James E. Copple

The human predicament continues to amaze me.  Predicament is defined as a difficult, trying, and often dangerous situation.  On Sunday, April 7, while sitting in the airport in Amsterdam, I read the New York Times  report on the tragic suicide death of Matthew Warren, the 27 year-old son of Pastor Rick Warren, one of America’s leading religious figures. Matthew had long battled depression and struggled with the pain of mental illness for a number of years.

My brief encounter with Matthew is forged by a memory of a young man that loved and worshipped his family and showed only admiration and respect for the work of his father and his church. I don’t pretend to know Matthew’s story and I don’t need to know. However, Matthew’s death is a painful reminder that no family is immune from the pain of mental illness or the tragic consequence of a suicide.  It would be difficult to find a family that does not have suicide in their family history.

Suicide is preventable but not absolutely.  You can have access to mental health services, a strong and supporting family, and have the support of the best psychotropic drugs available but still not overcome the predicament of life. Something snaps.  Approximately 30,000 people commit suicide each year in the United States.  Over 400,000 people attempt suicide. Depression is not the only contributing factor. Alcoholism is a factor in 1 out of 3 suicides. The suicide rates among our veterans is alarmingly high when compared to the rest of the population.  We have now lost more veterans to suicide than we have lost in combat in the last ten years. PTSD and its diverse manifestations can take people to the edge of the cliff with no hope of returning. A crisis, the loss of a job, the loss of a family member through divorce or the predicaments of living that are difficult, trying and dangerous hit us like a tsunami that threaten our very survival.

Thirty-three years ago, as the result of several bad decisions, I lost my job, my identity, my family, and my sense of purpose.  I seriously contemplated suicide complete with a plan to end my life to escape the embarrassment and pain I had caused others. My mother and father intervened just in time and hospitalized me. A crisis counselor pulled me through and I began a road to recovery that included spiritual, intellectual, and mental healing.  In the midst of this crisis, I was reminded of the scripture from Hebrews 13:5 – “Never will I leave you – never will I forsake you.” That promise was the knot at the end of my rope that allowed me to hang on.

This most recent and highly publicized suicide is a reminder that mental illness masks itself in a variety of ways. It is also clear that we have a long way to go before we will ever understand the fragility of the mind, the darkness of the soul, and the pain that can undermine our journey. Mental illness is physical, it is social, it is complex and we all experience it in some way in our lives.

We tend to highly stigmatize suicide when in reality, most of us walk along the precipice of existence and we see its possibility in ourselves, our families, and our co-workers. It is time we talk more openly about suicide and it is probably time that we recognize that seeking help for the mental illnesses we face is an “okay” thing to do. Regardless, we do have this confidence, that even in the midst of our despair, He will not leave us nor forsake us and He stands on the edge of that cliff ready to catch us.

For more information on the facts and myths of suicide go to:

http://www.health.com/health/gallery/0,,20507781,00.html

We came along side our partners today and volunteered in their surgical unit, distributed hundreds of pairs of shoes to children in the school, interviewed a number of beneficiaries.  By the end of this clinic day, the one volunteer doctor, the one physician’s assistant, the one medical student, the one occupational therapist, and two nurses will have seen nearly 700 villagers in the community of Lucaceni. People walked miles to get here and everyone of them will be seen by the doctor and his staff.  They get eyeglasses and  wheel chairs for the disabled.  Medicines and appropriate antibiotics are dispensed.

Today, as each child approached us for the sizing of their free shoes – I looked into their eyes and held their feet to guess or estimate the size of their promised foot ware. There was excitement, apprehension, and ultimately a smile when the right shoe was delivered into their hands.  During this exercise – I could not think of anything I would rather be doing than this act of preparing shoes for the feet of Swaziland’s future.  These children will walk, they will climb, they will travel great distances for education, water, and for food.  They are caught in a cross-generational poverty trap that delivers the harsh realities of disease and starvation. Swaziland is the country with the highest HIV/AIDS prevalence rate. It is a country of 935,000 people with over 200,000 orphans.  Poverty is no stranger to Swaziland, but the devastating consequences of the AIDS virus has broken the back of this docile and peaceful country.  It struggles to move from a nation of grief to a nation of hope.

The experience is remote – separated not only by distance, but by culture and the complexity of extreme poverty. We do not understand it and we cannot empathize with their experience because there are so few touch points that compare to our own experience. That is the challenge for those of us working in poverty eradication. The bridge between those who live on the margins and those that live in affluence is fragile.  But today, I saw the VanderWals, the Tuinstres, the Schmelzenbachs and the nurses – Rebecca Sartori and Melody Miller and the Swazi staff cross that bridge. Each of them come along side a community in need of medical support, educational services, and the basics like shoes for the feet of hundreds of children trapped in poverty.  The Luke Commission moves out in faith, they are defined by faith and they are a living faith to those who benefit from their mission.  A day in the life of the Luke Commission is a day I will never forget.

The International Day of the Woman is a reminder that we have many miles to go before justice and equality are achieved.  Working alongside survivor/advocates like Patty Melnice is a reminder that this issue is more than a topic of tea parties, church book clubs, and policy elites.  This is about women who live in the suburbs of Denver, the streets of South Central Los Angeles, or are pastoralists roaming the plains of Turkana in Kenya or work near the diamond mines of South Africa. They are our daughters, our wives, our mothers, and our sisters.  Patricia is working to generate resources to provide crisis counseling, sustainable agriculture, basic health services, and education.  In the community of Lodwar, Kenya, the women of that village rushed our vehicle to greet her and to embrace her – they kept saying, “she came back.”  As we brokered an MOU with the community to provide water, seeds, fencing, and tools to support their agriculture project, these women expressed hope for a future.

UNICEF and IRC are near completion of a wing to a hospital in Lodwar that will provide refuge, counseling and legal services to women and children.  The partnership forged between SAI/Servant Forge, the Church of the Nazarene, Tough Angels and these two revered and known institutions of humanitarian service will make a huge difference in the lives of thousands of abused and neglected women.

The International Day of the Woman is a Celebration of possibilities.  When I look at survivors like Patty, or see the faces of women I have worked with in Garden projects in Swaziland or tribal women fighting drug abuse on reservations in the United States, I am hopeful. The will to survive and then to overcome is alive and well.  We will continue to make progress as long as we can find ways to hear the voices of women like Patricia Melnice and the Tough Angels that are rising up globally.  Support her work at www.toughangels.org or www.servantforge.org.

“Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death – you are with me.”  That you are with me promise jumps off the page and seizes my heart and my head every time I read it.  In my 63 years, I have certainly witnessed that promise on more than one occasion.  To be sure in extreme cases, whether traversing a dangerous road in Bolivia, Haiti, or Ethiopia or standing at my daughter’s bedside and learning that after the birth of our grandson, she had preeclampsia and listening to the doctors describe just how close it was – you are with me. In good seasons – in bad seasons – in all seasons – you are with me.  Does it get any better than that?

For the past several weeks I have witnessed the lives of men and women working in the valleys of death.  The shadows have been long and often leading others to despair.  They move through these valleys with a confidence and hope that brings relief to those in hunger, abandoned, or in fear of their lives.  They walk among the displaced in IDP camps, they comfort the refugee, they listen to the fear expressed because there is no money for food or water, they watch as people fear a future where an election could produce violence; they wonder who will be living or who will be dead the next time they enter this valley.

You are with me becomes the road beneath their feet.  You are with me makes it possible for them to go, you are with me is what brings a healing embrace, you are with me is what allows them to transcend the pain and the hurt of the world they have chosen to serve. You are with me allows me to feel a grace and forgiveness that cuts through my humanity and my fallible and broken choices.

Today, I go through several valleys where the shadow of death conceals the beauty of life.  Yet, though I walk through those valleys, I go with a hope and a confidence that you are with me.  With that – I can do this – with that promise despair becomes hope.  With that promise – the clouds that produce the shadows evaporate and the horizon becomes something to anticipate not fear. You are with me. Think about it – what does that promise mean to you?

In the last election cycle, candidates and their campaigns spent approximately $8 billion to secure their offices. Most of that $8 billion came from citizens like you and me.

During the last campaign, candidates, their surrogates, their parties, their PACs inundated us with funding requests to support their efforts to secure their offices. The reality remains – Congress has a 9% approval rating but yet we returned to office 85% of those seeking office. We generally believe it is the other’s person’s candidate that is causing the log-jam or failing to cooperate. It is time we boycott the campaign financing of candidates who fail to bring to their positions servant leadership and statesmanship.

Jesse Unruh, Speaker of the California Assembly (1966) is credited for having said “Money is the mother’s milk of politics.”  It is time we put our congressional leaders and our president on a milk-free diet – they are now on notice – NO MORE MONEY! What if all Americans stopped making campaign contributions to those seeking congressional offices and to the President until they begin acting like responsible adults and make a commitment to exercise their duties with a spirit of service, cooperation, and civility. The current political rancor and bipartisan bickering might STOP.  If we cut the cash and cut them off from the one thing they seem to value most – perhaps they will become service leaders.

Imagine a JUST SAY NO campaign!  NO MORE MONEY!  No more $3.00 contributions, no more $197 contributions, no more response to urgent appeals by phone, by email, by direct mail, by commercial – no more contributions until they can show they are leaders that put Americans first.

What if we weaned them from the mother’s milk that sustains them until they signed the following pledge:

I pledge to restore civility and statesmanship to the work of my office and to earn the trust of the American people by bringing integrity, transparency, and commitment to my public service. I will seek bipartisan solutions to the complex issues that face our country. I pledge to create a climate of service in my efforts to promote the interests of the American people in a global community.

Indicators of success and evidence of changed behavior would include the following:

1. Pass a budget without a continuing resolution.
2. Hold hearings on all nominations made by the sitting President.
3. Avoid personal attack advertising in characterizing the work and positions of an opposing candidate.
4. Hold monthly bipartisan leadership meetings to problem solve legislative log-jams.
5. The President will hold monthly bipartisan leadership meetings with members of Congress.
6. The President will hold monthly press conferences.
7. Members of Congress will be transparent and will post on their websites weekly timesheets that record meetings and the names of corporations, associations, or lobbyists that have met with the member in the past week.
8. Avoid block voting by strict party affiliation – encourage members to vote their conscience with impunity from leadership.

Restore civility in discourse and debate to demonstrate respect and appreciation of colleagues in public service.

I think they might listen – if we starve them from the money that continues to grow the beast. At least, it might be worth a try.

Robin Meyers in his work, The Underground Church:  Reclaiming the Subversive Way of Jesus made the following observation: “How ironic then, that according to our story, women were last at the cross and first at the tomb – yet in some churches they are still not allowed to preach or hold positions of authority. Without women there would be no church. This is not a liberal or conservative position, but rather an historical reality.” (159)

I use to stress with my students in Church History that in the early Christian community, the Church before Irenaeus (c. 130 – c.200) and Constantine (d. 337), women held key leadership positions and were responsible for the most important ministry of the church, hospitality – the care and feeding of the “stranger.” Hospitality in the contemporary church has been reduced to an industry and church suppers. In early Christianity, hospitality was central to the moral foundation of the church. Hospitality equaled Christian morality. If we recaptured the meaning of hospitality it would transform the way we relate to all kinds of different and diverse populations.

Over the centuries, layers of bureaucratic and dogmatic protectionism by men have kept women at a distance – and have excluded them from leadership. Jesus would not recognize his community in the modern church. Nor, interestingly enough, despite our proof-texting of certain passages from the Apostle Paul, would Paul recognize the community. It was Paul, writing in Galatians 3:28: “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” We have totally underestimated the power of this statement and its ramifications for the life of the early Christian community.

Things we can do today!

1. Assess how your church includes women in leadership positions and encourage inclusion.
2. Don’t be afraid of thinking in “quotas.” Nobody wants to be a token, but nobody wants to be excluded. In race relations in the United States – quota programs have worked. They guaranteed access and contributed to greater participation by minorities in all facets of life.
3. Encourage women to enter the ministry and set up awareness programs with congregations about the historical involvement and important role women play in leadership.
4. Don’t talk about equal rights outside the church unless you are prepared to practice it inside the church. Leaders will champion the involvement of women in all aspects of the life of the church.
5. Facilitate gender awareness when it comes to abuse, neglect, child protection, and engagement in the broader community. Women are disproportionately victimized by crime, violence, and sexual abuse. The church and its leadership should be a safe place for women to gather and learn.
6. Train and equip church boards on how to recruit, nurture, and learn from women in ministry. Be intentional.

There are many other things you can and should do. Many of you are already doing them. It is time we put action behind our words.  We hurt ourselves by excluding the majority of members in our congregations – women.

In the wake of the Newtown, Connecticut school shootings and the slaughter of 20 children and seven adults on December 14, I find myself in search of the courage to give voice to the same prayer.  I can’t drive to Newtown and embrace the wounds of the massacred, I cannot salve the hurt or pain of their parents, or make five and six-year olds laugh again. Others will need to do that. I can pray that God would give strength, healing, and restore hope to the young survivors of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. For some reason my words seem hollow.

As I pray, all my protective instincts surface with both a passion and rage that demands an action. Signing a petition to improve our gun control laws – yes! Challenging members of Congress and our President to actually do something about access to guns or even better – improving access to mental health services – yes! Organize a petition drive that demands a change of leadership at the NRA – yes! Yet, it all still seems hollow.

So, the best I can do right now is to try and do what Jesus did – weep, forgive, and bring the children into his strong and warm embrace. I must turn and become like one of these little ones and find the dawn of a new day and be defined by a future that gives hope and pray that I will not be haunted by a past mesmerized by death.  Today, I simply want to hug my children – some who are courageous teachers and child advocates – and if I could get to all 18 of my grandchildren, I would hug them and put them under my arms and tell them fun stories and of adventures in Africa. That feels right – but I cannot stop there. Recently a friend sent me this quote from William Lloyd Garrison, leader of the American Abolitionist movement during slavery and frankly, he captures my rage and my determination.

“I am aware that many object to the severity of my language; but is there not cause for severity? I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject, I do not wish to think, or to speak, or write, with moderation. No! no! Tell a man whose house is on fire to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen; – but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present. I am in earnest – I will not equivocate – I will not excuse – I will not retreat a single inch – AND I WILL BE HEARD. The apathy of the people is enough to make every statue leap from its pedestal, and to hasten the resurrection of the dead.”

We need to raise our voices on behalf of many of those who have no voice. The pundits are many, the solutions are complex, and there will be noise offering so many different solutions. That should not dissuade us or stop us.  But I will, as long as I can draw a breath, work to make my world a safe place where children will not have to fear death, disease, starvation, or mad men with guns. Begin in your own home, your own community and never give up on a child.

Despite the constitutional requirement to separate church and state, the American people often make their political decisions based on their religious biases or orientation.  To be sure, we are entitled and protected by the First Amendment to have those opinions and to even base our votes on them.  I have seen among my Facebook friends the promotion of a Christian voter’s guide––again a First Amendment protected right. There is of course, the Christian Coalition, an organization that has promoted Christian principles in the political process. The guide and the organization both clearly indicate that you should vote your faith values.  But, what happens when those faith values conflict with constitutional protections or rights?

Before the emancipation of slaves in the United States, Southern slaveholders and many Southern theologians justified slavery with elaborate biblical exegesis and theological analysis that made slavery look like a gift to mankind.  Suffragettes in the 19th century and, unfortunately, women in the 21st century have had to fight the same type of exegesis and analysis to gain equal and protected access––including equal pay. Whether it is our attitude toward slavery, our attitude toward African-Americans, or our attitude toward women, religious institutions have been slow to keep up with an individual’s quest for freedom.

What intrigues me today is the religious orientations that relegate women to secondary or subservient leadership positions.  There is no shortage of them––particularly in the monotheistic traditions––Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.  In these patriarchal traditions, women have had to fight to be at the table or to be heard. In their scriptures, the acts of women are often viewed as heroic instead of part of the mainstream of history, politics, or social change.

The fact remains that the source of our discrimination against women is often anchored in a religious belief that is patriarchal and antithetical to the core messages of love, justice, and compassion.  The tension is represented in the following assumptions that permit us to rationalize our support of a religious system that fails to provide equal access and consequently, influences the slow progress on gender issues:

• Faith is personal.
• My personal faith supports a theology or tradition that denies women the right to the priesthood or to leadership because she is a woman.
• My participation in that faith means I must acknowledge my church’s right to relegate women to positions of support versus equal access to all positions of ecclesiastical leadership.
• I should bring my values into the voting booth and vote my conscience.
• Therefore, if my religious tradition denies women a role in spiritual leadership––then this begs the question––why would I believe they have an equal right in the public square to equal pay, or that they possess the leadership experience to govern a nation?
• The values of my religious tradition form my conscience and that tradition says women cannot hold leadership equal to men.
• Sitting in a corporate board room or the cabinet room of the presidency, my personal faith and my obedience to a particular religious tradition will influence my commitment to equality in gender, race, or ethnicity.

There is strong biblical evidence that Jesus spent a good part of his ministry affirming a woman’s right to salvation (something unheard of in 1st century Palestine).  Further, in Paul’s letter to the Galatians, he affirmed the following:  “for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith.  For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.  There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:26-28).  Obviously, this is one value that did not make it into the mindset of the founding fathers who drafted our constitution.  Despite Yale historian Gordon Wood’s assertion that our founding fathers approached the writing of the constitution with the Bible in one hand and Cicero in the other, only parts of those values influenced the writers––those that protected a patriarchal and European orientation.

Perhaps in the 20th century, there was no greater articulation of the call to separate church and state than in John F. Kennedy’s September 12, 1960, address to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association.  Kennedy, with great success, assured the nation that his religion (Catholicism) should not be a reason to vote for him or against him. However, despite your view of the presidency of John F. Kennedy, the issue of values, ethics, and its application in policy left much to be desired.  Regardless, it is worth noting Kennedy’s concerns about why the nation would reject him because he was Catholic.  I quote him at length:

I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; . . . .

Finally, I believe in an America where religious intolerance will someday end; where all men and all churches are treated as equal; where every man has the same right to attend or not attend the church of his choice; where there is no Catholic vote, no anti-Catholic vote, no bloc voting of any kind; and where Catholics, Protestants and Jews, at both the lay and pastoral level, will refrain from those attitudes of disdain and division which have so often marred their works in the past, and promote instead the American ideal of brotherhood.

Fifty years later, Kennedy’s words still seem relevant.  Most of us salute the principles he articulated in this now famous speech.  You can perhaps forgive him for his gender exclusion, but then again, maybe we should not.  When he said, “Finally, I believe in an America where religious intolerance will someday end; where all men and all churches are treated as equal; where every man has the right to attend or not to attend the church of his choice;”  he did not mention women in his speech.  It is not simply a historical artifact of the next generation of Democrats that he ignored women––very few women served in leadership positions in his administration.  Of course, fewer served in Eisenhower’s administration or in Nixon’s.  That aside, Kennedy and about every other male of his generation belonged to religious traditions that denied a woman’s access to ecclesiastical leadership.  He might affirm their right to that leadership in the public square but was content to deny it in the religion of his faith.  Unfortunately, nothing has changed.

Alas, the battle that must be waged regarding equal access for women must first be fought in the sanctuaries, the synagogues, and the mosques of our nation’s religious institutions.  If we believe that our values shape our behavior and that our behavior will manifest itself in the private and public arena, then we must go after the values that shape our behavior.  Right now, and in large measure because of the patriarchal society we have tolerated, women do not have equal voice in those religious institutions.  How in the world, would we expect them to have equal access in the public square?

The constitutional protection of separation and Kennedy’s lofty goals in his Houston speech are noble political achievements, but until we are prepared to challenge our faiths’ religious institutions that deny women equality, we are whistling in the wind when it comes to equal access.  I want to know if Romney and Ryan will challenge the gender bias values of their own religious traditions.  I want to know if Obama and Biden will do the same in their traditions?  Probably not, because we have come to accept that it is OK to believe that one’s faith allows you to deny women equal access and it is OK to apply that faith in the public square.

I cannot escape this story!  It raises a number of questions that should challenge the global community. While it is about the individual shooting of a young adolescent, it is also about the environment that necessitates the voice of a 14-year-old to speak out about injustices within education.  Nobody else would speak – so she had to.  To be sure, her voice reached the global advocacy community and she was recognized and awarded with several international prizes.

Malala began this journey when she was only 11. She cast a light on a system of injustices that denied girls the right to be informed and to contribute.  For this, she was celebrated globally, but nearly killed in her own country for speaking out.  This is a voice from the night that insisted that her country would be better if women were educated.

The WHY questions jump out at us.

• Why would a young girl need to advocate for her right to be educated?
• Why are men of this country or any country threatened by women being educated?
• Where were the adult advocates that should be speaking out and allowing the Malalas of the world to be focused on their education and well, quite simply, being a teenager?
• If this were one of my daughters – what would I do?

Global poverty contributes to conditions that threaten or undermine individual rights. In the social Darwinist world we live in, resources are secured by the strong.  When individuals are denied those human rights then the conditions of poverty only worsen. We are cutting out a talent and resource pool that could make us all stronger.  The Taliban is a weak and cowardly organization whose hate trumps their political agenda and leaves them with no recourse but to silence a child.  We must not allow this violence to showcase the worst in all of us – a tendency to remain silent against such violence and oppression.

I left my quiet time on the bay this morning thinking of Matthew 18:5-6, “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.” (RSV) I confess, I pray for my Muslim sister Malala this morning that she recovers and continues to be a voice. I pray for all of us to see her as our family in the quest for gender equality and access. I also admit to praying that the Taliban responsible for this cowardly act would meet a few millstones.

I read policy reports, research studies, and media accounts about famine, disease, and gender based violence and the huge numbers mask the details behind the numbers.  As I read them, it is hard to see the face – the soul – the heart.

Yet, a number references something specific, something of substance.  It is an indicator of something beyond the symbol. The Oxford English Dictionary definition of a number is:  number, figure the property possessed by a sum or total or indefinite quantity of units or individuals.  The definition is all about the digit or a figure in a system of numeration.

So when I read that there are 1 billion children living in poverty and that in the United States, 17 million children wake up daily without the promise of a hot meal; or that 13,000 children die every day because of hunger – I stare and try to peel back the layers of the numeration.  A number is a convenient tool but a masking tool.

Recently, in my quiet moments, I have tried to think differently.  I take 1,000,000,000 and I start stripping back the numeration and instead of thinking deductively, I try an inductive approach to the number.  A single digit in the number 1 billion is a child who is an individual, who is in a family (of some type), who lives in a neighborhood or a community, and the child is a member of a nation.

How do I pray for this number – this digit – how do I reach this number – how do I feel when I see this number?  All questions that haunt me in my meditation and quiet time.  Numbers are infinite I tell myself and I cannot get my arms around infinite.  However, when I am in a home and I see a child and I see a family and I see a community, I can figure out a way to wrap my arms around the individual – confront the need, feel the pain and empathize with the digit ONE.

Suddenly, as I walk through the slum of Ruaraka in Nairobi, I see one child playing in a stream of industrial waste and I stop, kneel, and do a magic trick and she smiles. I don’t see a billion – I see ONE.  Yes, she is part of a billion – but to me at that moment in the moments of my quiet time she is a ONE.

To those who claim any hope of faith she is a child to be remembered, redeemed, and given a chance to emerge or rise up from her environment.   In my quest to do this for a billion, I dare not forget the one in front of me.  Who is the one in front of you?