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Matching the Second Generation Unofficial notes by Jim Stephens
The second meeting on concerns for matching and blessing the Second Generation took place on Sunday, March 18, 2001, at 3:00pm at the home of Ted and Maria Agres. The opening discussion centered on a website that was talked about on page 2 of the Washington Times on March 14. It was about a professor who has studied good marital relationships and male/female compatibility for 30 years. He has developed a website that helps people find a match. Some 50,000 people are enrolled on his website seeking a match. The site takes a person through many, many pages of questions about themselves and what they like in others. I had made copies of the “MUST HAVES” and “CAN’T STAND” sections for personality traits. The website is at www.eharmony.com. (We will post a lot of the information on our website about it.) Next we talked about the necessity for developing educational materials and guidance FOR PARENTS. There is a broad spectrum of ideas and levels involvement among parents on the issue. Perhaps some booklet can be assembled with research and guidance that can be a valuable resource. It was brought up that the International Headquarters gave guidelines that stipulated a 21 day workshop for candidates while Hyun Jin Nim’s office put out the 120 Days figure. Some clarification will be sought. It was announced that already one matching has been proposed by parents and accepted by Rev. Lee. This was a situation of a previously matched child whose matching was broken. We heard about Richard Panzer’s Pro-Marriage program called “RQ”. This material can be looked into for future development as a resource. He is presenting a workshop on the material Friday evening and Saturday, April 20-21 in Harrisburg, PA. Ideas were proposed regarding aspects of a pre-matching workshop curriculum: life skills (using a checkbook, cleaning, cooking, etc.), internal guidance of male-female relationships, Divine Principle-Purpose of Creation, interpersonal relationships, clarification of desire/need for counseling in individual situations. Rev. Schauffler explained about a workshop that he attended the day before called “National Resources for Youth Workers” put on by Youth Specialties. It was for Youth Counselors and was a very uplifting, fast moving, and stimulating program. It offered many ideas and resources for keeping the kids involved and motivated as well as preparing them for love relationships. They have a very insightful abstinence program called “Good Sex”. We spent some time discussing what appear to be three levels of “life education” for Blessed Children.
It was also brought up that it would be a good idea to search Father’s speeches for the things that he said about matching. Cheryl W. said that she has already done some of that research but that Father’s words are sometimes seemingly contradictory from one passage to the next. Most everyone agreed that Heavenly Father is the key ingredient for all matches. This must be the most important part of our education. Matches will be made in some extremely varied circumstances and processes. We all need to recognize that as long as the participants believe that the match was “destined by God”, then that should be sufficient for everyone else outside of those immediately involved. A second key ingredient that needs to be instilled in matching preparation is the significance of “commitment”. Matches are being made for eternity. Comments were discussed about what age should be the age when we get serious about matching our children. It was generally accepted that the ages between 18 and 20 were times of tremendous change and turmoil in a person’s life. That is probably not the best time to throw matching into the mix. One argument for matching BC’s at 17 or 18 before they go off to college is to help them avoid sexual temptations and assist them in focusing on their studies and personal spiritual growth. I think most agreed, however, that good abstinence education and parental involvement would be strong enough to get the child through. Deciding to seek a match or not is ultimately the decision of the BC in consultation with parents and elders. The statistics in the general population for people getting married at 18 years old show that those marriages have a hard time. At the last matching by True Father, the youngest age was 19. Several parents brought up stories of BC’s pairing off on the PLA tour last summer. They suggested that this summer would be even worse now that the kids will have a say in who they are matched to. Apparently one boy and girl ran off together after PLA last summer. We talked about some sort of “categories” for distinguishing the different Second Gens in the pool of candidates. For example, some Second Gens do Pledge every Sunday and would want to be Blessed to a spouse who does also. Some want their parents to decide totally. Others want to decide on their own. There will be different levels of purity. There will be different levels of workshops they have attended or pre-matching content they have completed. We talked about setting up several other groups or committees to meet.
Again we talked about the 120 Days of workshop education. Many thought that a much more preferable course would be conducted on a once a week or twice a month basis. It was thought that money may be needed to support all our efforts, especially the Internet. We should keep that in mind. In closing we reminded each other that God and the spirit world are working to help us now that we have gotten started and we should be on the lookout for their guidance. Plans were made to meet again on the second Sunday in April. Anyone wishing to append comments or notes of their own should send those to Jim Stephens for addition to the website. |