Sam’s Weekly Thought
This page captures the weekly thought that Sam Harley adds to our Facebook Group, We Were There. These thoughts are to help us think about our own experiences in the movement, to stimulate conversations, and to encourage each of us to share these stories with others.
Moonish Glossary
Glossary of Moonish Terms Author's note: This is intended to be an informal guide to help people understand the jargon we - Unificationists, Moonies, family members - use as we tell our stories. It is not to be taken as authoritative, and it is definitely not an...
read moreRandom Oakland memories
Here are some of my random Oakland memories. What are yours? This Sunday in LA church, Rick Joswick will testify about the early days of Oakland church. It will be available on video afterwards on testimoonies.com Followed by an open mic for others to share their...
read moreTeacher, looking for room with garden
by Sam Harley March 4, 2018 Did you ever have an experience like this? Where you could only do one thing, but somehow it was enough? Six years ago, when my blessing broke up and we lost our house, I had to find a room to stay in. A blessed couple who lived in the same...
read moreWhat are your memories of holy days?
by Sam Harley February 17, 2018 When I first joined, holy days were a welcome relief from the lonely front line battlegrounds. It was such a joy to be with brothers and sisters from all over the world, together as a family with our True Parents. God’s Day was the only...
read moreIndemnity or Indumbnity
by Sam Harley February 2, 2018 Indemnity is a word that is familiar to most of us old Moonies, ahem scuse me, Unificationists. Usually it means something like paying sincerely to make up for past sins or failings, whether it's our own, our ancestors' or just...
read moreChanneling Heung Jin Nim after 1275 Blessing in Korea
by Sam Harley December 9, 2017 A day or two after the 1275 Couple Blessing ceremony, Jenny Tanabe arranged a bus to Heung Jin Nim's won jeun. On the way there, Marilyn Kerins stood up in front of the bus of seminary students, and asked if anyone felt moved to be a...
read moreMeeting family, fear of being kidnapped
by Sam Harley December 2, 2017 Nowadays we go to church, dressed up nicely. If anyone doesn't like our church, they might give us a look. How different that is from the early days. The week that I joined the church, my spiritual father was kidnapped by deprogrammers...
read moreReaching the zero point
by Sam Harley November 25, 2017 When we were in our separation period (remember those?) I was lecturing in Washington, DC and she was touring Russian students around the States. We would see each other every three months or so, which was normal for that time. So...
read moreMoonie Normal
by Sam Harley November 19, 2017 Theme: “Fallen world normal” and “Moonie normal” We were determined not to do anything to the 'fallen world standard'. So our normal was not everyone else's normal. When I first did a mall booth at Christmas for Original World Products,...
read moreHonoring those who fought
by Sam Harley November 11, 2017 (Veteran's Day) This Veteran's Day, many countries take time to honor those who fought in WWI and WWII. Let us do that, and as we do let's take time to honor those who fought in WWIII, the silent spiritual battle that so many of us...
read moreBlessing cleans up nightmares
by Sam Harley October 27, 2017 Some dreams don't come true, some nightmares get worked out and never return. This is a story of how that worked in our blessing. Part I When our first child was born, it was a big moment. I had dreamed of it, prayed for it and it had...
read moreApples received by Heaven
by Sam Harley October 20, 2017 In the early 90s, when I was state leader of South Carolina, I got a phone call from a church sister. She told me about her younger sister Rebecca, who had joined the church, struggled a lot and left. Since then she had been married and...
read moreSunday School, UTS and Belvedere
by Sam Harley September 29, 2017 Well, back in the day, Sunday School involved whatever whoever wanted to volunteer thought of doing. This was well before we had a curriculum. At UTS, the seminary, I was in a ministry class that required me to do some kind of ministry...
read moreSelling laser prints
by Sam Harley Our church started a lot of businesses, some for lofty reasons, some just to make money. There were and are so many of that I can’t do them justice. If you were a part of any church business, would you be willing to record something about what it was,...
read moreWe Were There, a calling from God
by Sam Harley September 9, 2017 Joining the church back in 1978, there were some things I had to give up. I loved acting, dancing, reading books and being by myself for long periods of time. From the time I joined, there was no reading books except for the Divine...
read moreFrom MFT to IOWC
by Sam Harley August 25, 2017 Going from 5 years of MFT to an IOWC team was an abrupt transition. There were several things to get used to. First, fundraising (unless you were at a flower stand) involved a lot of physical activity. You were walking or running wherever...
read moreWhen you can’t fundraise, not today
by Sam Harley There are some things I am not proud of. What I now know about myself – I am an introvert, I need to talk things over with someone, need nature and quiet to recharge – I only sensed back then. Being around people was hard for me, it wears me out. I need...
read moreHi Sam!
by Sam Harley August 12, 2017 We Were There theme of the week: People offering us food. People hardly ever invited me to lunch when I was fundraising, except for some Christians who gave me pizza so they could try to convert me (so many people thought that one bite of...
read moreRev. Song loves songs
by Sam Harley July 16,2017 I was in New York Church when Rev Song took over. He was a tall, burly, charismatic guy. He’d been the leader of a kid’s gang on the hill in Pusan where Father and Won Pil Kim built a hut out of cardboard. The kids harassed Father at first,...
read more“Wait! You’re a Moonie??!!?”
by Sam Harley May 7, 2017 I went back to college, to get my bachelor's so I could attend the seminary. Told God I wasn't going to advertise my church membership, but I'd be absolutely straight about it when it came up. After several quiet months, a young woman got up...
read moreTesting….testing…..
by Sam Harley February 25, 2017 At the end of my MFT career, somewhere in Minnesota, in the middle of winter....I was experiencing what for me were routine fundraising issues, getting overloaded (emotionally constipated, as one team mother put it) and knowing that no...
read moreOmigod, I talked to a Moonie
by Sam Harley February 28, 2017 It's an interesting experience, talking to someone who is convinced you're a mindless zombie with the strange power to hypnotize them. But it doesn't make for great conversation. I was fundraising a small town in Tennessee, on a...
read moreFatherhood is forever
by Sam Harley June 16, 2017 Christmas, 1997. Brandon, a year and a half old, is standing barefoot and diapered staring up at the Christmas tree with an awe struck look on his face. We just finished decorating it, and he is taking in the twinkling lights and the...
read moreMy experience at the Matching, (part 3) Resurrection
by Sam Harley April 16, 2017 Some names are left out. Though it may be obvious to some who these people are, it is their story to tell if and when they choose to. I will tell you mine. When the next matching and blessing came around, Dr Ang asked me if I thought I was...
read moreMy experience at the Matching (part 2)
by Sam Harley April 14, 2017 Many people have victorious testimonies of being matched by True Father. This is not one of them. In telling what I remember of my second matching, I do not use the names of the others involved. Their side of the story is theirs to tell,...
read moreMy Matching (part 1)
by Sam Harley April 7, 2017 This week's theme is one of the highlights of following True Parents: the matching. Please write or record your experience of the matching. My experience is more varied than some, so I will present it in three parts. Here is part 1: I...
read moreYou’re a Moonie!
by Sam Harley April 28, 2017 It may be hard to understand now what it was like. Walking from door to door in a small town, being watched from behind curtains as if you were green and eight feet tall with one eye in your forehead. People would stare at us as we ate...
read moreUnity made all the difference
by Sam Harley June 11, 2017 Once I was in the kitchen at Hearst Street house, three months in the church and struggling. Noah Ross was there. “So Sam, how's it going?” he asked. I had really been wanting to talk to somebody about what I was going through, and Noah was...
read moreCondition for spiritual breakthrough
by Sam Harley June 2, 2017 Oakland family, where I joined, did lots of fasting. We ate a liquid breakfast (“Put it in the blender!” was a common shout when we didn't know what to do with leftovers). I remember having spaghetti sauce for breakfast. We also fasted every...
read moreSkinny vegetarian joins Creative Community Project
by Sam Harley When I joined the Creative Community Project in 1978, I was a skinny (148 lbs, 6'1”) vegetarian, almost vegan. In addition, I was so spiritually sensitive that someone becoming angry around me was like a very loud noise or a punch in the gut. After the...
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