Contributed by Jennifer Pierce
Happy New Year!
February 16th marks the new year for the lunar calendar. With CARP being international and having roots in Asia, we would like to acknowledge the significance of this new beginning.
As a movement standing for God on campuses, we want to take this first day to celebrate and offer it to God.
Why God?
God is important to our mission because God provides the absolute standard by which we love each other and this world. Man-made standards can always be changed and justified to fit agendas, but God’s standard never changes and will only ever justify absolute and perfect love.
CARP stands for God because God stands for perfect equality and love among humankind. God stands for us. He pours out His love unreservedly regardless of who we are and what we’ve done. We are encouraged to do the same.
We stand for interfaith because we believe God has been working behind history to create all these different faiths to find God. Men may interpret God differently, but at the root, the overlap, is a God of love who desires that we love others the way He loves us.
Our founder, Father Moon, said this:
“Our thinking is different from that of young people in general…
Most young people in today’s world, especially college students, behave in a self-centered way regarding how they can establish a successful career in their country and how they can create a life life for themselves.
However, the young people of [CARP] should not do that.
Rather than thinking only about their own happiness, they ought to consider the needs of the people and the needs of the world, based on a higher ethical viewpoint.” – September 30, 1969
Standing for Something Bigger
God provides us with the higher ethical viewpoint to consider others’ happiness and needs above our own, and we practice serving those needs.
Because God is our Parent, He teaches us about love. In our own families, we learn how to care and how to love from our parents. As our Heavenly Parent, He teaches us beyond loving just our own families or communities but the nation and the world, the entire human family.
In CARP, we have a Korean phrase hyojeong which means filial heart. It is the heart to give back and serve our parents’ desires. Parents sacrifice themselves for the well-being of their children. When we care about our parents’ desires and needs above our own, we are repaying that.
God’s desires to make sure all of His children, wherever they are, whoever they are, are loved and taken care of. When we show love and take care of our fellow humans, we fulfill that desire.
That is why God is inseparable from our mission, and we are proud.