TRUE WOMAN AND LEADER OF THE HEART

"According to the principle through which God created the universe, all things exist in couples, as an initiating subject and a responsive object team. A woman is thus a whole and perfect partner through whom a man can achieve harmonious unity in the ideal of God's principle.... [A] man and woman should not exist in a relationship of hostility or opposition, where the characteristics and qualities of the other are to be mimicked or coveted. There is no need for that, because man and woman belong to each other. Their relationship is designed to be one where all their qualities as well as possessions are shared with each other so as to bring each to completion and perfection, and thus together become something greater than the sum of the two." -Dr. Hak Ja Han Moon, April 9, 2002

In February, I was sponsored by WFWP USA to attend a Top Gun workshop for up-and-coming leaders, along with nearly 100 young (and youngish) leaders from around the world. For three weeks, we strove to learn more about God, Father and Mother Moon (WFWP Co-Founders), ourselves and each other by nourishing our spiritual lives and relationships, immersing ourselves in the study of God's word, and discerning the God-given talents and passions we can offer in service to the world.

Because I attended the workshop on behalf of WFWP, I went there with a slightly different consciousness than I might have done otherwise: namely, I was paying more attention to what it meant to attend the workshop as a young woman and what it means for a woman to be a leader.

A TRUE WOMAN?

With this intention in mind, I was struck one day by the question: What is a woman, anyway-a true woman? We had just listened to a presentation on the culture wars by renowned Unificationist lecturer Mrs. Christine Froehlich. Mrs. Froehlich outlined the waves of feminism that have washed over America and the world over the past several decades.

To introduce the concept of these waves of feminism, Mrs. Froehlich cited a speech given by Dr. Christina Hoff Sommers at the Third International WFWP Convention held in Washington, D.C. in 1997. Dr. Sommers had at the time identified three waves of feminism. The first wave was that of the suffragette and civil rights movements of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when women fought for the right to vote in America and in Europe. The second wave signified a radicalization of the women's rights movement that went so far as to assert that women's self-sufficiency made men irrelevant and unnecessary to either their lives or happiness. Dr. Sommers concluded, however, that there was a third wave of feminism emerging, one consistent with family- and God-centered values and pushing back against the radicalized second wave. It is to this third wave that WFWP belongs.

However, I can testify as a recent college graduate that, while the noble determination to defend women's rights and to ensure gender equality continues, the third and now fourth waves of feminism have taken a very different track than that foreseen by Dr. Sommers, continuing the process of radicalization begun in the second wave. It almost seems as if, in the pursuit for gender equality, our culture has begun to lose sight of legitimate gender diversity, of what makes men uniquely masculine and women uniquely feminine. Amid such social and cultural confusion, one can only wonder what the prospects of genuine woman leadership truly are, let alone what it means to be a woman.

LEADER OF HEART

As it turns out, I couldn't have been in a better place to start searching for answers. We were invited as Global Top Gun participants to spend an entire evening with the International President of WFWP, Mrs. Yeon Ah Moon, during our second week in Korea. Mrs. Moon spoke with us for several hours on the very specific theme of how she strives to grow in love for God, Father and Mother Moon, and the many people who are important in her life.

She said to become people who have Heavenly Parent first in your souls-you won't have to think about going the right way, you simply will. You need to learn to love Heavenly Parent and how to love more.

"But what is love? Love is an action. What do we need to do to fall in love with someone, with God? To love a person, you must know that person. To know everything about that person, you must live with them." Only then, she confided, can we pay attention to the little things and the deep things that make a person, or God, who they truly are and love them intimately.

Both the content of what Mrs. Moon shared and the way she carried herself as a woman and a leader deeply impressed me. Here was an international woman leader who was acutely intelligent and thoughtful yet shared her insights with a practiced sensitivity, grace, and calm. Here, I thought, is an example of a genuine woman leader: a leader of heart.

A MOTHER AND A MODEL

Of course, Mrs. Moon's central advice about leading a life of goodness, faith, and love was to look to and to care for God, and shortly after our meeting with her, we received a very practical opportunity to practice this ourselves. In the last week of our stay, Global Top Gun had the great fortune to share lunch, testimonies, and songs with co-founder of FFWPU, founder of WFWP, who is called True Mother or Mother Moon by many: Dr. Hak Ja Han Moon.

Strangely-or serendipitously-enough, my questions about true womanhood, as well as some personal uncertainties of faith, came to a head in the moment when I first saw Mother Moon that day. We had all gathered in the newly-opened Heaven G. Burger restaurant with our fellow Top Gun participants from the Greater China workshop before embarking on a two-day pilgrimage to historical Unificationist sites in Korea. When Mother Moon stood to address us, for lack of a better expression, I felt my heart melt as I sat there listening; and I realized for the first time that that she is a true woman. This small, brave, gentle but unyielding woman from Korea, who has seen, lost, and sacrificed so much and yet continues to love-she is a true woman, and perhaps a model of leadership and womanhood to follow amid much of the world's persistent confusion about gender and equality.

There is still much to learn from the examples of Mother Moon and Mrs. Yeon Ah Moon, but thanks to the support of WFWP, I've started on the path to do so. With much gratitude, then, to Global Top Gun, to WFWP, to Mrs. Moon, Mother and Father Moon, and to God, I continue to walk forward.