Done with Moon

I’ve been a Unificationist since childhood. From then, until I was around 19, I had to eat all of the sadomasochism fed by Rev. Moon. My new Father. My new Messiah. I’ll take some time to go through them, but please be patient. I had been told that God was some sort of compulsive crybaby whose universe was forever torn asunder because two naked teenagers had pre-maritial sex in a garden. A step up from the apple and snake, I admit, but the Garden of Eden is still a myth no matter how you spin it.

Anyways, I was also told that human history was a convenient series of failures on behalf of the human race to understand the infinite sorrows of God. The Church painted said God, interestingly enough, as quite impotent. He was a servant to some pseudo-scientific law, called the Divine Principle: a lugubrious, confusing, absurd, and comical attempt to plaster Moon’s idiotic theology onto human history. Neon Genesis Evangelion’s myths made more sense.

I’m not quite sure if the Divine Principle was supposed to be a moral law or not, but I certainly was given that impression. I would be horrified and disgusted if the Principle was by any stretch of the imagination considered moral. This so-called morality dictated that again, because two naked teenagers had pre-marital sex in a garden, the Biblical wars against various tribes, the Crucifixion of Jesus, the Fall of Rome, both World Wars, the Holocaust, the Korean War, and numerous other tragedies, in the Bible and in history, were ordained by the Divine Principle to occur as payment for indemnity, or global karma. The Principle has weird ideas on proportionality. I don’t think that even Zeus, at the height of his maliciousness, would have approved of such a doctrine, so it would be doubly discouraging if a loving and compassionate God did. Why then does Moon praise the Principle with such fervor? Even it was true, it should have been condemned and resisted, even if the effort was futile. Of course, there’s always the idea that the Principle is brutally objective, but then, I don’t recall Newton’s Three Laws of Motion or the Pythagorean Theorem bluntly putting persons into sides of God or Satan.

Again, I swallowed this nonsense in my elementary years – I didn’t know any better. I think that I was still watching Power Rangers. So all of this made me very terrified of sex. Moon had a cute obsession with sex. If you don’t believe me, just look up the instructions for the 3-day ceremony. It’s quite revealing. He also said that if a pretty woman attempts to touch your penis, you should kick her 1,000 miles and God will praise you for it, but I’ll touch on his sexism later.

He just could not stop going on about the sexual organs and how they were at the center of the universe, or something like that. Easy enough to pledge abstinence when you’re young, but after puberty, I felt like I was walking in a nightmare. No sex until after I married, and Lord knew when that was going to happen. No choking the chicken, either, but when I did get the occasional slip of the wrist, so-to-speak, my whole being filled with guilt, as if I had committed a crime against God and joined the ranks of Satan.

I realize that abstinence is quite common among many Christians and even Muslims in this country, but at least they are allowed to date! Yes, because God certainly doesn’t want His Children engaging in the evil of DATING. Okay, so women were off limits until I married. At least I got to choose my wife. Oh, what’s that? My wife could be chosen for me? We might barely know each other before getting married? She might not even speak English? There could be a waiting period before having SEX? You know, there’s a word for people who have a peculiar interest in other people’s sex lives, they’re called perverts, and Rev Moon was certainly among them. Lord knows the countless unintentional pregnancies, STI infections, and abortions his teachings may have prevented had he taught instead about the options of masturbation and birth control.

Speaking of sexuality, Rev Moon was diseased with homophobia. I am sorry to say that I caught this disease as well. Moon referred to homosexuals once as dung-eating dogs and homosexuality as an activity that attracts Satan. He also said that those who love dung eating dogs, ergo people who support gay rights, will produce that quality of life. I’ve heard some homophobic statements from Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, but Moon’s hate speech sounds like something you’d hear from Neo-Nazis. Yeah, I went there, but Moon’s words were straight up dehumanizing and condemnable. NO group of people deserve to be described in that fashion. Also, Moon himself said that Hitler and Stalin were reborn as new beings, and they declared him the messiah. So he seems to think quite a bit of their opinions.

In any case, many religions still have trouble with treating homosexuals as equals, and that’s a shame. I repeat, a shame. Moon could have learned a thing from Desmond Tutu. Even the 14th Dalai Lama supports gay marriage and Pope Francis, who does not like homosexuality, says that the Church has no right interfere with the spiritual lives of gays and that he has no authority to judge gay Catholics. I grew out of homophobia after I grew out of Moon.

Then there’s this whole damned idea of Rev Moon being the Messiah. Hell, anyone can claim that. Just ask Father Divine, Marshall Applewhite, Elijah Muhammad, Jim Jones, or L. Ron Hubbard. We all know the story. Jesus asked Moon to take up the cross and suffer for humanity as the first True Parent. The whole idea being that Jesus was supposed to get married as opposed to being crucified. Now I wouldn’t force crucifixion on my worst enemy, but marriage on the other hand, should be a choice, not a requirement for joining heaven, as Moon teaches. I think that most people are comfortable with the parents that they already have, and don’t need fanatical ones from Korea.

What makes Moon so special that he should be the Messiah, anyways? It’s his word against mine. Surely, Jesus didn’t expect Moon to convince people on word alone. Except that he apparently did. To be honest, I believed that Moon was the Messiah out of pity. He does deserve some. His home country was torn apart before his eyes, and he had to suffer atrocious accommodations in a North Korean prison camp. No one should have to go through that. The pressure was all around me to convert. Certainly I wouldn’t turn against a man who suffered so much. Before I knew it, I was bowing before photographs and reading books I could hardly understand at six in the morning. For those who want a better idea of what I am talking about, check out the film, “Ticket To Heaven.” Moon, however, had a habit of romanticizing Korea as the center of the world. I don’t hate Korea. It’s a fine nation, but not a holy one. Since Moon cast North Korea as Satan and South Korea as God, he probably forgot to mention that “God’s” nation had brutal dictators like Park Chung-hee.

I could also go on about how, in face of separation of church and state, Moon crowned himself like a king in the Dirksen Senate Office Building, how he implored Americans to forgive Nixon who sabotaged the Vietnam Peace Talks in 1968, how he founded the Washington Times which spews climate change denial, and how he had at least one affair while dictating other people’s sex lives, but I think I’ve made my point. Moon’s no more of a messiah than my dead goldfish. If you still want a Korean to admire, try Kim Dae Jung.

In closing, you may wonder what exactly liberated me from my slave-masters? It was a woman named Nansook Hong, whose book I would implore all of you to read. She married Moon’s first son, Hyo Jin, and suffered unspeakable abuse, both mental and physical. When Moon was told of these things, he blamed her for not being a good wife. This is the sexism I was referring to earlier. Moon was more concerned about his magnanimous legacy than about the domestic abuse of his daughter-in-law. As I read her testimony and followed her journey, I found myself going through a similar one. By the last page, I left the church and freed myself from the depressing theology of Rev Moon. I live a happy life now. I’m not very religious, but I don’t hate religion. Moon didn’t learn a lot from them. Many Jewish scholars see the Old Testament stories as metaphors to learn from, not literal historical events representing the Cain and Abel dichotomy. If Moon really understood Jesus, he would have lived more like Gandhi, Tolstoy, or even Shaliene Woodley, as opposed to Donald Trump or John D. Rockefeller. The Qur’an opposes collective punishment for crimes done by others and would be disgusted with ideas like indemnity. While both Buddhism and Hinduism see atheism or agnosticism as acceptable spiritual paths, Buddhism more so, while Moon denounced godlessness as Satanic.

 I read on several tumblr sites that Tossa Cromwell was silenced by threats that his written confessions made in order to receive the blessing would be used against him if he came out about In Jin Moon’s affair with Ben.

Then I read a missive by a sec  gen who said that she wants to leave the church. http://donewithmoon.tumblr.com/

She said that she had to drink HW on Feb 10th and that she got (not even sure if was written by a girl, just assumed, could be a boy) a packet of instructions for Foundation Day, one of which is to “write down their sins on paper”.

Honestly. Ask yourselves dear Second Generation; what is the purpose of writing mistakes or “sins” on paper in order for God to know what you are confessing TO HIM? Do you really think God is so lame that he doesn’t know what your want to communicate to him unless it is written down on paper?

Since when does God need our sins written down in order to address them? God knows our hearts; God knows our desires even before we do. So why is it necessary to write down our issues for “people other than God” to get their cold hearted, grubby, conditional minds, hearts and hands on your personal issues? What  reasoning is being put forth for writing what ought to be private….on paper for mere mortals to read?  Anyone can misuse a written confession by outing the one who writes it. No human being is as trust worthy as God, not even ones parents.

Why does the church insist on a written confession? What’s wrong with a sincere talk with God and a sincere effort to overcome whatever our issues are? Why the third party go-between like the UC leaders or the Moon family thugs? Sigh. It stinks of trouble, especially given the Moon family problems and infighting. Why would anyone give them a weapon as potent as a written confession when they can’t even control their own lives?

The Moons are so out of touch with God and God’s love that they turn on their own family members. They fight and sue each other instead of supporting and loving each other.

To me, it’s an outrage that the Moons are demanding written confessions from UC kids. What in the hell gives those angry, hypocritical brats the right to demand anything of the children of UC families who are more loving, more humble and more sincere in their relationship with God and their own family then the Moon (Nimnuts) are?

I am a second gen. My mother and father were matched in New York in the '80s. I'm sixteen years old and I have an older sister who's 21 years old now. She's what moonies would call "fallen".

My parents have been married for nearly twenty five years. But I wouldn't call their union a marriage. They rarely kiss and they don't even sleep in the same room much less the same bed. If it were not for the church and their beliefs they would be divorced. But divorce is not the way of the church so they continue to pretend to actually be in love. Now, I love the idea of getting rid of racism, but an arranged marriage? No, I don't think so. I don't want my marriage to be like my parents; that's not the way I want to spend my life with someone.

I don't believe in the movement. I don't understand why the church "needs" all this money because it seems a whole lot like the indulgences the Catholic church used to sell. I've voiced my opinion very, very strongly, but since I'm still a minor it doesn't matter what I say. They know i don't believe in the movement so they force me to do everything. I still have to wake up at 5 AM and do pledge every eight days, bow to True Parents' picture, and try and stay awake as I'm forced to read the Divine Principle every Sunday morning.

And this Sunday, February the 10th, lucky me gets to partake in the Holy Wine ceremony and drink away all my sins and wrong doings. Oh, and might I add the whole little packetIi got about the Foundation Day Holy Wine Ceremony is just a lovely read. Who wouldn't want to be forced to read that and then write down their sins and what they want to repent for. Oh, I know I'm just dying to!

I look at all the books, newspapers, and pamphlets that are lying around my house and i can't help but think it's all a giant load of b.s.

Is the UC my Abel? Right now I am burned out on the whole Moon clan, and I am following my own path. Anyone who thinks they have a right to tell me what to do or how to live had better have very compelling reasons to do so. I don't see overwhelmingly heroic attitudes or behavior on the part of any of them.

Where is the peacemaker in the H1 / H2 fight?

How come In Jin Moon was approved and allowed to run the American UC when she was living a double life? 

Did TF or TM know about In Jin's adulterous behavior while head of the American UC? If not, why not? 

How come the American members are blamed for the failures of the Moon family? 

Where are the hundreds of millions of dollars donated to the UC being spent every year? 

Why is there so much money being wasted in frivolous lawsuits? 

Why do Moon family members receive trust fund payments when their lives are anything but exemplary? 

Is In Jin Moon still receiving UC funds?

I never wanted to broach this sensitive subject until recently when I was accused of being racist towards Koreans in an open forum. I am Caucasian and was blessed in marriage to a Japanese by Rev. Moon inKoreain 1982. This is the most common arrangement by Moon and I have to say that it wasn’t done without consideration for Moon’s expanding financial empire. I am a Canadian citizen but joined the church in the United States while sojourning there as a teenager. Canadians and Americans share a common heritage and seem to blend well until identified as such for some reason or other.

The time eventually came for all good moonies to be wed in holy matrimony and I found myself at the Little Angels School in Seoul, Korea with thousands of members from all over the world. The process did not feel any stranger or cumbersome than Prom night in high school. While queuing up with my American brothers waiting to be matched by Moon I heard him call loudly for “American citizens”. It was a mere technicality but I obediently excused myself from the group and sat down. Very shortly after that Moon abruptly call for “Europeans”. I quickly scanned the faces around me and realized my mistake so I jumped up with the other European brothers and filed forward to meet my bride. There was no questioning that we were expected to marry Japanese as all of our leadership was then Japanese. When my new bride and I stumbled from the hall we observed lines of busses outside carrying a literal army of Japanese sisters to the hall.

My experience in Korea was pleasant, as Westerners were treated cordially, but it quickly became apparent that the elder Koreans on the streets seethed with hatred for the Japanese. We were all whisked back to our respective countries and admonished about our debt to Father Moon for our eternal gift of the blessing. Seven more years in the trenches were spent by my spouse and I until we were “allowed” to consummate our marriage, most curiously by Cleophus, the notorious black Hyeung Jin.

While on MFT I rarely encountered Korean members outside of the highest tiers of leadership. The few that I did were the wives of American church leadership and rarely spent more than a few months fundraising. This was shortly after the Frazer Congressional Inquiry and leading up to the time of Moon’s incarceration on Tax evasion charges. Church recruiting in theU.S.dropped off dramatically and Moon decided to bolster the MFT brigades with thousands of additional Japanese and European members. It didn’t seem lost on me that Moon perceived the American public to be quite generous with their contributions and wanted to take full advantage of it. It also became apparent that the lower you existed on the economic scale, the more likely you were to freely offer your bounty particularly if it was for God or the church. The unfortunate side effect of this was the increasing crime statistics in our little community. Most grievous were those involving the innocent and petite Japanese sisters.

After I concluded my MFT mission I was sent to New York, which was considered the center of the Mooniverse by many, not just the church members. I quickly discovered that the church consisted of three distinct layers of bureaucracy split up upon ethnic lines. The Korean church (KEA) was an entirely separate organization from the official U.C. that consisted of American leadership over a polyglot of church travelers from all over the world. Americans incidentally, were the minority of this group seemingly due to attrition and intermarriage. The Japanese predominated in the U.C. business world with a structure all of their own but made considerable effort to accommodate Western spouses in their organization albeit in minor or mid-management positions. The unspoken rules at this time were that favor increased to individuals who aligned themselves within one of these distinct groupings. This resulted in a significant grey area of identity groups known as “the Brazilians”, “Europeans” or “South Americans” and later on “the Russians”. Interspersed amongst these sub-groupings one could easily join in based upon familiarity or marriage. All of these identity groups would converge on special occasions to attend Father Moon and his family members.

Once I was able to exert a little control over my personal circumstances, I naturally opted to join my nearest identity group being the Americans. There existed a large concentration of independent Americans in MobileAlabamathat were operating some of Moon’s business interests under the watchful eye of Japanese managers and book keepers. I spent most of my MFT fundraising experience in the American Deep South, so I was comfortable with this decision. I did not buy into the stigma of American racism as I had only encountered it in individual cases and found most Americans extraordinarily tolerant, especially at the institutional level. My life experience up to that point had confirmed for me Moon’s ascertation that inter-marriage does indeed break down racial barriers. In spite of my convictions though, there remained a persistent and rigid ethnic hierarchy in the U.C. even into the remote hinterlands of the organization. Later as I traveled to Central America and Russia/Ukraine I witnessed the same structure being enforced over the locals. It appeared to exist by design so I took the opportunity to query one of the revered 36 couples at a local gathering. He was surprisingly indignant and blurted out that “it was what Father wanted”. He then said with a scowl that he would no longer take any such questions. I had the uncomfortable sensation of being marked as a bad member after that. This eventually lead to more internal questioning which lead to more conflict which resulted in further isolation, job changes, moving, etc.

In short, I had questioned the integrity of the messiah Moon and although many members at this time had assumed he was not a messiah and perhaps even a marginal religious figure, we were mired into a culture that we had no control over. Much later I was to encounter the testimonials of other disgruntled members. It seems that Moon’s Korean appointees are being universally rejected in each of the areas that they have been installed. Brazil, Australia, Japan. Mostly for the same reasons: callous treatment of the members, mismanagement and corruption, absentee leadership. Much of the same accusations leveled at colonial Pasha’s of a variety of historical imperial fiefdoms.

I suppose that it would be disingenuous of me to claim that I was naïve of Moon’s motives as it is spelled out clearly in the final chapters of the Divine Principle that God works through specially prepared tribes in order to protect his “bloodline”. Perhaps most of us had assumed from our Christian background that this was a temporary dispensation on the path to restoration. It also seems ironic that educated liberal westerners would reject the superior notions of our forefathers only to be sucked into the vortex of another. Recent scholarly appraisals of the North Korean Juche belief system indicate that many of Moon’s suppositions are remarkably similar to theirs. Coupling that with the report thatKoreawas one of the last countries to outlaw slavery leads me to the realization that either Moon has done a poor job of educating his followers that Koreans represent God’s chosen race or…..I’m afraid we’ve all been had.

I apologize in advance if our Korean brothers and sisters are offended and interpret this assessment as a general condemnation and I wish to assure them it is not. We all bleed red, weep tears and desire the same things in life and most of us has come to recognize the futility of one emphasizing our “apartness”, as it were. Neither do I reject the original ideals that motivated me to join this movement. If anything my convictions have been strengthened and emboldened by my experience in the church. Hopefully this reflection will lead to a deeper and more productive dialog between all parties on the path to enlightenment. 

Vivid dreams, spiritual experiences, bizarre coincidences... all of these things played a big role in convincing me to join. I perceived them as a form of personal validation from God that I was doing the right thing. After a few of those, I would not have listened to anyone trying to tell me I had made a mistake. The DP appealed to me on an intellectual level. It made sense of all the bible stories I learned in Sunday School. DP built on what was already familiar to me, so it did not seem exotic or strange, like Scientology or Hare Krishna or other groups at the time. 

Over time, my ego and identity fused with the UC. Without the UC/TP/DP, I had no identity. Therefore, it was absolutely necessary that I never quit or leave. Otherwise, I wouldn't exist. 

Fear was also a factor. I believed bad things happened to members who lose faith and leave. Satan would invade. I felt responsible to keep going, even when I felt nothing and was plagued by doubts, because my family and my ancestors depended on me to "get the victory." If I left, they would accuse me of failing them. So I wasn't just in it for myself. 

By the time the Blessing finally rolled around, I was bored with the UC/DP. I would have quit, but I had nowhere to go. It was easier to simply keep going rather than start over. Besides, I didn't want to face my family and friends and hear them say, "I told you so." So my UC ego kept be in check. 

Staying in the UC creates its own inertia. The longer someone is in it, the greater the inertia. I call it the "leathery bonds of convenience." Very tough and hard to break. Simply easier to stay together with a blessed spouse, especially after having a child, even when there's no deep emotional connection. 

I was newly born again, lonely and vulnerable at age 23 in Louisville Ky in 1978. My part-time night job found me arriving at the Circle K at 11pm to pick up snacks and maybe a smile before going to my sad little apartment. I was ripe for the picking and when Paul came across my path selling his Moonie Wares, all I saw was a friendly face and a big smile. And he was also good looking which didn't hurt the deal at all....Hey, I was saved, not dead! 

Paul said all the right things and before I knew it, I had company knocking at my lonely door bringing a projector to show me slides and invite me to go out of town to a beautiful summer house in Maine for a week. They kept calling it a vacation and wow, it sounded GOOD! Somehow things worked out and I found myself on a all paid for trip with nice folks my age headed east. By the time we got to Boston, I was starting to question the wisdom of some things but I figured I had survived some pretty bad things so God would take care of me. 

I was appointed a gal to be my personal guide and I'm a patient person but after awhile I wanted some freedom from her. No way that was going to happen! And all those PBJ's!! But I loved the camaraderie and positive attitudes of most. 

On to Maine we went  and that's where the real work began with high expectations of discipline. By the end of the first week of brain washing, I was anxious to heave ho out of there and hit the road back home to good old Kentucky! My 'hip sister' learned pretty quick with me by that time, I was done with her people breathing down my neck and she lightened up. 

They promised that just one more week and the bus would take me back home but I realized I was in trouble by the mid of that second week. Sure enough, they had more excuses and used lots of good humor to convince me to stay for the FULL 21 DAYS. 

By the end of the 21 days, I was convinced by the Holy Spirit that I had foolishly gotten myself into a CULT and knew too that they had no intentions of my just walking away. Not to say they were physically abusive because they were not. They were however very manipulative and cunning. 

They made me a business offer that would've sounded great if it were truly Christian based which I had fully figured Father-Mother Moon were not. 

I even had an incredible dream that seemed more real than just a mere dream where Father Moon put his arm around me and talked to me so sweetly while showing me how he could make me rich and happy. 

Long story short, I snuck a phone call to a family member in Kentucky who spoke some very strong things to people in charge and within a few hours I was headed back home. 

I am absolutely sure there were many to thousands of young people like me who were virtually kidnapped as I would've been. Luckily I already knew that Jesus Christ is the true Messiah and sooner or later, they would've let me go anyway because I would've been preaching the real Truth which of course they would've shut down. 

I still have fond memories of the people I met and hope that at some point they all discovered the truth of things and found their freedom. 

Originally posted on: http://summerofcheesecake.blogspot.com/2012/10/falling.html

I lost my virginity right before I turned seventeen. The age my mother told me Eve and Adam fell. [The Unification Church believes that eating the apple from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil was metaphorical for Adam and Eve sleeping together, resulting in their banishment from the Garden of Eden.]

One could theorize about my need for male affection stems from the lack of love my father gave to me, and I acknowledge the fact that I did often seek the shelter and love of emotionally fucked up intellectual men who were older than me. Honestly I feel no more wise or secure than I did when I was sixteen, I still make the same mistakes I made back when I met O.

Jen had graduated from high school at New Eden, and I was hovering in a purgatory between homeschooling/ just wasting time and refusing to go to public school with non-church kids. Our dad had moved back in with the family when we lived in a house on the edge of a cornfield in Red Hook, but now our family had squeezed into a grungy, tiny house in the village of Rhinebeck (which I used to swear was the only ugly house in town.) The house was too dark, small, and oppressive for our family. Fighting was constant, often the first thing we woke up to or heard as we fell asleep. At some point, Jennie and I decided to revisit one of our childhood activities by auditioning for a production of an Agatha Christie play that the local youth theater was producing.

Like many of the troupe members, O had been a consistent presence in the group since it's formation. I didn't much like him at first, he was tall and dark despite his pasty Anglo skin. He would rub his nose like a mouse when he laughed while grinning his rodent-like teeth. However, like so many other people I would meet in my life, I would entrust him with too much faith and prize his superior insight before trusting my own judgment.

O collected strange girls as friends. Some would have severe emotional disabilities, some eating disorders, others with terminal illnesses. My sister and I were no different, cryptic girls who didn't attend public school with a curious family. Jen being the mysterious one and I being the social retard. He reached out to us when we were cast in the production, and in his own way tried to include us in the tight knit circle that the bonds of theatre make. O befriended my sister first, as boys often do because I lack the alluring qualities she has. Instead, I possess gapped teeth, a Jewish nose, and an obnoxious personality.When he'd call the house and ask to speak to her, I remember the hateful looks my mother would give her (we didn't have cellphones yet, we assumed it economically impossible and disobedient.)

One snowy day during the winter, two of my younger brothers began to fight (one emotionally sensitive and one often an instigator) and as with many of their fights, without ever rationally working through how the row was caused, my father would burst through his bedroom shouting and my youngest brothers arm (the instigator) and begin to shake or hit him with his belt. I'd been witness to these events before, and this time my youngest brother had really done nothing wrong. Perhaps, he had entered the living room at in inopportune time when the middle brother was feeling emotionally unstable, causing him to screech at my younger brother's presence. Many times before I'd seen my youngest brother beaten for the noises in the house, and I would wonder if my father directed his hatred at him because he was an 'oops' child or simply was a dangerous vessel of the defiant genes that I too had been bestowed.

This time I couldn't sit by and watch him being beaten again, I intervened and shoved off my father. I hadn't learned to throw a punch yet (which he would be bestowed in the years to come) but I remember him turning his anger towards me and shaking me as I let my younger brother slip away. A bowl full of cereal and milk came flying towards my dad's head as my sister joined the fight. I wrenched myself from my dad's grasp. With flimsy shoes, slippers, and snows ill-fit for winter weather, she and I launched ourselves out into the snow from the front door and began walking to the center of the village.

It was freezing and most of the shops were closed. I remember the snow coasting down slowly, as if it was testing levitation before carpeting the roads. We made our way out of the center of town and up the hill to the library to see if it was still open. The heat of the library warmed my wet feet and stung them with prickles as they regained their feeling. We checked our emails and signed onto AIM, either to find momentary reprieve or to connect with someone outside our situation.

My sister either emailed or IMed O, and his land-boat car pulled into the parking lot of the library to pick us up. From the backseat I heard him tell my sister he would take us somewhere for a while. He pulled up to a house 2 streets away from our own, and rang the doorbell.

Liz would be one of the first friends I made in Rhinebeck. She gave Jen and I a wary eye as she held her front door open for three. Her parents were curious as to why O had brought us over, but had Liz offer us something to eat. Liz nuked us microwave burritos, and I watched my first few episodes of Beavis and Butthead, along with being shown a website she was building that hosted her flash animations based on inside jokes; such as one of O in an MS Paint likeness screaming “Books on TAPE!”

Eventually we turned down the invitation to stay the night, and were dropped off back at home when all the lights were off.

I retold this story years later, omitting O and the fight with my family at Liz's rehearsal dinner, and in a more positive spin recalled as a maid of honor my first connection with the bride.

After O rescued us from the library, I made a conscious effort to be friendlier and more open with him. I felt we could trust him. I opened up more about our family; the fighting, the church my family belongs to. Almost everyone in the area knew about 'the Moonies', as their theological seminary still remains in the nearby town of Barrytown. O eventually told his parents, even some of the cast members, which explained a lot to them why we came across as so reclusive and strange. One day, the phone calls he made to our house were no longer for my sister, but he asked for me. My sister glared at me the moment the phone was handed to me, but my mother had sensed the danger all along.

 Like in so many other religions, a woman's virtue is everything. During church workshops, girls (sisters) were often told that if we were attacked/about to be raped, it would be better to find a way to kill ourselves before being losing out purity. Such an incident happened to a young girl participating in the church's STF (fund raising for Reverend Moon while living out of mini-vans to build character) program, where the girl was sent with an arm full of products and a wad full of cash into a rough neighborhood to sell. She was raped and killed, a secret kept from the church public by the higher ups to dissuade panic, and it was said she simply had been suffocated and robbed.

To lose your virginity before marriage was the worst sin imaginable for a Blessed Child (a.k.a. 2nd gen.) probably above killing someone and drug use. Adam and Eve were supposedly banished to the darkest pits of hell for committing such a sin, and only pardoned when Reverend Moon performed a forgiveness/liberation ceremony for them, elevating them to a higher level of spirit world. For non-fictional people, this ceremony usually cost a hefty sum.

I don't remember how O and I started dating, I don't remember our first kiss. I do remember trusting every word he said, drawing him Cowboy BeBop inspired drawings of us, and sneaking out of my parent's house to walk over to his and watch movies. I even braved the high school registration office and began attending public high school just so I could be with him. I'd been touched by a boy before, my 8th grade boyfriend who was simply following is adolescent heterosexual instincts, but nothing incredibly serious as sex.

I'll omit the graphic details, as my sister is this blog's co-author and that I've been informed my mother now reads it as well.

Watching movies in O's room always resulted into being coerced to do something physical I didn't want to do. Besides the looming threat of hell's deepest depths, my sixteen year old self just knew I wasn't ready. But it happened. No longer a virgin, I sat on his bed and burst into tears and shook. Like any male on the planet, he was immediately freaked out, because when women cry that means they're crazy. - especially when in an intimate situation.

He dropped me at home, and I confused my sister with my hysterics. Eventually, I told my parents by email, and they reacted with silence. It was no shock that a situation like this could come about, but it was a complete disbelief that something this serious could happen to a Blessed Child. Least of all, their child.

To escape my parents and my own disappointment, I accompanied my sister on a trip across the state so she could nanny for a church family, and visit her beau S who lived out near SUNY Fredonia. I fluctuated between crying on the bed we shared, trying to distract myself with helping my sister feed the kids mac n' cheese, and catching her in moments we were alone to cry and gripe at her. I felt like if I could just keep talking at her, some lifeline would remain to keep me from impending insanity or the forces of spirit world looking to rip me away to hell. I remember returning home, attending church on God's Day [New Years Day] flanking my mother's side as we standing and bowing to pictures of True Parents, sobbing and feeling like the world's biggest failure.

My mother had told me that in Hell, Hitler is tied to a post where all the people he killed come at him and tear him apart again and again. I imagined something like that or a scene out of 'What Dreams May Come' awaited for me once I died.

Everything began to fall apart then. A boisterous, opinionated church member who ran a boarding school in Texas for 2nd Gen (I had visited to see two of my summer camp friends) informed the whole school of my mistake, particularly directing it at the two girls there who kept in contact with me. I was tainted, and now everyone in the church community knew.

O dumped me after three months. To be fair, I had pulled all the crazy students girls tend to pull when they've imprinted on their first real boyfriend; threatening to kill myself if he left me, calling all the time, being really needy etc. But to be fair: he was also a douche bag who continuously pursued new muses and would dump them after he'd lose interest.

It was during rehearsal for the school play, out by the gymatorium entrance where he ended it. I slumped against the lockers, pleading and verbally scraping for a reason for him to stay with me. He eventually excused himself from the crazy girl balled up into a hunched shape and walked away. I stumbled towards my locker and removed everything, and left the gym exit, walking across the field to my house.

The next day, either out of stupid resolve to survive or to win him back, I refilled my backpack and walked over to the school at 7am. I remember walking the halls and intentionally saying hello to the people in “our” group of friends, people I had never really spoken to before but I was set to prove to them I was a person apart from the barnacle I had been to O. One girl approached O in the cafeteria, completely bewildered as to why I had said hello to her.

It worked. I can say with pride that some of my closest friends to this day are the people I reached out to in highschool. Facebook is littered with pictures of the memories we all made, trophies of the times we lived a reckless youth. I've seen three of them married, one travel the world, one off to medical school, and two whose proximity to me in NYC I cherish daily. I love my friends, and despite being a generally horrible person, O is directly responsible for those friends I've made.

O never completely disappeared from my life. He and one of his emotionally disturbed muses drew a charicature of me as a paper doll, complete with food stamp accessories and hooked Jewish nose, posting it on DeviantArt for the public to see. Whenever we happened to be at the same social events, he'd motion to others miming the 'crazy' sign, while pointing to me. As a college drop out, he once was hired at the same haunted theme park I worked at seasonally, pretending to be cordial as we passed. He married a girl who he assumed was terminally ill, partially out of spite regarding her parent's disapproval to their marriage. Before he left for university, one of the last things he said to me was he imagined me one day needing his help, coming into his big-shot lawyers office wearing a cheap pink sweater.

I promised myself that one I made it rich, I would find where ever he lives and mail him a cheap pink sweater.

I don't give a fuck what he does now days, but I am still healing from the damage I did to myself.

A few weeks ago, I retold this story and the emotional anguish I endured when I thought I had done irreparable damage to my soul and God's heart by sleeping with a boy. I told of the nightmares I had and the unshakable panic attacks that consumed me when I thought Satan had me by the throat.

My therapist leaned back in his chair, hand over his mouth, processing for a few minutes. The silence was uncomfortable, and I couldn't help notice how strange it was that he was a visual mix of my uncle and Michael J. Fox. Finally, he opened his mouth and said; “I want you to understand that what you're coping with is trauma.”

Thirty-thousand feet seems like a good altitude at which to question one's life. “I am already in motion,” I tell myself. It's a kind of progress. Shortly after my twentieth birthday I was in progress, between JFK and Heathrow, en route to Oslo.

After takeoff the girl sitting next to me smiled kindly, asking where I was headed. I told her:

“To Norway. To visit my husband.” She reached into her bag and pulled out a stack of glossy women's magazines, offering me several. They promised hot sex tips, orgasm-inducing positions, and advice on how to find a man to orgasm with. She pointed to a few with a wink. “Maybe you can find something nice in there for your husband.”

Today, almost a decade later, to use the word husband feels wrong; I avoid it. But at the time it was what he said I should call him. “I am your husband!” he would say. The word sounded foreign in my ears; "husband" was supposed to be a word attached to “honoring” and “cherishing,” and whatever else heartfelt marriage vows should entail. But I had not been given the choice to say those vows.

My parents were married, along with two thousand other couples, in Reverend Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church at Madison Square Garden on July 1, 1982. I was the first of five children, and we were all raised as members of the Unification Church's Second Generation, who were thought to be born sinless and of God's Lineage, through the Blessing marriage ceremony officiated by Rev. Moon. Theologically this meant that Rev. Moon, as the purported Messiah, had created a heavenly lineage through his personal perfection, relationship with God, and marriage with (the much-younger) Hak Ja Han, in 1960.

Growing up, I always had the expectation that Rev. Moon would choose my spouse. In the Unification Church, one didn't date. Flirtatious interactions with the opposite sex were severely frowned upon, all activities were separated by gender, and we referred to one another as brother and sister in order to emphasize platonic relations. Sex before marriage was absolutely out of the question. The Church had a word for that: falling. To fall was the greatest sin that could be committed, and it could not be undone. To fall was to enter the realm of Satan, to be cut off from God and to wound His already-suffering heart. 

Perhaps childhood's greatest tragedy is what we learn to normalize. In my upbringing, to question what we were taught was to invite Satan and the evil Spirit World into your mind; to fend off evil, one must quiet the questions and dive further into the readings and teachings of Rev. Moon. Some of the most effective brainwashing was what we had been taught to perpetuate upon ourselves.

At 19 I found myself on a terrifying personal precipice. I was seriously considering leaving the Unification Church, but with no means of supporting myself and no safety net outside of the insular church community, the notion was enough to bring me to panicked tears. Yet I didn't know if I believed Rev. Moon, his world, or his supposed messianic mission. As a reflex, I was ashamed and hated myself for feeling that way.

When word of an administrative opening in the US Second Generation Department reached my family, I was intrigued. What better way was there to understand what this movement was all about than by working for one of the central organizations? So, before making a decision to abandon the culture of my childhood, I climbed into the belly of the beast looking for truth. That’s where I lost my way.

When the Christmas holidays rolled around, I took my miniscule stipend and boarded an Amtrak train home to ponder the nothingness I had found but had not yet accepted. When I arrived home, there was news: after five years of having parents match their children, Rev. Moon was stepping up again, and was going to conduct a matching ceremony for the Second Generation.

My parents sat me down in the bedroom, listing all of the reasons why I should go. Though it was left unspoken, we all knew that at almost 20 years old, my eligibility expiration date was staring me hard in the face. My mother finished with, “If Jesus came to you and said that he had found your perfect spouse, what would you say to him?” She paused for effect. “Now, how much more is Father?”

How could I say no? To refuse was to deny the remotest possibility that this man might be who he said that he was. I simply had not gotten there in my journey. Besides, I told myself, it was just a matching. My match and I would have time to get to know each other before deciding to get married.

My biggest mistake was to assume that I would be allowed to exercise free will.

My mother dropped me off at East Garden, one of the Moon family's mansion-compounds in Tarrytown, NY, and I entered into the ballroom of the estate with approximately 10 other nervous young people. For the next several hours, one of the Korean leaders proceeded to lecture us on our unworthiness. That’s when I found out that by the time we left, we were all going to be Blessed to someone.

The panic blossomed. I had to leave and began approaching anyone, even strangers, to ask to borrow their cellphones. Repeated calls home, begging my parents to come pick me up, were answered in the negative.

By the end of the day, the ballroom was packed to capacity. Young people from all over the United States, Asia, and Europe had answered Rev. Moon's call. Late in the evening, Rev. Moon came out to address us through his interpreter. Though I had never heard them from his mouth before, I desperately wanted to hear words of wisdom — or something that rang true — from the man who held my future in his hands.

One phrase stuck out to me in the monotony: “Do you want me to match you tonight?” A thunderous “Yes” answered Rev. Moon's question, and we were lined up into rows, divided down the middle, and categorized.

I should have left, I tell myself. I should have simply snuck out of the sweltering ballroom, slipped out of the mansion, and found my way through security to get outside of the compound. Even if I had had to follow the train tracks from Tarrytown back home, I should have left. But with no money, no means of communication, and no idea if I would have a home to go back to if I left, I was frozen in place. Besides, I had been trained to obey.

Suddenly Rev. Moon began pointing. A girl, then a boy would stand up, acknowledge each other, bow to Rev. Moon, and then be ushered out to be “processed” by administrators. My breathing was shallow; I tried to quiet my mind and draw upon the things I had been taught.

Absolute faith. Absolute Love. Absolute Obedience.

When Rev. Moon's finger pointed to me, time stopped. I looked deep into the eyes of the man who had bidden me to rise with his gesture and saw nothing. I was gazing into the eyes of the man who was determining my future, and I had expected to see some sort of timelessness, or to feel as though his eyes were digging into my soul. But he was looking through me, as though his finger had arbitrarily found its way to me in a game of love roulette. I felt suspended over an infinite emptiness.

Then time sped up, his finger jabbed in another direction, then another and another. Three other people stood up, and I had no idea which of the other two men I had been assigned to. One I had met at a summer camp several years ago, but he was looking at someone else. The other man gestured to me and I found myself eye-level with a shrunken and pilled sweatshirt emblazoned with the word “Norway.”

In an instant, I was no longer suspended. A kind of darkness engulfed my mind, the words “game over” ringing in my ears. Afterward, everyone was abuzz with excitement; I desperately looked around to try and find someone whose face mirrored the same panic I was trying to fight. A gesture from above caught my attention. “Norway” was trying to introduce himself to me.

Finally I looked up at the man that Rev. Moon had chosen for me. "Tall" was the only word that came to mind. Over the noise, he tried asking me questions; what they were and how I answered, I forget. Those next hours were a strange blur — alternating between sadness and terror. At one point I borrowed someone's cellphone and called home. It was 2 a.m. and my mother's sleepy voice answered. “I'm matched,” I said without emotion. “To a Norwegian. His name is Chris.” Then I hung up.

We were woken up the next morning at 5 a.m. for morning service. I had lain awake all night, clutching my stomach, trying to keep nausea at bay. Chris found me and approached me with a bagel — the first meal I remember receiving in 24 hours. The smell of food made me ill and I politely refused. Despite his best efforts to chat with me and have the “getting to know you” small-talk, I could barely muster words.

Every so often I would sneak away to borrow another cellphone, calling home in tears. But if my parents had refused to budge before, they certainly weren't going to now that they had a son-in-law waiting in the wings.

The day after Christmas, at the back of that crowded ballroom, I was wearing a wedding dress that didn't fit, standing next to a tall stranger, and repeating vows in a language I didn't understand. After the Blessing ceremony, we had official photos taken. As the photographer told us to say “cheese,” I realized that I couldn't remember how to smile.

I still have that photo. I look like a confused child playing a bizarre game of dress-up; I'm gazing into the camera with a lost expression. Chris is looking away, dressed in an equally ill-fitting tuxedo. The picture would have been funny if it weren't so sad.

That was how I found myself several months later at 30,000 feet, bound for Norway. To fight the mounting dread of the impending arrival, I immersed myself in the magazines that my neighbor had kindly lent me. It was the first time I had ever picked up any material that encouraged an expression of sexuality, and I felt a delicious bit of rebellion wash over me.

As I pored over the pages, I could feel certain gears shifting as pieces of me unlocked and unwound inside. The women in these pages catapulted me into an exhilarating daydream in which my choices were my own. That daydream left an intense hunger within me.

As a 20-year-old virgin, I wanted to know what it would be like to sleep with a man because youwanted to, or because you loved him, not because you were pressured by your parents and his parents to “start family life.” The idea of sex with Chris made my skin crawl, and I had no idea if I would face pressure from him or his parents when my plane touched down.

Rev. Moon died on September 3, 2012, at the age of 92. His daughter, In Jin Moon, stepped down from her role as leader of the American church a few days later, after having given birth to a child from a three-year affair with a married man. While the church has not been a part of my life for many years now, I've watched these recent events and their fallout with interest.

At first, this news of Rev. Moon's daughter didn't bother me. Then the leadership began trying to explain away her actions and affair, saying that she "chose love when she had a chance.” How many of us were given the allowance to "choose love when we had the chance"? That was something we were explicitly denied; instead were taught to feel ashamed for our feelings unless they were chosen for us, and then sanctioned by someone with power over us.

Sometimes I wonder where my life would be if I had sat next to someone else on the plane, who offered to let me borrow a copy of The Economist instead. The girl next to me on the plane offered a small form of salvation; in a kind gesture she offered me a glimpse into a world that I had had no idea existed. It was a world in which I did not need to be ashamed of my body and my sexuality. My desires for love were not evil. It was a world that encouraged me to discover who I was, not a world in which I had to break my inner-self down to fit a preconceived notion of goodness and of womanhood. Most important, it was a world that let me take ownership of my future, my free will, my reproduction, and my heart. It was a world that I finally knew I needed to escape to.