Rearing Monarchs #3:

360° Attendance
Unification Thoughts, August 2021

In the previous article, we’d looked into the idea of the Three Great Kingships. We’d seen what the position of grandparents was originally intended to be and how they were to be attended.

And truly, if Adam and Eve had lived to 50 after having attained direct dominion in their early 20s, they’d have been temples of God for about 25 years. And by age 75 (when their children might be in their 50s and their grandchildren might be in their 20s), Grandma and Grandpa would have been growing in direct dominion for about 50 years. They’d have been “one with God”, “temples of God” and would have been experiencing “God’s Heart as if it were their own” (DP, p. 34) for five decades(!)

Imagine what a child’s youth could have been like if its parents and grandparents were in direct dominion throughout their infancy, childhood, adolescence and young adulthood. Not to mention their aunts and uncles! It would have been a remarkable way to grow up, feeling God’s care, wisdom and love, not just spiritually, but through all the elders in their family. That’s the picture indicated by the Principle:

“The four-position foundation (i.e., the family) is the vessel of perfect beauty through which we can receive and enjoy the fullness of God’s love.” - DP, p. 39

Here’s that diagram again that was in Dr. Sang Hun Lee’s handout for the UT Theory of Ethics:

As the object of love of the “father”, “mother” and “children”, the grandparents would naturally be attended by their family members. (Admittedly, this is quite visionary, but the truth is that it’s what I committed to help build, almost 50 years ago. And it still moves me :)

Attendance and Benevolence

The idea of the Three Object Purpose (DP, p. 25) also indicates that “father”, “mother” and “children” are also objects of grandparents’ love and care. And UT specifically identifies this form of love as benevolence. Here’s the diagram that Dr. Lee provided:

Looking up the virtue of benevolence, we find that it comes from the Latin: bene “well” plus volentem “to wish”. And just as the virtues of loyalty, fidelity and filial piety have associated virtues, benevolence does too. UT sources mention “wisdom, dignity, authority, respect, clemency, concern, education, protection,guidance, patience, forbearance, fortitude” as some examples. Practiced in the truest sense, such virtues are expressions of parental love. And as such, they can richly inform our efforts to attend our children and our grandchildren.

And here’s where the idea of attendance merits closer examination.

For a very long time, my understanding of attendance was that subordinates (Cain) should attend their superiors (Abel). I don’t think I was alone in that because some years ago, at a Unification Thought seminar in the University of Bridgeport, the keynote address was given by Dr. Jung Chang Choi. He was selected by Abonim to head RIIWT (the Unification Thought Institue for America). And of all the things he might have chosen to speak of, one was this idea of attendance. He explained that we misunderstand it; that our concept was more Confucianist than Unification Thought. We thought of it as rather one-directional: the attendance of an object towards their subject. He then went on to explain what Abonim meant by attendance.

That impressed me because I’d run across some unusual statements in the Holy Books. For example, Abonim said:

…we have to attend our grandparents like we attend God, to attend our parents like the king and queen of the world, and the grandchildren, we have to attend like they are the kings and queens of the heavenly Kingdom of Heaven and earth that will come in the future…. • Cheon Seong Gyeong p. 2451

Now that’s something different: that granchildren should be attended! Another passage that came into a new focus was this one:

“I am someone who has offered bows even to very small children. I have attended three-year-old children with utmost sincerity, as if they were princes and princesses of heaven.” • Chambumo Gyeong, Book 2, Chapter3, Section 3

What an intruguing image that is, Abonim offering bows to a young child! Why would he do that? From these words, it’s clear that he understands attendance differently than I do. And that He really sees children from God’s standpoint.

But the most arresting quote to me was this one:

“God believes, works and lives in attendance”
• CheonSeong Gyeong, Book 11, Chapter 1: Attendance

Who could God possibly be attending? His subject?!? Clearly, the idea of attendance is more than just younger to elder, or object to subject.

Knowing that our source documents are translated works, and that ideograms were used widely in them, I fell back on research to find what those ideograms might reveal. In one Chinese dictionary, an ideogram for “attendance” is composed of two characters:

The first one means “man”, the second one means “feeling, emotion, sentiment, love, affection”. Together, they mean “attendance”. And some of its meanings are given:

• what comes naturally to man, what is inherent in human nature
• a favor done to someone
• affection, love, personal attachment
• a gesture of kindness or generosity

It’s intriguing to note that there is no mention of direction; that attendance isn’t dependent on who’s younger or older in a relationship. It simply has to do with genuine, heatfelt concern for someone. That was confirmed by the ideogram for the very closely related word “attentive”:

In this ideogram, the first character means “inside” and the second one is “heart”. The meaning being conveyed here is that, to be attentive to someone means to keep them inside your heart.

I believe that this is what allows Abonim to say that even a child must be attended. Or to say that he has attended three-year-old children. And to even proclaim that “God…lives in attendance”! In all these cases, Abonim is saying that parents and grandparents, and True Parents and Heavenly Parent, are attentive to their beloved ones. They keep them—especially the young—closely held in their hearts.

Attendance in 360°

What all this means for Golden Agers I believe, is that it’s pretty important for us to have this wider understanding of attendance.

First, just like loyalty, fidelity and filial piety, attendance isn’t owed us by folks in the “object” position; it’s not just their duty. After all, the Principle clearly states:

“In interpersonal relationships, the beauty that a subordinate returns in response to the love of a superior is called loyalty, and the beauty that children return in response to the love of their parents is called filial piety. The beauty that a wife returns in response to the love of her husband is called fidelity. …By sharing love and beauty with each other, they join in harmonious oneness, becoming the third object partner to God.” • Exposition of the Divine Principle, p. 38

This passage makes it very clear that these virtues (i.e., loyalty, fidelity, filial piety) are given in response to the love that’s received from the subject. In other words, these responses are evoked from them because they feel sincerely loved by their subject; they clearly experience their subject’s benevolence.

And second, attendance isn’t a one-way proposition. In the original ideal, grandparents are attended just as they attend their children and grandchildren with benevolence and devotion, cherishing them sincerely in their hearts.

I think Heaven hopes that Golden Agers, after our lifetimes of effort, will attend others, sharing our hard-earned experience and wisdom. In words of course, but most of all, by our benevolent examples.

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