As does the American Declaration of Independence, the Cheon Il Guk Constitution contains a pledge. Those fifty-six signers, whose pledge inaugurated an individual-centered nation, set the foundation for our Family Pledge to inaugurate a family-centered world.
Our essential pledge is to attend, embody and represent God and True Parents. True Parents embody God and, by attending them with absolute faith, love and obedience, our family too embodies God.
Embodying God, our family is a unique civilization. Our Pledge binds us into a oneness that frees us to be unique.
“Embodying God, each family is a unique civilization.”
Ours is a pledge to perfect the dutiful family way composed of three relationships and, as Father Moon explained, “every relationship has its laws. The parent-child relationship has its laws; the relationship between husband and wife has its laws, and the relationship among brothers and sisters has its laws.”
Laws are signs. By obedience to laws we express heart and achieve purposes. Obeying a stop sign expresses the heart to put the other first and thereby allow all to reach their destinations.
By obedience to family laws we express realms of heart and eternal purposes.
What is a realm of heart? It is an environment in which specific kinds of divine and human love interact. We pledge to perfect four such realms: the realms of children, of siblings, of spouses and of parents.
God’s presence grants each of these realms sovereignty and its inhabitants noble personage. Children, parents and grandparents are royal beings, kings and queens equally embodying Heavenly Parent.
True love combines these four realms into one, the royal family. This is the four-position foundation that grows into the nation, world and heaven and earth.
“Children, parents and grandparents are royal beings, kings and queens equally embodying Heavenly Parent.“
That dutiful family way, then, is a path of growth. It begins with the child’s filial piety in the family and grows into the filial heart of the patriot for the nation and saint for the world. It culminates in the divine sons and daughters’ filial heart that unites the spiritual and physical worlds.
And this brings us back home, where we welcome generations of forebears into our household.
Father Moon called the Family Pledge “something like a constitutional law.” By it we pledge to build the natural world of living for others. It is the kingdom of families, where the family resolves all things, with no need for lawyers or judges.
(Citations: First Cheon Seong Gyeong, p. 2354; Second Cheon Seong Gyeong pp. 1280; Peace Message 9.)
-TH
