From the Inside

A couple of months ago, my wife showed me a site on the Internet of a break away group of the Japanese Unification Church. It featured photos and profiles of the central people of the new organization. Many, my wife said, were very respected and prominent members of the Japanese Church. The reasoning behind their break was not opposition of Reverend Moon, so they claim, but a ... protest?... the taking of a stand? Trying to do things better? She couldn't find the right words in English or just didn't want to get into a long story. One of those profiles looked like a man I worked with many years ago in Rhode Island. At that time a young Japanese member, one of many, who had come to work in America. He was not truly steeped in the strict Samurai like traditions of the Japanese church, more of a street wise character with a bit of a wild streak. He worked under another young Japanese member and they didn't get along. They had heated disagreements and clashes of character. A

Of course drinking is not approved of in the Unification Church. It is considered a cause for many tragedies suffered in this world and enhances one's ties to low and evil forces. Growing up in Wisconsin, I was twelve when my brother and cousin snatched some beer from a neighbor's garage up in the North Woods. A beverage dominant in most group activities as a teenager. I almost never drank hard liquor and as time went by I drank less and less beer. First I would start getting sick at six beers. Then it became five, then four and soon a single beer was almost too much. So when I joined the church, not drinking was not a problem for me. I did go out one night with a couple of church members I worked with in New York some years later. We went to a hole in the wall Japanese joint where the saki seemed more the true fare than the food. My Japanese brothers had determined it a crime that I had never had saki. And I always wanted to know what saki tasted like. So I had a cup of wa