The First Principle: Make a commitment to your family and hometown

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LESSON 5: The Family of True Love

A. Love is the true foundation for commitment.

1. The family needs to make a commitment to a life of true love. A life of true love is not partial or half-way. It reaches for the highest ideals, for ourselves and our children and children's children. This ideal for which we long is nothing less than what Christianity calls "The kingdom of God."

2. Can a family as a whole make this commitment?

• Jesus said that if you "seek first his kingdom and his righteousness" then God will provide for your needs (Matt. 6:33). This has been considered a "counsel of perfection" for individuals. Families did not even consider it applied to them.
• This is why Paul counseled against family life, observing that it drags people into the concerns of the world and away from God.
• We believe that God, the family and the world can be harmonized. Our responsibilities to serve God, the world and our families completely and simultaneously can be fulfilled through true love.
• This is the significance of the entire family making the commitment to begin with our own family in our own hometown, the real environment which we face everyday, and the people who need us and whose lives we can affect.

B. What is a "family"?

1. The family is not just parents and children, but includes the entire family environment.

• A family is three generations in one home: grandparents, parents and children.
  • They are a family through the abiding presence of true love.
  • True love is both spiritual and physical.
  • Spiritually, true love means that each family member lives for the sake of the whole family.
  • Physically, true love means that all family members are biologically connected in one blood lineage.
• A house.
  • The house is part of the family.
  • It presents the face of the family to the world.
• The family includes its rightful possessions of goods and land.
  • In traditional agrarian life there was solidarity with the soil.
  • The soil is the source of wealth and blessings.
  • The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck expresses this well: ". . . he is a happy man in spite of being poor. His home is made of earthen blocks; the jars in which he stores his grain harvests are earthen; the gods he worships are sculpted of earth. . . As his wife nurses his child in the sunlight of the fields, her skin and the child's skin turn brown as the earth, and her excess of milk flows into the earth." (see Rev. Joong Hyun Pak, Joymakers, p. 12)
  • We love the earth and it nurtures us. The earth moves according to natural law. The city is dehumanizing; people want to relate to the land.
• Pets, farm animals and a garden.
  • We care for the things of creation as a type of family members.
  • Even garden plants need love and care.
  • For example, the Findhorn Community in Scotland does prayer and meditation to impart energy and love to their gardens. This results in extremely large vegetables even though the soil is rather poor. They understand that plants are affected by human spiritual energy.
• God Himself.
  • God dwells in our family.
  • God is ever supporting and protecting us.
  • Have a prayer room or altar in the house.
  • When we enter our home, we greet God.
  • We maintain the sanctity of the home.
• Our ancestors.
  • The family extends vertically through the generations.
  • If we were spiritually open, we would sense that our ancestors often visit us.
  • Seven generations of ancestors influence our family life, according to the Bible.
  • We should respect our ancestors and be grateful for what they bequeathed to us.
• Angels.
  • The "household gods" in traditional society had a special altar. They protected the home. These often were angels.
  • Angels visited Abraham and Sarah, and he showed them great hospitality. These angels protected Lot and his family in the city of Sodom.
  • Evil spirits may also come in. We should be sensitive to the spiritual pretences in our home, especially to protect the children. Praying, reading God's words and living for others as a family creates the good spiritual atmosphere in which God and good spirits can dwell.

2. Thus, the family is a community of heaven, humanity and earth.

• These three dimensions are intertwined in our lives.
• There should be harmony among them.
• The Chinese character for "blessing" means the harmony of God, humankind, and the earth within the will of God.
• God, human beings and the earth rejoice together, or suffer together.
  • Adam's family: God, Adam and Eve, angels, the Garden and the animals.
  • After the Fall, God grieved (Gen. 6:6), the people suffered (Gen. 3:16-19), the angel was punished (Gen. 3:15-16) and the land was cursed (Gen. 3:17-18).

3. The family as a whole acts to give true love.

• Behind every successful individual is his or her parents and spouse.
• Even a successful man cannot feel content if his children abandon him.
• The house and land welcome the public. People are invited to visit and share; it becomes a community center.
  • If your property has such a public purpose, you can own a mansion and it is not a sin.
  • Even a humble apartment should be clean and welcoming to guests.

4. God lives in the family.

• Marriage is a covenant with God as well as a covenant with the community and a promise between two people.
• The family ideal can only be realized if God is dwelling in that family, because God is the origin of true love.
• The true family foundation.
  • The true foundation for the stable, prosperous family consists of God, husband, wife, and children in good interaction. This means there are four positions, roles and functions. This is called a Four-position foundation, or a true family foundation.
  • This is the foundation for the proper functioning of the entities in each of the positions.
  • These four positions in good give and take are the model or pattern for the family.

C. A true family is a family which is centered on true love.

1. The term centered on has a special meaning.

• It represents the center of a three-dimensional relationship, with God, parents and elders above us, youngers' below us, and our spouse and siblings to the right, left, front and back of us.
• Love takes on different qualities according to these different directions.
• All qualities of love are naturally harmonious with each other.
• Therefore all relationships have a natural harmony.
• Characteristics common to relationships in all directions.
  • Every human event has both vertical and horizontal dimensions.
  • The vertical dimension refers to the mental or spiritual side of every human event. It is invisible to the senses.
  • The horizontal dimension refers to the physical side of every human event, which is visible and tangible.
  • Centered on refers to the purpose and cause (the vertical axis) of the actual, resultant relationship (the horizontal axis).

Before considering the full meaning of a family centered on true love, we should discuss the meaning of true love. In the next lesson we will discuss the meaning of true love, and then consider how a family can be centered on true love.

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MEANINGFULL ENCOUNTERS