family’s mill. They had only a straw mat, so I would bring them my pad and my quilt. For that reason, they liked me very much. One day I heard they had passed away. I was so sad; I remember crying over their deaths.

21 Like you, I too had a lively youth overflowing with hope. But even before I knew the Will, I wanted to become a friend to those in pain and suffering. I was greatly interested in people who were not doing well. I did not try to become close to the children of well-to-do and influential families. Most people did that, but I did the opposite. If I knew there was a poor person in the village who had nothing to eat, I could not sleep. I had to do everything I could to solve the situation. In this way, I wanted to follow a path to become friends, even close friends, with everyone.

Gifts of the Spirit

From childhood, True Fathers personality was such that whenever he took a path, he would follow it to the end. His tenacious spirit helped him to succeed in whatever he did. Once he decided that something was the right thing to do, he acted on it immediately. Thus, during his childhood he cultivated the abilities and character traits he would need to fulfill God’s providence of salvation as the True Parent. Furthermore, even as a child he surprised people around him with his predictions regarding peoples illnesses or problems that would occur in the future. This was one special ability he had.

22 My mother, my father and everyone in the village counted on me. I was known as the fearfully sharp and smart one in the Moon clan. I could do anything. Wrestling, boxing or any other sport—I excelled at them all. I was always one of the top three students in my class in school. As soon as I determined to become the number one student and not just one of the top three, I achieved it. Why? I would study twice, even three times harder than the number one student. That is the kind of person I am. That is why, when I probed into the fundamental issues of life and religion, I could root out what had been unknown and reveal it to the world. My personality is such that once I set my mind to do something, I forget to eat or sleep until I finish it. That is the most necessary quality for the work of restoration through indemnity.