Here is Father’s speech at the:

“Convention to Proclaim the Word that Firmly Establishes the Parents of Heaven, Earth and Humankind.”

July 8th 2010 proclamation full speech

View more documents from Family Federation.

And here are some pictures from some of us in Father’s event this morning, a brief personal account, and notes from Hyung Jin Moon’s talk a couple of hours ago:

Classic build up: lights went on at 3.45am (not sure why), had a nice naked wash and shave with a few others in the mens toilets, in the sink. Sat on a coach for 45 minutes, then it moved, went up the hill to the palace/museum. The time was 6am ish, the ‘convention to proclaim the word that firmly establishes the True Parents’ was due to start at 10am. Thankfully at the top of the mountain there was some breeze and the clouds were mercifully in front of the sun for some of the time.

arriving on the clouds, literally

Father was full of his usual poise and shared both deeply and humorously. He shared how he had just dyed his hair and how he always does before these occasions. I heard he had been up to 3.30am talking to his close disciples. As the sun grew stronger and I went to find the shade of a tree and take my jacket off in order to sweat less, I reminded myself that Father at 90 years old, had been standing at the podium for more than an hour in his suit.

Click on the pics to make them big.

Elisa Brann studying Father's speech as he reads and adds to it.

thirsty work

Keishin Barrett focusing on the Word

Jonathan and Alex study together on the wall.

After we had no buses so we (8000 people) had to walk down the mountain. Our calf muscles felt the gradient. And I was glad I had followed the advice of others and had not brought one of the boys with me. Not sure they would have handled the schedule and not sure how I would have managed carrying one of them down on my back….

Here are my notes from Hyung Jin Moon’s message to us this afternoon at the start of a 2 day Original Divine Principle seminar that father asked us all to join after the event today:

“True Father said today we should go back to our roots. Our unification movement tradition has a very short history of only 50 years and in that short time it has spread across the whole world, and of course as a result we have many limitations as well.

We want to go back to the core of True Parents revelation and the essence of the Divine Principle.

When I was in Brazil recently we read Father’s  autobiography in our morning study and we were discussing about our faith and our fate.

Our fate is connected to the path that we take. There are a series of decisions that we make that determine our future.

If you look back at your life you can see this reality.

WE MUST KNOW where we are heading. There is a biblical verse in Proverbs where king Solomon was looking out of a window and saw a young man walking on a path, and he could see that young man’s future. On one side of the path there was a very decadent town with a big red light district, towards which the young man was heading.

King Solomon compared him to a cow that is heading to the abattoir

However the young man did not see that future as he was thinking about something else, about happy thoughts of a very beautiful woman who had invited him to the town. So the young man was having a very sweet dream, but king Solomon had seen many men walking down this path and knew what fate he would have; that he would become trapped by this town of decadence. (this is somewhere in Proverbs apparently…no ref. was given…but William Haines helped me find it, he uses it in his lecture on the Human Fall. See the link to Proverbs 7 here: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Proverbs+7&version=NIV )

We can see from this that the path we are taking is always connected to our future. And when there is the opportunity to look down on that path with objectivity we can see where it will lead.

The reason I am telling you this story is that this young man did not realise that this choice he was making would effect his life so significantly.  There are many choices that come up in our life: these are essentially the paths that we chose to take in our life.

We have to always ask ourselves what is the path I am taking and where is it leading to. Brothers and sisters, we are seeking the eternal path. We are not seeking the transient or temporary path.

That is the path of seeking True Parents, which is eternal.  That is our bright and eternal future.

We are not to centre one generation or another. We have an eternal centre which is True Parents. If you look at Christianity, there have been many saints and church leaders, but they have always focused on Jesus’ eternal love, rather than their own significance.

If we forget that we will find ourselves going on the wrong path with out noticing it…

We will always be True Parents children….

….After my elder brother past away I started to doubt whether God existed, and with that kind of mind I started studying religion, and then I started training……

When I go before True Parents I do not go as an adult, regardless of however many responsibilities and positions he has bestowed on me. When I go into the room, Father does not see an international president, but he sees his youngest son, and that is when I feel the greatest freedom and love. I don’t feel the need to have to prove anything to them and this is the most precious quality time for me.

We should get rid of thoughts we have that put us in the context of some official position when we are in front of True Parents. Of course it is important to be mature in our actions and in our words, but as Jesus said in order to go to the Kingdom of Heaven we need the heart of a child.

Through this important proclamation today there are a lot of expectations….

It is because of this 120 day workshop which has just been completed that a war could be prevented between the North and South Korea. Even the sinking of the naval ship did not bring about war. Because these leaders who went through the 120 day workshop and united with True Parents and continued through out the 120 days faithfully (from UK: Constance Rennie and Haesul Fagcang) an important condition could be set by True Parents.

We do not know what conditions are being set by this 2 day workshop that we are starting now on Father’s request, we do not know how big a condition can be made by even the offering of a pigeon.

If we can think like that we will go down one path, if we look cynically and with disinterest we will go down another path. How we take this short workshop is a decision we will make.

That young man thought he was going to be with the beautiful woman for just one night and he did not realise how that one night would have a big effect on his life course, …for us this one night , and two days workshop will also involve us making a decision that will effect our path and our future. Let has have that kind of awareness and heart.

Let us look into our hearts and either have king Solomon’s perspective , or the blissfully unaware perspective of the young man who was oblivious to the choices that he was making regarding his future.

Let us go on a path of seeking True Parents in our life.”

Inspired by the activities of many of the True Family and the recent witnessing initiatives around the world, the Family Church in Scotland has decided the revive a regular Divine Principle Workshop program.

Our first one-day seminar took place on Saturday, 17th April in Livingston.  We were honored to have Jack Corley, with his experience of presenting Divine-Principle programmes all over the world as our lecturer.  Undaunted by the cancellation of all aircraft flights due to the volcanic eruption in Iceland, Jack drove from Dublin to Belfast, took the ferry from Belfast to Stranraer, where he was met by car for the last leg from South-West to Central Scotland. There was a good turnout of members and guests from Edinburgh, Glasgow and Newcastle.

Jack opened with a video from recent activities in China that he has participated in, an eye opener for all participants. Then we covered key sections from the Divine Principle including the Principles of Creation and the Human Fall, using some recently-introduced content.

It seemed that all participants enjoyed the program as they generated a good spirit throughout the day. As a bonus, Jack shared insights from Father Moon at the next day’s Sunday Service in Edinburgh.

On Saturday, I joined a few brothers and sisters witnessing in Croydon.  I really enjoy sharing my faith with people, especially as openly as I do when I approach people on a high street:

“Hello, my name’s Matthew.  I’m a member of the Unification Church.  Can I ask: Why do you think God created us?”

This question separates the atheists from the theists.  But for some reason, the atheists always seem like the nicest people, with whom I would pursue the deepest conversation.  I guess they’ve already done a lot of thinking, which at this stage has resulted in them losing faith in God, but perhaps they’ve at least grappled with the important questions of life.

Croydon high street is incredible on Saturdays.  It’s like a religion market, where you can take your pick from the Hare Krishnas, several denominations of Christianity, the Communist Party and, of course, the Unificationists, all of whom are vying for your attention.  I loved it!  We’re all passionate about God (well, all of us except the communists, who didn’t stay for very long!) and we want to testify to God, as witnesses of His/Her love.  I happily received a flyer from one church group, promoting a free concert.  Some MCs were rapping with a PA system (I’m assuming they were from the same church) and I actually enjoyed their marriage of message and music:

“Are you born again?
” – what?
“Are you born again?
” – what?
“Are you born again?!
” – yeh!”

The International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON, more popularly known as the Hare Krishnas) were singing and dancing.  There were many young people witnessing for all these religious groups, and some of the ISKCON members were especially young, which gave me confidence that the HARP witnessing day we’re organising for Saturday 27th February will go swimingly.  Do any of you remember the good old days, when Aunty Mary Franklin organised HARP witnessing days at the end of every month?  Well, very much inspired by her example, we’re going to resurrect that activity, so if you’d like to come along to 43 Lancaster Gate at 10am this Saturday, you’re very welcome to join in!

On the topic of sharing my faith, I read something today which annoyed me.  The CanadaEast.com’s news article about True Father’s 90th birthday, cited recently on the family fireplace,  reported that True Father “has proclaimed himself a messiah sent to complete Jesus Christ’s work on Earth.”  Why am I upset?  I’m not upset with the news agency, as they’re being entirely accurate.  No, my beef is with the fact that True Father is forced to declare himself as the Messiah.  Why should he have to do it?  It’s because not enough prominent people are doing it on his behalf.  All the news agencies should be reporting that WE are declaring True Father to be the Messiah.  And not just “a messiah” among many, but THE Messiah, the one chosen by Heavenly Father and Jesus himself to complete the Messianic mission.  We should become prominent in society and be so reputable that Father doesn’t need to declare himself Messiah, since we’ll already do it for him:

“In 2010, Matthew Huish declared Sun Myung Moon to be the Messiah, sent to complete Jesus Christ’s work on Earth”

If you like the look of that sentence, copy and paste it into a response replacing my name with your name there instead!

My favorite old man does combat with trees, or at least he used to. Tree smasher, embracer, bully fighter, eel biter, feeder of starving people.

The requirements of Providence are kitchen table conversation to him in a way they haven’t been since nineteenth century America. My favorite old man is a wizard. He owns the hallways of time, has the Prophet, peace be upon him, on speeddial.

He has lived long enough to get word that his siblings have died. Sunrises have been born, lived, snuffed and born again. As have heartbeats, longings and promises received. Each kindness, betrayal and repentance (sometimes from the same person in the course of one day) is scrubbed and filed, tucked away in rows of cabinets, each one labeled my best final plan. His wrinkles are honestly come by.

Only a beast more fearsome than the Beast of Time can unite a people incapable of unity. My favorite old man is the more gnarly beast who goes out of his way to kick over a cigar-chomper’s colored lawn jockey or tell a casino pit boss mine’s bigger than yours. Forever the tree smasher.

Even he cannot outlast the relentless piling up of years upon years, but he will beat the Beast of Time just the same by experiencing his final heartbeat hating no one.

He was not an ordinary man who became like this; he was always this way. What he did become that he wasn’t before, is a person who makes things so by declaring they are so.

Larry Moffitt
23 January, 2010

Father Moon’s first public speech in Las Vegas for almost 10 years was at the UPF conference on Dec 16, 2009

Report by Michael Balcomb:

See the Slideshare summary – Click on the links below

Saturday 1st August…..
Here are some clips from the Real Madrid v Juventas semi final and an event where True Parents spoke to 700 people in the hotel where they stayed. Father gave a 2hr 30min message. Here are one or two of the points he shared: (translation was from Korean into Spanish and then to English and then notes taken on my phone….)

“Each of you should have your own special relationship with God. My hope in my heart is that you can all connect to God.

We should all inherit the lineage of our creator.

We go all together to God’s kingdom, or none of us go, and I tell you the time is short.

Our life should be transparent like a crystal.

Our deeds and behaviour should be as clear and pure as a crystal.”

He made a comment about Ronaldo’s football apparently, but I had briefly drifted off at that moment. True Father’s stamina is incredible. I heard that after the semi-final finished (Juventas 2 Real Madrid 1 )around midnight the night before, True Father talked with church leaders until 5am, and then met them again for breakfast at 8am. All this at 90 years old, and standing on stage for 2 hrs 30 mins this evening.

Enjoy the clip below that i just finished putting together. Thank you to all of you who have supported the Peace Cup and True Parents’ visit with your prayers, donations, and coming out here to join in.

True Parents will be leaving soon for Spain to open the Peace Cup with Real Madrid.

Recently Reverend Hyung Jin Moon, their youngest son, was speaking about how we see True Parents with our physical eyes. He explained how Christians have learnt to see Jesus with their spiritual eyes and the first Christians saw him descend to hell and then resurrected after the crucifixion. He shared about a dream he had very recently where he saw True Parents with his spiritual eyes, and how only at that point was he able to finally understand his faith and their life and tradition.

If you want to see the whole message then click on the video below:

Here are some more pictures from the last few days of True Parents’ time in the South of France, presumably from their morning meeting with Rev and Mrs Song and others.

You can click on the pictures to make them bigger.

On July 17th True Parents arrived safely in Europe (they are staying near Nice in the South of France) one week before they will be opening the Peace Cup which kicks off in Spain with Real Madrid on the 24th July.

They are thankfully having a few days quiet time before moving on to Spain. Here are a few pictures to give you an impression of  how they are doing.

Almost exactly 44 years ago, on the 15th July 1965, True Father came to London to make the Holy Ground in Hyde Park near our Lancaster Gate HQs. True Parents have visited Europe several times since then.  The last time they were here was when they visited Geneva on July 17th 2006.

Let us all take the chance during their visit to connect in heart with them through our prayers and our daily life. We will be updating our news blog through out their stay when ever we get a chance to receive information from our European President, Reverend Song.

grandfather with grandson, having lunch together

True Parents: looking at a new horizon