A Love Letter to Second Generation BC’s: I Did Not Leave the Church Because I was Angry
By: Anshin Kelly
Tags: Love Letters, Unification, Brotherhood, Healing From Trauma, Sisterhood

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To My dearest Brothers and Sisters,

I have wondered how to reach out to you in a bigger, more public way for a long time. In the last over a decade I’ve assisted many of you in life’s scariest but necessary questions and doubts. I have tried to be “Onni,” big sister to you as you delved into the next necessary initiations of womanhood and manhood. I knew I could be of some help, because like many of you, I had taken a crazy, terrified yet such a profound leap of faith; away from all that I had ever known. I found myself in the “initiative forests” of a woman’s Soul and psyche; experienced betrayal, rejection, slander and heartbreak from the very people who loved and raised me. With only my inner compass to guide me, I picked, climbed, sobbed and clawed my way through; following a consistent, yet ever bobbing and disappearing light seemingly in the distance, and also deep, deep inside of me. I’m here to say, I made it and I have thrived in a way I know I could never have thrived in the loving, sheltered yet well-intentioned fold of the church community.

​ I do not reject the Unification Church, Movement and or its incredible role it played in being the very soil in which I grew; the very soil in which I came to be. I happen to still feel, with all my Self, that Father and Mother Moon are the Messiah and True Parents of all humankind. I don’t believe this blindly; I earned that understanding through initiation after initiation, into womanhood, wifehood and motherhood. What breaks my heart even now is that almost none of my former church community thinks that how I feel is anything to hold and understand as sacred, and if not sacred, at the very least, very deep and unifyingly human. Every time I’ve tried to connect again, I get the genuine love I do have, that has never changed, even after so much pain and time, mostly thrown back in my face; “you are not one of us anymore,” their attitudes, glances, comments and discomfort say to me. Many have turned around in the same instant after ignoring and/or mistreating me and show love and acceptance towards a Second Gen. they feel is morally sound and acceptable- conventional. Unfortunately, in my in depth and painful experience, “One Family Under God” is actually heavily regulated in these environments, and I just don’t have the moral papers they are looking for.

But, I love you. So much, so passionately and unconditionally, I can’t even explain it and it makes no rational fucking sense. I’ve been so angry with you, so FURIOUS with the injustice, rejection, misunderstanding, heartbreak and gut-wrenching longing to be accepted by you despite differences. I just want to be with you. That’s why I kept coming back, I kept trying for years. We are “One Family Under God.” This is what I was raised with and this is everything I know and believe. I fully recognize differences in beliefs and understanding. I actually consider myself to be religious as well as spiritual and very traditionally Japanese/Korean in many internal ways and my most sacred values stay very devoted to the family. I may not feel EXACTLY the way a more conventional UC member would feel about The Human Fall, about Restoration and Lineage. Although, ALL are still so, so central to my understanding of purpose and existence.

I told you this was a love letter (tear stain). I don’t care if I’m a fool. I love you.

I’m not a wicked witch that is going to devour your children and teach them immoral ways. I am an herbalist a healer, traditional midwife, a psychic, an instinctual woman, a truth speaker and medium, and you have been told the ways of the Intuitive and Primal Woman are dangerous, and so you turned her into an evil witch. She doesn’t follow all the rules, so she must be disillusioned, dangerous, immoral and resentful.

But, my love, my elders, my Imo and Ajoshi, Halomoni, Halaboji, Umma, Appa, your daughters, my sisters have called me and written to me telling me how they are sexually and mentally abused by their husbands and that the only way through it is to be silent, bear it and forgive him, because you say this is the only way, the right way. When I say, this is not forgiveness. You are not teaching your daughters forgiveness. You are devaluing their testimony, their mental, physical and emotional health for a cheap, false version of what you think is the forgiving “spiritual” and “holy” way. When a woman wakes up and realizes she is being abused, this is a SACRED, HOLY and POWERFUL ACT on their TRUE SELVE’S behalf. This is absolutely Principled. And by the same powerful token, on THEIR HUSBAND’S TRUE SELVE’S BEHALF. A Son of God is abusing himself, when he abuses his wife.

My Imo and Ajoshi, Halomoni, Halaboji, Umma, Appa, I grew up with young boys and girls who were taught to be ashamed of their sexual parts; how they function and how they feel. Understanding and having a relationship to one’s sexual parts is a far cry from sleeping around and watching porography which teaches violence towards women and shows men as unbridled, domineering beasts. It is a far cry from having premarital sex. True Parents have been the #1 advocators of Sacred Sex/Absolute Sex. That the sexual parts are The Center of Creation and therefore holy. We are encouraged to get married and have families. We are encouraged to have sex with our husband’s and wives (and learn to have a grand ‘ol time too!), because it is central to the Restoration process, BECAUSE, sex is central to LIFE, LOVE and LINEAGE. But a boy or girl who is told that touching their own body is evil and shameful is not being taught to have sexual integrity. They are being taught that they, themselves can not and will never achieve sexual integrity without sterilizing themselves to their own biological realty. And it is only holy when someone else touches them first in a marriage relations. In other words, The First Blessing, to achieve oneness of mind and body through life experiences personally does not seem to apply to sex and sexuality! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard and experienced this scenario by second gen; “my parents did not give me any guidance about sex and sexuality. I didn’t know anything else except that I was told that ALL things about me that are sexual become evil when I touch them. But are holy when my husband or wife touches them. So I began looking for books and searching the internet to teach me instead. I have been plagued by an addiction to pornography ever since.” This, is not a joke. I am unbelievably serious.

My love, I am not saying this to hurt you, I’m saying this because I love you way too much to let you keep living in an unreality. In a sterilized version of Restoration, Absolute Sex, True Love, Divine Principle and Kingdom Ideals. And continuing to think that the man and woman who came to earth to literally take on the Providence of Restoration, could think this simplistically. When I left the church I was able discover how incredibly intuitive, deep and complex the very ALIVE and ever moving, processing, growing and composting, loving and crazy deep, THE ECO-SYSTEM; OF RESTORATION of TRUE LOVE and TRUE FAMILY is!!

Sterile beliefs and concepts of holiness and trueness are pollutants in the Unification Church Community. It is absolutely principled that getting back to an unfallen state is a process; not a one size fits all, not a one doctrine kind of path.

Father Once said: “God doesn’t care about doctrine.” The Divine Principle says that The First Blessing, is well, FIRST. That the human being, spiritually and physically are Sacred, not sterile.

I am writing this love letter because there is a deep, silent suffering among second gen that is not being addressed, and I keep getting told in many different creative ways to “shoosh.” “Don’t be so dreary Anshin dear. You chose the wrong path, you’re lost, you can’t possibly understand.”

I don’t understand everything, but I know suffering when I see it and experience it. I know the silence must be broken if we wish to heal.

And to quote Forrest Gump, “I know what love is.”

I love you and I will always love you; passionately, unconditionally and eternally, Anshin Kelly