A BRIGHT AND REAL HOPE.

Can you tell, what this is? 

I found him like that. Chickie's head got stuck in a Cheetos' bag. He tried to get it out, slid backwards from the couch, but then decided, he was OK, and just continued munching on one of his favorite snacks!

     Last night Taka and I had the most meaningful conversation in our 26 years of marriage! He came over to me (I was sleeping on the couch in the living room, since the pain in my leg makes me a very uncomfortable bed partner). It was already one in the morning, and I woke up when I heard his footsteps on the carpet. 

"Are you looking for a new church?" There, the question finally left his lips. I worried about the time, when we'd have to face the reality of me leaving the Unification Church. 

"Yes, I am." - I replied. 

He wanted to know, why I decided to change my faith after being a devotee of it for thirty two years. I told him honestly 

of  all the nagging questions and inconsistencies 

I encountered between the church's teachings and the lives of the members of the Moon family. I won't go into it here, and Taka wasn't too interested to hear about it either. 

He said, how a personality of an inventor or a scientist had little to do with the importance or significance of their discoveries. I responded: "Yes, but what they discover isn't based on the idea of them being the cornerstone of a discovery. In other words, they don't say, 

like Rev. Moon did that, 

they are the Messiah! 

So, if they or their family don't behave as the Messiah should, we don't start suspecting, if their discoveries are fake. Everything Rev. Moon said and our movement did was to convince the world in his and his clan's special standing. 

Taka was patient and calm. So was I. It was a very unusual way for us to communicate, since we always ended up yelling at each other for much less than this. Now he and I respectfully, quietly and openly revealed our thoughts to each other.

He said, what the Moon family does, doesn't bother him. He always said, he was not religious or spiritual, but in his life there were occasions, which convinced him of Rev. Moon being the Christ and of the validity of the Divine Principle (the church's teachings) as a fact of existence. He wants to focus on his role, as the head of the Toyodas and the Minskys (my side of the family). It's not a power trip. Taka is concerned about our common ancestors and  

the descendants, our children. 

You see, in the Unification Church there is a concept of "liberating" and "blessing" the ancestors from the clutches of their sin and hell by paying money for them, like the indulgences. Most of the members do that, and we too already gave a few thousand dollars. It sounds like a lot, but in Japan members are required to pay much more, perhaps, because that country is responsible for terrible atrocities against Korea, Rev. Moon's homeland, and him, personally. I know of Taka's commitment to his role, so I don't fight him about the money. 

And the children...

As the Messiah, Rev. and Mrs. Moon constituted the Blessing in marriage, which would also "liberate" members from the original sin and "engraft" them into the lineage of the True Parents (yes, Rev. and Mrs. Moon). Taka repeatedly talked about our responsibility to bless our children in marriage with other people from the church. 

I countered that, it was up to them to decide, whether they want to be married in the Unification Church or not. After a while, Taka asked me the question that bothered him most: will I go with him and the kids once a month to a Sunday Service at the UC and will I try to prevent children from marrying inside the church? I said, I will accompany my family and will support the kids in whatever they'll want to do.

I also told him, our first responsibility, in my opinion, as well as the Christianity's and even the same Unification Church's, is to accept Christ into our lives and follow Him. Everything else will be added to it. 

Taka swatted that idea away, although he didn't reject it, but I remembered Mr. P.'s words that, all of us 

have "tuning forks" in our souls, 

which resonate with the truth, when we hear it, even if we don't acknowledge it to others or ourselves. 

So, I have 

a bright and real hope now. 

Taka is a sensitive, conscientious person, and God will reach him in His time!