Indemnity

Hyo Jin Moon November 26, 2006

Here are my notes from Hyo Jin nim’s speech Sunday 26 November 2006. My ability to convey what was actually said is limited. These, at most, convey some sense of what Hyo Jin nim said and are not a verbatim record. Hyo Jin nim’s website is: http://www.canaanstation.com/ To see two of the projects that Hyo Jin nim is working on log on to: http://definingmoment.tv/ and http://definingmoment.eu/

Joe Kinney

Rev. Andrew Compton is the MC. All welcome Hyo Jin nim and offer a bow.

(Hyo Jin nim bows to the audience as he approaches the stage. He places a small notebook on the podium)

Did you have a good Thanksgiving? (Last Thursday 23 November was Thanksgiving Day in the US)

It’s a turkey day right? I don’t know if it’s for purely being thankful. (Laughter)

When you talk about indemnity that’s kind of a heavy topic isn’t it? But should it be?

In the beginning God expected us to be something. He had a vision. He had the ultimate divine vision, the purpose of creation, and in that light we had a crucial role to play.

Just based on that reality alone, that’s something significant. That should be something that we should all celebrate, that possibility in itself. Whether it happened or whether it didn’t happen, whether we’re still struggling to make it happen, that’s an afterthought, because hindsight is always 20/20 right?

It gives us something to try to strive for, to achieve that ultimate, the vision of God. We all have that and we all dream that we’d like to see ourselves living in a world where there’s no wars and you can trust somebody even if you never met somebody in your life you just walk up and shake your hand and somehow that alone can have a lasting relationship.

Because even in a personal relationship, if you try to build or even contemplate about making a true relationship, an ideal relationship, it takes a lifetime. You can’t really say to yourself that I can know somebody just because I’ve been with them a few times. I see him do this. I see him do that. I see him in this extreme state; I saw him in the opposite extreme state. So therefore I can conclude that I know. But it’s not that simple. People can change and there’s all sorts of stuff in between that makes us unique.

So even when you try to understand an individual and try to accept the basic kind of religious teaching about an individual being idiosyncratic; that they’re unique, something special in the eyes of God, it takes a life time to really understand it.

Because if you don’t try to understand people based on that kind of common sense based thinking, it’s improper; the conclusion will be false. And you have to bear the responsibility in judgment. Because ultimately in the end what you are doing is a judgment. And that should be left up to God. We should try to understand what God has intended and then try to create an ideal world, in essence, before we try to be God.