Autobiography: As a Peace-Loving Global Citizen
Chapter 3: The Man With the Fullest Stomach
“You Are My Spiritual Teacher”
After crossing the Imjin River, we traveled by way of Seoul, Wonju, and Kyungju to Busan. We arrived finally on January 27, 1951. Busan was filled with refugees from the north. It felt like the whole country had gathered there. Any accommodation fit to live in was filled already. Our tiny place had barely enough room to sit. Our only option was to go into the woods at night, keeping warm as best we could, and then return to the city by day to look for food.
My hair, which was kept short during my prison time, had now grown back. My trousers, mended from the inside with cotton from a sleeping quilt, had become threadbare. My clothes were saturated so fully with an oily grime that raindrops in heavy rain were not absorbed into the cloth but rather simply rolled off.
Almost nothing was left of the soles of my shoes, although the upper part was mostly still there. I might as well have been walking barefoot. The fact was simply that I was the lowest of the low, a beggar among beggars. There was no work to be had, and we had no money in our pockets. The only way we could eat was to beg.
Yet even while begging for food, I maintained my dignity. If some one refused to help, I would say in a clear and confident voice, “Listen. If you do not help people like us who are in need, you will have great difficulties if you hope to receive blessings in the future!” People would give when faced with such thoughts. We took the food we gathered this way to a flat area where we all could sit together. Dozens of people like us ate in such places. We had nothing, and even had to beg for food, but a warm friendship always flowed among us.
Once in the middle of a day like this, suddenly I heard someone shout, “Look here! How long has it been?”
I turned to see standing before me Dok Mun Eom, a friend from my days in Japan. Dok Mun Eom had befriended me for life back then from having been so moved by a song I sang. Today he is one of Korea’s most prominent architects, having designed the Sejong Cultural Center and the Lotte Hotel.
“Let’s go,” he said, as he embraced me in my wretched clothes. “Let’s go to my home.”
By that time, Dok Mun Eom had married. He lived together with his family in a single room. To make room for me, he hung a quilt down the middle of that room, dividing it, with one side for me. On the other he slept with his wife and two young children.
“Now,” he said, “tell me about your life lately. I always wondered where you were and what you might be doing. We were close friends,” he said, “but you have always been more than a friend to me. Did you know that I always held you in great respect?”
Up to that point, I had never shared my heart candidly with any of my friends. In Japan, I went so far as to hide the fact that I often read the Bible. If someone came into my room when I was reading, I would quickly put the Bible away. But in the home of Duk Mun Eom, I shared my story for the first time.
I spoke throughout the night. I told him of my encounter with God, crossing the 38th parallel, starting a church, and surviving Heungnam Prison. My story took a full three days to tell. When I finished, Duk Mun Eom stood and folded himself before me in a full ceremonial bow.
“What are you doing?” I asked in shock and surprise. I grabbed his hand and tried to stop him, but it was no use. I could not.
“From this moment on,” said Duk Mun Eom, “you are my great spiritual teacher. This bow is my greeting to you as my teacher, so please accept it.”
He has been with me ever since, both as my friend and as my disciple.
Soon after this, I found a job on Pier 4 in Busan harbor. I worked only at night. With my pay, I bought bean porridge at Cho-ryang Station. The hot porridge was sold with a rag wrapped around the container to keep it hot. I always held the porridge container against my body for more than an hour before eating it. This helped to warm my body, which froze from working throughout the long, cold night.
I found lodging in a shelter for laborers located in the Cho-ryang neighborhood. My room was so small that I could not lie down, even diagonally, without my feet pressing against the wall. But this was the room where I sharpened a pencil and solemnly wrote the first draft of Wolli Wonbon (the original text of The Principle). I was financially destitute, but this was of no importance to me. Even living in a garbage heap, there is nothing a determined soul cannot do. All we need is the will.
Won Pil Kim had just turned twenty. He did all sorts of jobs. He worked in a restaurant and brought home the scorched rice that couldn’t be served to customers. We ate this together. Because of his gift for drawing, he soon got a job with the U.S. military as a painter.
Eventually, he and I climbed up to Beom-net-gol in Beom-il Dong and built a house. Because this area was near a cemetery, there was nothing nearby except a rocky ravine. We had no land we could call our own, so we leveled a section of the steep slope and built a home there. We didn’t even have a shovel! We took a small shovel from someone’s kitchen and returned it before the owner realized it was missing. Won Pil Kim and I broke rocks, dug the earth, and carried up gravel. We mixed mud and straw to make bricks, then stacked them up to make the walls. We got some empty ration boxes from an American base, flattened them out, and used them as the roof. We laid down a sheet of black plastic for the floor.
Even simple huts are built better than this. Ours was built against a boulder, so a big piece of rock stuck up in the middle of the room. Our only possessions were the small desk that sat behind that rock and Won Pil Kim’s easel. When it rained, a spring would bubble up inside our room. How romantic to hear the sound of the water flow ing beneath us where we sat! In the morning, after sleeping in this unheated room with a leaking roof and water still flowing below, we would arise with runny noses. Even so, we still were happy for our small space where we could lie down and put our minds at ease. The surroundings were miserable, but we were filled with hope from living on the path of God’s will.
Each morning, when Won Pil Kim went to work at the American base, I accompanied him to the bottom of the hill. When he came home in the evening, I went out to greet him and welcome him. The remain der of my time I spent writing the Wolli Wonbon. Our room always had plenty of sharpened pencils. Even when there was no rice in the rice jar, we had pencils.
Won Pil Kim helped in many ways, both materially and spiritually. Through this I could concentrate on my writing. Even when exhausted from a full day’s work, he followed me around, looking for ways to help. I was getting so little sleep those days that I could fall asleep anywhere. Sometimes I even fell asleep on the toilet. Won Pil Kim followed me to the toilet to make sure I was all right.
But that was not all. He wanted so much to contribute even a little to the book I was writing. He began to draw portraits for American soldiers, and in this way he earned money to keep me supplied with pencils. At the time, it was popular among American soldiers to have a portrait drawn of their wife or girlfriend before returning to America. Won Pil Kim glued sheets of silk on wooden frames, painted the portraits, and sold them for four dollars each.
I felt grateful for his dedication. I sat beside him when he painted and did all I could to help him. While he was away at his job on the American base, I would put the glue on the silk, cut the wood for frames, and put them together. Before he came home, I washed his brushes and bought the paints he needed. After coming home, he would take a 4B pencil and draw the portrait. At first, he was drawing only one or two, but soon word of his work spread. He became so well known among the soldiers that he was drawing twenty and thirty at a time. It got to where our home was filled with portraits, and we had trouble finding room to sleep at night.
As the workload increased, I started to do more than just help on the sidelines. Won Pil drew outlines of the faces, and I colored the lips and clothing. From the money we earned together, we bought pencils and drawing materials and spent the rest for witnessing. It is important to record God’s words in writing, but even more important is to tell people about His will.
The Crazy, Handsome Man by the Well
When we built the mud-walled house and began the church in Beom-net-gol, there were only three people to hear me preach. For me, however, I was not talking to just those three people. I thought to myself, “Though they cannot be seen, I am preaching to thousands, even tens of thousands.” I envisioned as I preached that all humanity was in attendance. These three people sat before me while I conveyed the words of the Principle in a loud, booming voice.
There was a well in front of our house. Soon a rumor began to spread among those who came to take water from that well: A crazy man lived in the house with mud walls. They fetched their water and peered into this ramshackle mud house to see a man in wretched clothing speaking like he was shouting commands to the whole world. It is only natural that people began to whisper among themselves. I preached that heaven and earth would be turned upside down and Korea would unite the world. Rumors about me soon spread beyond those using the well to those at the bottom of the hill. Perhaps these rumors are what brought people coming out of curiosity to see the crazy man living next to the well. Among these curious ones were students from a nearby seminary, as well as a group of professors from the prestigious Ewha Womans University. The rumors also became embellished to say that I was a handsome man with good stature, so middle-aged women began to climb the hill to see me as a way to pass the time.
On the day I finished writing Wolli Wonbon, I put my pencil down and prayed, “The moment has come for me to evangelize. Please send me the saints to whom I may give witness.” After this, I then went out to the well. It was May 10, late spring. I was wearing traditional Korean trousers with cotton lining and an old jacket, sweating in the heat. I caught sight of a young woman wiping the sweat from her brow as she struggled up the hill toward the well.
I spoke to her, saying, “God has been giving you tremendous love for the past seven years.” She jumped backward in surprise. It had been seven years since she had decided to dedicate her life to God.
“My name is Hyun Shil Kang,” she said. “I am an evangelist at the Beom Cheon Church that sits in the neighborhood at the bottom of this hill. I heard there is a crazy man living here, so I have come here to witness to him.”
This was how she greeted me. I invited her into our house. She looked around the squalid room, making plain how very strange she found it. Eventually, her eyes settled on my desk, “Why do you have so many pencils?” she asked.
“Until this morning,” I replied, “I was writing a book that reveals the principles of the universe. I think God has sent you here so that you can learn about these principles from me.”
“What?” she demanded, “I am here because I heard there is a crazy man living here who needs to be witnessed to.”
I handed her a cushion to sit on, and I sat down as well. The spring water made its trickling sound as it flowed beneath us.
“In the future, Korea will play its role at the pinnacle of the world,” I said. “People will regret that they could not be born as Koreans.”
She clearly thought I was speaking nonsense.
“Just as Elijah appeared in the person of John the Baptist,” I continued, “Jesus will come in the flesh to Korea.”
This made her angry.
“I’m sure Jesus will have better places to come than a place so wretched as Korea,” she retorted.
Then she said, “Have you ever read the Book of Revelation? I . . .” I interrupted her in mid-sentence, saying,
“You want to say you have studied at the Goryo Theological Seminary?”
“How did you know that?” she demanded.
“Do you think I would have waited for you without knowing even that about you? You said you came here to witness to me. Please, then, teach me.”
Hyun Shil Kang was clearly knowledgeable in theology. She quoted Bible texts to me one after another in an effort to attack my views. She continued to challenge me strongly as I kept busy responding to each of her challenges with answers in a strong and clear voice. Our debate continued so long that it began to grow dark, so I stood up and cooked dinner. The only thing we had besides rice was some over ripe kimchi. Nevertheless, we sat there with the sound of water trickling below and shared this food before resuming our debate. She came back the next day and the day after that, each time to continue our debate. In the end, she chose to devote her life to the principle I teach.
Later that year, on a windy November day, my wife showed up at the door of the Beom-net-gol hut. There standing with her was a seven year-old boy, my son, who was born the year I left home. I had left that day simply to go pick up some rice but went to Pyongyang instead. The years had passed, and now he had grown into a young boy. I could not bring myself to look him in the eye, nor could I reach out to stroke his face and embrace him in joy. I just stood there like a stone statue, frozen in place, speechless.
My wife did not have to say a word. I felt the pain and suffering this poor mother and child had to experience in the midst of war. Even before this visit, I knew where they were living and what their situation was, but I was not yet to the point where I could take care of my family. I knew this, and I had asked her several times, even before our marriage, “Please trust me and wait just a little longer.” When the time was right, I planned to go get them. But in this situation, as they stood in the door, the right time had not yet come. The hut, our church, was small and shabby. A number of members ate there and lived there with me to study God’s word. I could not bring my family there.
My wife took a look around the hut, expressed great disappointment, and turned to leave. She and my son set off down the steep path.
A Church with No Denomination
Koreans have a saying that a person insulted by others lives a long time. If I were to live in proportion to the number of insults I’ve received, I could live another hundred years. Also, my stomach has been filled not with food but with insults, so you could say that my stomach is the most full of anyone’s. Established churches that had opposed me and thrown stones at me when I started a church in Pyongyang resumed their persecution, this time in Busan. Even before we had properly begun our church, they set out to give us trouble. Words like heretic and pseudo- were placed in front of my name so often that they seemed to become part of my name. Indeed, the phrase Sun Myung Moon came to be synonymous with heresy and pseudo-religion. It’s hard to even hear my name mentioned without these words.
By 1953, the persecution reached extremes. We closed the hut in Busan and moved first to Daegu and then to Seoul. In May of the following year, we rented a house in Seoul’s Bukhak Dong neighborhood, located near Jang-choong-dang Park, and hung out a sign that read “Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity.” We chose this name to signify that we belonged to no denomination, and we certainly had no plans to create a new one.
“World Christianity” refers to all of Christianity worldwide and both past and present. “Unification” reveals our purpose of oneness, and “Holy Spirit” is used to denote harmony between the spiritual and physical worlds built on the love of the father-son relationship at the center. Our name is meant to say, “The spiritual world, centering on God, is with us.”
In particular, unification represents my purpose to bring about God’s ideal world. Unification is not union. Union is when two things come to gether. Unification is when two become one. “Unification Church” became our commonly known name later, but it was given to us by others. In the beginning, university students referred to us as “the Seoul Church.”
I do not like using the word kyo-hoi in its common usage to mean church. But I like its meaning from the original Chinese characters. Kyo means “to teach,” and Hoi means “gathering.” The Korean word means, literally, “gathering for teaching.” The word for religion, jong-kyo, is composed of two Chinese characters meaning “central” and “teaching,” respectively. When the word church means a gathering where spiritual fundamentals are taught, it has a good meaning. But the meaning of the word kyo-hoi does not provide any reason for people to share with each other. People in general do not use the word kyo-hoi with that meaning. I did not want to place ourselves in this separatist type of category. My hope was for the rise of a church without a denomination. True religion tries to save the nation, even if it must sacrifice its own religious body to do so; it tries to save the world, even at the cost of sacrificing its nation; and it tries to save humanity, even if this means sacrificing the world. By this understanding, there can never be a time when the denomination takes precedence.
It was necessary to hang out a church sign, but in my heart I was ready to take it down at any time. As soon as a person hangs a sign that says “church,” he is making a distinction between church and not church. Taking something that is one and dividing it into two is not right. This was not my dream. It is not the path I chose to travel. If I need to take down that sign to save the nation or the world, I am ready to do so at any time.
Our sign hung near the front entrance. It would have looked better if we had hung it someplace high, but the eaves on the house came down very low, giving us no good spot to place a sign. In the end, we hung it about as high as the height of a child. In fact, some children in the neighborhood took down our sign, played with it, and broke it in two. Because of its historical significance, we could not throw it away. We attached the two pieces back together with wire and nailed it more securely to the front. Perhaps because our sign was treated with such humiliation, our church also received humiliation beyond description.
The eaves were so low that people had to duck their heads in order to pass through the entrance. The room was about eight feet square, and it was so cramped that when six of us would pray we might bump foreheads with each other. People in the neighborhood laughed at our sign. They made fun of us, asking what kind of world unification we dreamt of in that tiny little house that “you have to crawl to get into.” They didn’t try to find out why we had chosen such a name. They simply looked at us as if we were crazy.
This did not bother us, however. In Busan, we had begged for food to sustain ourselves, and now we had a room to perform services. We had nothing to fear. For a suit, I took a pair of U.S. Army fatigues and dyed them black. I wore these with black rubber shoes. Even if others sought to belittle us, in our hearts we were more dignified than anyone.
People who attended called one another shik-ku, or family member. We were intoxicated with love. Anyone who came there could see what I was doing and hear what I was saying. We were connected by an inner cord of love that let us communicate with God. A woman would be at home preparing rice and suddenly run off to the church. Someone else would say she was going to change into a new dress and then run off to the church in her old dress with holes in it. If a woman’s in-laws shaved her hair to keep her from going to the church, she would come with her bald head.
As our members increased, we began to evangelize on university campuses. In the 1950s, university students were premier among intellectuals in Korean society. We began by working near the gates of Ewha Womans University and Yonsei University. Soon a sizable number of students were spending time at our church.
Professor Yoon Young Yang, who taught music at Ewha, and Professor Choong Hwa Han, who was the dormitory master, came to our church. Many students also came, but they did not come just one or two at a time. Dozens came, and their numbers grew in geometric progression. This surprised the established churches and us as well.
Within two months after we began our campus evangelical work, our congregation exploded in size, primarily with students from Ewha and Yonsei. The rate of growth was incredible. It was as if a spring breeze had blown through and changed the hearts of the students all in a moment. Dozens of Ewha students packed up their belongings and moved out of the dormitory. This happened on a single day. If someone tried to stop them, they would say, “Why? Why are you trying to stop me? If you want to stop me, you’ll have to kill me. Kill me!” They even came out by climbing the walls around the building. I tried to stop them, but it was no use. They did not want to be in their clean school; they wanted to be in our little church that smelled of dirty feet. There was nothing anyone could do about it.
Finally Dean Hwal Ran Kim (Helen Kim) sent Professor Young Oon Kim of the Department of Religious Social Welfare to our church. Professor Kim had studied theology in Canada and was a theologian in whom Ewha held out great hope for the future. Dean Kim chose Professor Kim because her specialty was theology, and she assumed she could develop a definitive critique of our theology that could be used to finally stop this influx of students. But a week after meeting me, this special representative, Professor Kim, joined our church and became one of our most enthusiastic members. This gave us even more credibility among the other professors and students at Ewha. Our membership numbers snowballed.
The situation grew out of control, and established churches resumed their accusations that we were stealing their members. This seemed unfair to me. I never told anyone to listen to my sermons or attend our church. If I chased people out the front door, they would come in the back. If I locked the doors, they would climb over the fence. I was powerless to stop them. The people most perplexed by this were the administrators of Yonsei and Ewha, who in turn were supported by Christian foundations. They could not stand by and do nothing as their students and faculty came swarming to some other religious group.
Two Universities Expel Students and Professors
Yonsei University and Ehwa Womans University were embroiled in crisis and finally chose a measure that had never been used before and has never been used since. Ewha fired five professors, including Professor Young Oon Kim, and expelled fourteen students. The expelled students included five in the graduating class. Yonsei also fired one professor and expelled two students.
The school chaplain of Ewha tried advising the students, “You can attend that church after you graduate. That way, no harm will come to the school.” But it was of no use. It had the opposite effect.
The expelled students protested vehemently. “There are many atheists in our school,” they said. “And we even have the children of traditional shamans attending our school. How can the school justify expelling us and following the hypocrisy of this double standard?”
The school, however, stood fast. It simply repeated its position: “We are a private school and a Christian school. We have the right to expel any student we choose.”
When the media got word of the incident, one newspaper carried an editorial titled, “Expulsion Is Wrong in a Country with Religious Freedom.” This situation soon became a topic for debate among the general public.
Ewha, since it was supported by a Christian foundation in Canada, was concerned that its support would be cut if it became known that large numbers of its students attended a church declared to be heretical. In those days, Ewha held chapel three times a week, took attendance, and submitted these attendance records to mission headquarters.
After the students were expelled and the professors fired, public opinion began to turn in our favor. Ewha, in an effort to counter this trend, began a campaign of false rumors too vile to repeat. Unfortunately, as is so often the case, the more vile the rumor, the more people revel in believing and repeating it as true. These false rumors began to feed on themselves, and soon they took on a life of their own. Our church suffered from this for more than a year.
I did not want the problem to grow out of control like this. I did not want to cause problems. I tried to convince the students and professors to lead simple, quiet lives of faith. I explained that there was no need for them to leave the dormitories and cause such public trouble. But they were adamant. “Why do you tell us not to come here?” they asked. “We wish to receive the same grace as everyone else.” In the end, they were forced to leave their schools. I was not comfortable with this.
After being forced from their schools, the students went as a group to a prayer hall on Mount Samgak on the outskirts of Seoul. They went to seek comfort for their wounded hearts. They had been kicked out of their schools, their families were angry with them, and their friends no longer wished to meet them. They had no place to go. They fasted and spent their entire time praying with such emotion that their eyes cried and noses ran. Soon, some began to speak in tongues. It is true that God appears when we are on the edge of despair and desperation. The students who were expelled from their schools and cast out by their families and society found God in the prayer hall on Mount Samgak.
I went to Mount Samgak and gave food and comfort to the students who had become emaciated from fasting.
“It is bad enough that you’ve been unjustly expelled,” I explained. “Please do not fast also. If your conscience is clear over what you have done, then being insulted for it is not dishonorable. Do not be discouraged, but wait for your time.”
Five of those students who were seniors later transferred into Sook myung Women’s University. But the damage was already done.
This incident played a decisive role and was the turning point in gaining me a profoundly negative reputation. Newspaper reports began to read as if all the evil acts committed by various religions were done by us. People who at first reacted to the rumors with “Could it be true?” now began to say, “It’s true.”
It hurt to be subjected to such unfair treatment. The injustice was so intense that it made me angry. I wanted to shout out in rebuttal, but I did not speak out or attempt to fight. We had too much else to accomplish and had no time to waste in fighting.
I believed that such misunderstandings and hatred would dissolve with time and that we should not use our energy to be overly concerned about them. I pretended not to hear people say, “Sun Myung Moon should be struck by lightning,” or the Christian ministers who prayed for my death.
But instead of dying down, the rumors grew ever more outrageous with each passing day. It felt as if the whole world had united in pointing fingers of accusation at me. Even in the heat of the Heungnam fertilizer factory, I refused to let others see even my shins. Yet now rumors had it that I danced naked in our church. Soon people who came to our church for the first time looked at me with eyes that seemed to say, “Are you the one who takes off his clothes and dances?”
I knew better than anyone that it would take time for such misunderstandings to go away, so I never tried to argue with them, saying, “I’m not like that.” We cannot know someone without meeting the person, yet there were so many who did not hesitate to curse me without ever having met me. I knew it was useless to battle against such people, so I endured in silence.
The Yonsei–Ewha incident forced our church to the brink of destruction. The image of “pseudo-religion,” or “cult,” became inseparably identified with my name, and all established churches joined together to call for the government to prosecute me.
On July 4, 1955, the police raided our church and took me and four members—Won Pil Kim, Hyu Young Eu, Hyo Min Eu, and Hyo Won Eu—into custody. Ministers and elders of the established churches joined hands with secular authorities in writing letters calling for our church to be closed. These four members, who had been with me from the beginning, were forced to stay in prison with me.
The matter did not end there. The police investigated my background and came up with a charge of draft evasion. But this, too, was egregious. By the time I escaped my North Korean death camp to head south, I was already beyond the age of compulsory military service. Still they charged me with draft evasion.
New Buds Grow on Scorched Branches
The detectives of the Special Intelligence Section of the Office of Public Order who raided our church and took me into custody brought me to the Chung Bu Police Station. I was outraged to be charged with draft evasion but said nothing. I had a mouth to speak, but I was never given the chance to say a word. Some saw my silence in the face of unjust treatment and called me “spineless.” I endured this sort of name-calling in silence as well, believing that this too must be a path that has been given to me. If this is the path I must follow to reach my objective, then there was nothing I could do about it. Because I followed such a clear path, I could not be defeated. The more I was attacked, the more care I took to act more honorably than anyone.
Once I made this decision in my heart, the police had no control over me. When the detective was writing his report, I was teaching him how to write it.
“Why don’t you include this content,” I would say. “And up here, you need to write it this way.”
He did as I said. Each phrase that I told him to write was correct, but when the detective put them all together, he found that they led him to the opposite conclusion from what he had intended. He became angry and tore up the report.
On July 13, 1955, on the sixth day of incarceration in Chung Bu Police Station, I was placed in prison once again. This time, it was the Seodaemun Prison in Seoul. I was shackled, but I was neither ashamed nor sorrowful. Life in prison was no obstacle for me. It might serve as a motivation to stimulate a heart of great anger, but it was never an obstacle in my path. For me, it was a way to gather additional capital for my future activities. I overcame life in prison by telling myself, “I am not someone to die in prison. I cannot die. This is only a springboard for me to take a great leap toward the world of liberation.”
It is the rule in the world, and the law of heaven, that that which is evil will fall and that which is good will rise up. Even if I must go into a dung heap, I will not fail if I maintain a pure heart. As I was being led away in shackles, some women passed by, looked at me askance, and twisted their faces in disapproval. They exuded the feeling that I was grotesque even to look at, because they believed I was the leader of a sex cult. But I was neither afraid nor ashamed. Even if filthy words were used to harass me and our church, I would not be shaken.
Of course, I had normal feelings. Outwardly, I maintained my dignity, but there were many times when I felt stifled and sorrowful to the marrow of my bones. Each time I felt my heart weaken, I endured by telling myself, “I am not someone to just die in prison. I will stand again. I am certain of this.” I redoubled my determination, saying, “I am taking all the pain into myself. I am carrying all the baggage for our church.”
One could easily expect that my imprisonment would mean the end of our church, with all members going their separate ways. Instead, members came to visit me every day. In some cases, they even fought over who would come to see me first. Visitations were allowed only after 8 a.m., but members would line up and wait outside the prison gate from early in the morning. The more people cursed me, and the more alone my situation became, the more people would line up to visit me, encourage me, and shed tears for me.
I did not even greet them with great emotion. In fact, I would rebuff them, saying things like: “Why do you come and make such a fuss?” Still, they followed me in tears. This was their expression of faith and love. They were not attached to me because I knew how to speak smoothly or eloquently. They liked me because they knew about the love that lay deep in my heart. Our members recognized my true heart. Even if I should die, I will never be able to forget the members who followed after me even as I was forced to stand shackled in court. I always remember their expressions as they sobbed to see me sitting at the defendant’s table.
The guards at the prison were amazed. “How does this man make those people become so crazy,” they wondered when they saw our members flock to the prison. “He is not their husband, and they are not his wife. He’s not their son. How can they be so devoted to him?”
In at least one case, a guard commented, “We heard that Moon was a dictator and exploited people, but it is so clear that this is not true.” This guard became a member to follow our way.
Finally, after I was three months in bondage, the court found me not guilty and I was released. On the day of my release, the chief warden and all the prison section chiefs gave me a formal send-off. Within three months, they all became members of our Unification family. The reason their hearts turned toward me was simple. Once they could see me up close, they realized I was not at all the person portrayed by the rumors they’d heard. As it turned out, the false rumors circulating in society actually helped our evangelical efforts.
When I had been led away by the police, all media and society had made a huge fuss. But when I was found not guilty and released, they were silent. The only report on my not guilty verdict and release was a three-line story in an inconspicuous corner of the newspaper that read, “Reverend Moon not guilty, released.” The vile rumors that had put the whole country in an uproar had all been false, but this information was completely buried. Our members protested, saying, “Reverend Moon, this is unjust. It makes us so angry, we can’t stand it.” They wept in front of me, but I remained silent and quieted them.
I never forgot the pain I experienced when harassed and subjected to all those false accusations. I endured, even when so many people stood against me that I felt like there was no inch left for me to stand in all of Korea. The sorrow I felt from this time has remained with me in a corner of my heart.
I might be a tree that is buffeted by the wind and rain and scorched by fire, but I would never be a tree that burns and dies. Even a branch that has been scorched will have new buds when the spring comes. If I continue on my way with humility and strong conviction, the day will surely come when the world will understand the value of what I do.
We Are Trained by Our Wounds
People rejected the new expression of truth I preached, calling it heresy. Jesus, born in the land of Judaism, likewise was accused of heresy and was thus crucified. By comparison, my persecution was not nearly as painful or unjust. I could endure any amount of pain placed on my body. The charge of heresy against our church, however, was most unjust and more difficult for me.
Some theologians who studied our church in its early days described our teachings as original and systematic. Some were prepared to accept them. This means that the magnitude of the heresy controversy surrounding our church could not be for theological reasons. It had more to do with issues of power.
Most of our members had attended other churches before joining our church. This was a big reason our church was treated as an enemy by established churches. When Professor Yoon Young Yang, one of the Ewha professors, joined our church, she was taken to the police station to be interrogated. There she discovered that some eighty Christian ministers had written letters to the authorities criticizing our church. Clearly it was not the case that we had done something wrong. Rather, we were seen as posing a threat to the power of certain people and institutions. It was their vague feelings of fear and their extreme factionalism that drove them in their efforts to suppress our church.
People from many religious groups were attracted to our church and its new teachings. I would say to our members, “Why did you come here? Go back to your churches,” and almost threaten them as I tried to chase them away. But they would soon return. The people who flocked to see me would not listen to anyone. They wouldn’t listen to their teachers or their parents. They wanted to hear me speak. I wasn’t paying them or feeding them, but they believed in what I taught and kept coming to me. The reason was that I opened a way for them to resolve their frustrations. Before I knew the truth, I, too, was frustrated. I was frustrated when I looked up to heaven and when I looked at the people around me. This is why I could understand the frustrations of the people who came to our church. They had questions about life, and they could not find answers. The word of God I conveyed answered their questions with clarity. Young people who sought me out found answers in the words that I spoke. They wanted to come to our church and join me on my spiritual journey, no matter how difficult it might be.
I am the person who finds the way and opens it. I guide people along the path to heal broken families and rebuild the society, nation, and world so that we can finally return to God. People who come to me understand this. They want to go with me in search of God. How can people find fault with this? All we were doing was going in search of God. And for this we were subjected to all manner of persecution and criticism.
Unfortunately, during the period when our church was involved in the heresy controversy, my wife made matters even more difficult for me. After our meeting in Busan, she and her relatives began to demand that I either quit the church immediately and start life with her and our son or else give her a divorce. They even came to Seodaemun Prison during my incarceration there to put the divorce papers before me, demanding I place my stamp on them. I know how important marriage is in the effort to establish God’s peaceful world, so I endured their demands in silence.
She also subjected members of our church to horrible abuse. Personally I could endure. I did not mind her insults and reckless treatment of me, but it was difficult for me to stand by and watch her offensive behavior toward our members. She stormed into our church at all hours to curse our members, destroy church property, and take items that belonged to the church. She even threw water containing human feces at members. When she came, it was impossible for us to hold worship service. In the end, as soon as I came out of Seodaemun Prison, I acceded to the demands of her family and placed my stamp on the divorce document. I was pushed into a divorce against my own principles.
When I think of my former wife today, my heart goes out to her. The influence of her own family, which was strongly Christian, and the leadership of Korea’s established churches had much to do with her behaving the way she did. She was so clear and firm in her commitment before we married. The way she changed gives us a lesson on how much we need to fear the power of social prejudice and established concepts.
I experienced both the sorrow of divorce and the pain of being branded a heretic. But I did not bend. These were things I had to endure on my path to redeem the original sin of humanity, the things I had to endure to move forward on the path toward God’s Kingdom. It is darkest before the dawn. I overcame the darkness by clinging to God and praying to Him. Other than the fleeting moments that I would spend in sleep, all my available time was spent in prayer.
A Sincere Heart Is Most Important
Ireemerged into the world after three months, having been found not guilty. I realized more than ever that I owed a tremendous debt to God. To repay this debt, I searched for a place where our church could begin again from the beginning. I did not, however, pray by saying, “God, build us a church.” I never complained about, or felt ashamed of, the small and humble church building we were using up until that time. I was grateful to have a place to pray. I never wished for a large or comfortable space.
Nevertheless, we needed a place where our members could gather and offer services, so we took out a loan of two million won and purchased a house in poor repair on a hillside in Cheongpa Dong. It was one of many houses categorized then as “enemy property,” meaning that it had been vacant since being abandoned by Japanese who left Korea at the time of our nation’s liberation. It was a small house with only about 710 square feet of floor space. It was at the end of a long and narrow alleyway. Approaching the house was like going through a long, dark tunnel. All the pillars and walls were covered with dirt, which made us wonder what had been going on there before we arrived. I worked with the young people of our church for four days with a sodium hydroxide solution to scrub off all the dirt.
After our move to the Cheongpa Dong church, I could hardly sleep. I would sit on the floor of the main bedroom crouched over in prayer until three or four in the morning. I might take a nap until five, but then I would get up and start the day’s activities. I continued this lifestyle for seven years. Even though I was getting only one or two hours of sleep a day, I never felt sleepy during the day. My eyes shone brightly, like the morning star. I never felt tired.
My mind was so full of things to do that I did not even want to waste time eating. Instead of having people take time to set a table for my meals, I ate on the floor and crouched over my food to eat it. “Pour out your dedication! Pour it out, even if you are sleepy! Pour it out until you are exhausted!” I kept repeating these phrases to myself. I prayed in the midst of continued opposition and false accusations with the thought that I was planting seeds that would someday reap a bountiful harvest. If the harvest could not be reaped in Korea, then I was confident that it would be reaped elsewhere in the world.
A year after my release from prison, our church had four hundred members. As I prayed, I would call out their names one by one. Their faces would pass through my mind even before I called their names. Some would be crying, some laughing. In my prayers, I could tell how each person was doing, including whether they were suffering from illness.
Sometimes, as I called out their names in prayer, I would get an inspiration that a particular person would come to the church that day. The person would come, without fail. When I would go to someone who had appeared sick to me in my prayer and ask, “Are you sick?” the person would confirm it. Members were amazed that I would know they were sick without being told. Each time they asked, “How do you do that?” I would answer with a simple smile.
This is something that happened as we were preparing for a Holy Blessing Ceremony. Before the ceremony, I asked every bride and groom candidate whether they had maintained their chastity. When I asked one particular groom candidate, he answered in a loud voice that he had remained pure. I asked him a second time, and he again assured me he had. I asked him a third time, and again he gave the same answer. I looked at him straight in the eye and said, “You served your military service in Hwacheon, Kangwon Province, didn’t you?”
This time he answered “Yes” in a voice filled with fear.
“You received some time off, and as you were coming to Seoul you stopped at an inn, didn’t you? And that night you had illicit sex with a woman wearing a red skirt. I know exactly what you did. Why do you lie?”
I became angry at the man and chased him out of the Blessing ceremony venue. If a person keeps his heart’s eyes open, he can see even what is hidden.
Some were attracted to our church more because of such paranormal phenomena than because of the teachings. Many people think that spiritual powers are most important. The phenomena often called miracles, however, tend to confuse people in the society at large. A faith that relies on unexplained or miraculous occurrences is not a healthy faith. All sin must be restored through redemption. It cannot be done by relying on spiritual powers. As our church began to mature, I stopped talking to members about the things that I was seeing with my heart’s eyes.
Membership continued to grow. Whether I faced dozens of people or hundreds, I acted the same way, as if there were only one. I would listen whenever a person wanted to tell me about his or her personal situation. Whether it was an old woman or a young man, I would listen with dedication, as if this were the only person I had to deal with. Each member would say, “No one in Korea listens to what I have to say as well as Reverend Moon.” A grandmother might start by telling me how she got married and eventually tell me about her husband’s illnesses.
I enjoy listening to other people talk about themselves. When people open up to me and talk about themselves, I don’t even realize the passing of time. I listen to them for ten, even twenty, hours. People who want to talk have a sense of urgency. They are looking for solutions to their problems. So I feel that I need to listen to them with my full dedication. That is the way to love their life and repay the debt that I owe for my life. The most important thing is to think of life as precious. In the same way that I listened with sincerity to what others had to say, I also shared with them my sincere heart with fervor, and I would pray for them in tears.
How often I prayed with tears through the night? Blood and sweat saturated the floor boards where I prayed, with no chance to dry.
Later, while I was in the United States, I received word that church members were planning to remodel the Cheongpa Dong church. With great urgency I sent a telegram telling them to stop work on the church building immediately. Yes, this church embodies an irrecoverable period in my personal history, but more important than that, it testifies directly to the history of our church. No matter how wonderfully it might have been refurbished, what good could come of it if our history were destroyed? What matters is not some beautiful exterior but the secret life of tears that dwells within that building. It may not be up to a certain standard, but it embodies a tradition, and therein lies its value. People who cannot respect their own tradition are destined to fail.
There is history carved into the pillars of the Cheongpa Dong church. When I look at a particular pillar, I am reminded of a time when I clung to that pillar and wept over a particular matter. To see that pillar where I wept makes me weep again. To see a door frame that is a little crooked reminds me of the past. Now, though, the old floor boards are all gone. The floor boards where I bent over in prayer and shed so many tears are gone, and the traces of those tears are also gone. What I need are the memories of that pain. It doesn’t matter if the external style or appearance is old. Much time has passed, and now we have many churches that are well built. But for me, I would rather go to the small house on the hill in Cheongpa Dong and pray. I feel more comfortable there.
I have lived my entire life praying and preaching, but even now I tremble when I stand before a group of people. This is because to stand in such a position and speak about public matters can mean that many lives will be saved or that many will be lost. It is a matter of utmost importance to me that I can lead the people who hear my words onto the path of life. These are the moments when I draw a clear line on the crossroads between life and death.
Even now, I do not organize my sermons in advance. I am concerned that doing so might allow my own private objectives to enter into the content. With such preparation I may be able to show off how much knowledge I have stored in my head but not pour out my earnest and passionate heart. Before I appear in public, I always offer my dedication by spending at least ten hours in prayer. This is the way I set my roots down deeply. On a mighty tree, even if the leaves are a little bug-eaten, the tree remains healthy if its roots are deep roots. My words may be a little awkward at times, but everything will be all right so long as a sincere heart is there.
In the early time of our church I wore an old U.S. military jacket and fatigues dyed black and preached with such fervor that I dripped with sweat and tears. Not a day went by without my weeping out loud. My heart would fill with emotion, and tears would pour from my eyes and stream down my face. Those were times my spirit seemed on the verge of leaving my body. I felt as though I were on the verge of death. My clothes were soaked with sweat, and beads of sweat rolled down from my head.
In the days of the Cheongpa Dong church, everyone went through difficult times, but Hyo Won Eu endured particular difficulty. He suffered an illness in his lungs and it was difficult for him, but still he lectured our church’s teachings eighteen hours a day for three years and eight months. We could not afford to eat well. We ate barley instead of rice and sustained ourselves with two meals a day. Our only side dish was raw kimchi that was left to ferment for only one night. Hyo Won Eu liked to eat small salted shrimp. He placed a container of these small shrimp in one corner of the room, and once in a while he would go over with a pair of chopsticks and eat a few. That was how he endured through those difficult days. It pained my heart to see Hyo Won Eu lying exhausted on the floor, hungry and tired. I wanted to give him salted conch, but this was much too expensive for us in those days. It still pains me to think of how hard he worked, trying to record my words that flowed like a waterfall, even as he was ill.
Aided by the hard work and sacrifice of members, the church grew steadily. The Sunghwa Students Association was formed for middle and high school students. They were inspired to take the lunches their mothers prepared for them and give them up so our pioneer missionaries could eat. On their own initiative, the students created a list to take turns providing their lunches in this way. The evangelists who had to eat the lunch of the student knew that the student would be missing lunch that day and going hungry, and so they would eat the lunch in tears. The students’ expression of dedication was even more impressive than the lunch itself, and we all redoubled our determination to accomplish the will of God, even if we had to sacrifice our lives.
Though times were difficult, we sent missionaries out to many parts of the country. Despite the members’ humble desire, the cascade of vile rumors made it difficult for them to feel open to say they were from the Unification Church. They would go into neighborhoods and clean streets and help out in homes that needed it. In the evenings, our missionaries would hold literacy classes and tell people about the word of God. They would serve people in this way for several months and build up trust. As a result, our church continued to grow. I have not forgotten these members who, though they wanted very much to go to college, chose instead to remain with me and dedicate themselves to the work of the church.