Let Us Listen.
June 10, 2020
Dear Beautiful Family,
I am so grateful for the many responses we’ve received from those of you who read my last letter and were moved to share your concerns as well as your responses. In particular, my heart is pulled to you who feel more conversation and understanding is needed internally within our own spiritual family. I fully agree, and my intention was never to communicate anything that could be perceived otherwise. It is not just important, but essential that we learn to be compassionate with one another, and that means we need to learn to listen to one another.
It is absolutely true that we cannot hope to overcome our issues without God and True Parents, but they have already fulfilled their responsibility. They have helped us to root out the evils in our own individual lives, bestowed upon us the Marriage Blessing, and set our feet on the path to fulfill God’s vision of a world in which all brothers and sisters can live in peace with one another. Self-awareness, growth, compassion and promoting loving harmony within our world family is our responsibility, not theirs.
We represent the microcosm of God’s work on earth, and therefore the responsibility to resolve conflicts lies first with us. The current social climate is compelling us to reflect specifically on racial discrimination toward the black community and the role we need to take in working toward its resolution. There are a lot of resources we can find to learn more about what it has been like for minority people here in America, both historically and currently. As well, I believe there is an even greater resource to be found in the hearts of each other within our own movement. That is why I feel so grateful to those who have taken the time over the last several days to reflect, reach out to one another and listen to one another.
I hope we can all learn from and join those initiatives. Whether within our own intergenerational families or local communities, I encourage you to learn something of the history of Africans and African-Americans and to reach out to brothers and sisters who are willing to share their hearts and experiences. What is it like growing up, working or even worshipping in our community? In what areas have you felt that you may have been treated differently because of the color of your skin?
In my experience, when I hear the painful stories of my brothers and sisters, I cannot stop my heart from growing. Their struggles provide for me the opportunity to reflect whether I have ever unwittingly committed abuses of the heart. I think this is the first healthy step we need to take toward healing our nation on the individual and family levels. Once we have purified our own thoughts and actions in these areas, we will be ready in heart to move toward healing our relationships between other cultures and nationalities.
In the grand scheme of things, I think we are a wonderful, truly amazing community, with the tools provided by Heavenly Parent and True Parents to lead this nation in the right direction. At the same time, we should not presume to think that we have perfected our ability to use these tools in the most effective ways. As True Mother said on May 8, let us use this time to reflect within. Personally, within our families, communities and our movement as a whole, we must pray; but also, we must be willing to listen.
I can promise you this: every step we climb internally will benefit the world externally.
God bless you,
Rev. Demian Dunkley, President
Family Federation for World Peace and Unification USA
irmgard baynes
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thank you President Dunkley for this additional reflection on the current uproar and protest about an issue most of us are impacted by, may it be emotionally or being concerned or otherwise. I so wholeheartedly agree that we are the ones who have to solve the racial and economic divide. And the first step to search our heart, our True Parents encourage not to hurt each other’s heart, to think of the other more than ourselves, to see God in each other, to feel as one family. And you are also right that we have wonderful community, as blessed families we strive to live at high noon without casting shadows.
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Sunder Willett
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Demian,
Thank you so much for your followup letter. Thanks to our True Parents vision, our faith community is a huge step ahead of most others around the world. True Father believed in creating one race, the “Love” race, and deliberately intermarried people from different cultures, backgrounds and ethnicities for the sake of a better future with God. However, as you said, just because True Parents’ vision is broad and all inclusive doesn’t automatically mean that our own visions are as equally broad and inclusive.
Through conversations and discussions these past weeks, I have come to acknowledge the uncomfortable reality that I have some subconscious or implicit biases against people with darker skin, that I, as an Asian-White American brother married to an African sister, am not immune to biases and judgments against people who look different from me. It has been an uncomfortable realization, but, because I have acknowledged that, I get to do something about it now. As one BC recently said to me, sometimes it’s harder for people who genuinely want to love all people to acknowledge an internal bias than it is for genuine racists. And yet, if we genuinely do love all people, then we get to follow God’s absolute standard rather than a relative one.
Thank you for responding to voices from our national movement. Thank you for your call to action. Thank you for your desire for a more perfect movement.
Sunder Willett
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