The Role of Ocean Providence

On Saturday, October 28, the Clifton Family Church in Clifton, NJ, hosted the third Ocean Hobby Seminar led by Hobby World Marine, a boat manufacturer based in New Jersey. The event attracted a total of 9 participants and featured a talk by Mrs. Tomoko Sato, chief editor of the Kaiyou Shin Jidai magazine. The magazine discusses the current events, philosophy, and history of Ocean Providence.

According to Mrs. Sato, the ocean providence was meant to reconnect humankind to nature and cultivate a culture of hobby life where work is not a form of slavery but rather an expression of one’s passion. It is through the ocean that humanity could learn to truly be alive. She called attention to an occasion reported in the January, 2006 edition of the Japanese monthly magazine Family. In the article, Mr. Tateo Sato recalls a conversation in which True Father asked him and Mr. Sang Gwon Park, representing both the ocean providence and the efforts to reunite Korea, which task was of higher priority: the Ocean Providence or the reunification of North and South Korea. True Father answered, “The Ocean Providence is far more urgent and serious.”

Mrs. Sato explained that True Father prioritized the Ocean Providence over the reunification of the Korean peninsula because he knew that in order to release North Korea from communism, he would need to be able to present a philosophy of life that could completely overturn and replace the communist thought that all life advances and all progress is made through struggle. His hope was that the ocean providence would lay a substantial foundation for this alternative philosophy of life.

Mrs. Sato’s talk was followed by questions from the audience, and the program concluded with Mrs. Minobu Joo encouraging the participants to learn more and engage in the ongoing discussion of Ocean Providence on the Google+ community called “Ocean Hobby Seminar US” and to become a patron of the International Ocean Fund on Patreon. This fund was formed to support the development of Ocean Providence-related projects, with a current focus on activities in Paraguay.