Who is Brant Copen?

"This is your life, are you who you want to be?"  I distinctly remember driving down 32nd street in Phoenix about six years ago.  I was driving my Jeep Wrangler and all the doors and roof were off.  I was coming home from work on a Friday afternoon and the sun was out in a clear blue sky.  I didn't normally listen to Christian music at that time because I thought it lacked imagination but this particular day I guess 103.9 The Edge must have had too many commercials or something because I switched it over to the Christian station.  An outdated Switchfoot song was playing that I had heard dozens of times but never really listened to.  I don't remember any of the verses but the chorus asked a simple question, "This is your life, are you who you want to be?".  For some reason I actually truly listened to that question as a question and not just as a chorus to a song.  "This is your life, are you who you want to be?" 

This is my life.  I am in control of my life.  I am not a pawn in someone's game, I am not a prisoner in someone's jail cell, I own my life and I make my own decisions.  At the end of my life nobody is going to be held responsible for me except myself.  I have the power to control who I am and who I am becoming.  This isn't someone else's life, this is my life.  I think it took a lot of guidance from others and a long time for me to even come to a realization of that statement.  I'm not just the product of my influences and circumstance or the people around me, this is my life.  I am responsible for who I am.  Then for a while that realization brought dread.  "Responsibility?  What's that?" was another line in a song that had resonated with me in high school.  Who wants responsibility?  I didn't trust myself.  Give me power over my own life and more than likely I'd just screw everything up.  That's what I thought.  So being in control of who I was was an unfair burden, a curse even.  I didn't ask for this power, for this responsibility.  What a cruel sentence!  Giving someone the power of choice without any of the information needed to make the choices!  It felt like it was forced upon me.  But I kept going and as I matured and as I started following Jesus I started realizing that that responsibility wasn't actually a curse, in fact, it was a blessing! 

I am not limited to the stunted imagination of my peers, I am not destined to anything I don't want, I am not doomed to failure.  I have power over my own life!  I have power to determine what I do and who I am.  I know myself best and who I want to be and I have the power to make that happen!  I'm definitely not going to screw it all up; after all, I am the most informed person on the planet when it comes to Brant Copen.  Nobody has more information than I do, if anyone can succeed at determining Brant Copen's destiny then I certainly can!  I started taking advantage of that responsibility.  I started doing things that I wanted to do.  Traveling, making friends, learning new things, strengthening relationships.  What a blessing to be the owner of my own life!  I get to do whatever I want! 

That's where I was at as I drove my Jeep home from work on that Friday afternoon six years ago.  I knew that this was my life, but was I who I wanted to be?  Had I been using the freedom and the power I had over my own destiny to become the person I really wanted to be?  It's funny how a person can miss out on that.  I know people who have lived their whole life knowing that they had authority over their own destiny but not using it to become who they wanted to be.  They wanted to be loved and so they started becoming whatever they thought everyone would approve of, but they turned out becoming someone they never wanted to be.  Or they wanted to be significant and so they worked really hard at achieving things that they associated with significance but in the end they became someone they never wanted to be. 

This song in this moment gave me a reality check.  "Are you who you want to be?"  No.  I thought about it and the answer was definitely no.  What I really really deep down wanted to be was someone who could look back on my life with a clear conscience when it was just me and God in a room and know in my heart that I did the best with what I had.  That I truly genuinely loved the people around me, that I allowed God to use me as He saw fit, that I used my life to improve everyone and everything I came into contact with instead of hurting or destroying, that I was the kind of person that could be trusted, the kind of person that lived a radical lifestyle of self-denial, that walked in boldness and courage.  I wanted to believe in my heart that I was truly within the will of God; not just what other people said was the will of God, but what I believed in my heart was the will of God.  I wanted to contribute to the improvement of the future of the world, to God's Kingdom coming "to earth as it is in Heaven".  I wanted to take advantage of the blessing that life is and truly enjoy what life had to offer and not waste my time waiting for things to happen to me or just waiting around for old age and death to come.  "Are you who you want to be?"  I wanted to be someone who loved God and others sacrificially not because I felt I had to or because I was willing to but because that was my default, what I really enjoyed doing, because deep down that's who I was.  But that's not who I was.  I still had a lot of work to do. 

Now looking back six years ago I guess I thought if I could just muster up the will-power for a good day or two I could change my own identity.  The truth is though, I'm still not really who I want to be now.  There's still a lot of things I wish I could change about who I am over night, but it's not that easy.  Becoming who you want to be takes patience and hard work and self control.  It takes perseverance and humility and resilience.  It takes a lot of prayer.  A lot of prayer.  It takes the willingness to reevaluate yourself and once again sit down and ask yourself, "This is your life, are you who you want to be?"

Who I'm Voting for and Why

This month I am voting in the presidential election for the first time in eight years.  Why?  Well I told myself if I could vote for less than $10 then I would do it and it turned out that shipping my application for an absentee ballot was almost exactly $10.  The last presidential election I happened to be in Managua, Nicaragua.  I went to the US embassy because I heard you could vote if you showed up but they were closed by the time I made it.  Sorry America; Nicaraguan tuk-tuk drivers and a couple loose cows determined your destiny.  Anyway, it's been a while but this time I'm voting.  

So who will I vote for?  Well it doesn't really matter.  Hillary Clinton is going to win.  If I vote she wins, if I don't vote she wins.  I guess I'll vote for Gary Johnson.  Why?  To be honest it's totally irrational.  Like I said, no matter who I vote for Hillary will win the election, so I'm not actually voting in order to try to influence the direction of the country.  I'm also not voting in order to somehow redeem America's fight for freedom.  I doubt whether any dead soldiers really care whether I vote or not.  I’m also not voting because of my conscience.  Since my vote has no practical consequences I don't really have to worry about the morality of my decision.  It would be like worrying how to spend my millions of dollars if I won the lottery.  I have about 1/130000000 of the power in the voting process.  That amount of influence over a single decision is mathematically negligible. 

Wait.  So why am I voting again?  And why for Gary Johnson?  I guess it's because it takes so little effort.  You may not drive to a grocery store just to buy a lottery ticket, but if someone came to your door and asked you if you wanted to buy one you might say "yes".  Why not spend 50 cents on a negligible chance to win big?  It's the power of suggestion.  I was presented with a choice and it's easier to deliberate on that then to go seek out my own choice to deliberate on.  Of course, in this case Gary Johnson isn't exactly a "big win", he's more like a Powerball that only made it to $200, but hey, that's better than nothing. 

So I think I got trapped actually.  I decided to do something easy because it was easy and now here I am wasting time writing a blog about it.  Someone else told me I needed to help decide between two irrelevant things even though there were already 130000000 people helping to make the decision.  I thought "haha!  I'll show you!  I'll vote for a third option that you didn't even present!  I'll vote for Gary Johnson."  So that's why I will vote for Gary.  Because I had some free time with nothing better to do and the very limited amount of half-interested research I did showed me that anyone was better than Trump and almost anyone was better than Hillary and by the time I realized the triviality of it all I had already spent the ten dollars.

One more question.  So probably by now you are thinking that I am irreverent and disrespectful toward my own country, the voting process, and anyone who takes voting seriously.  So why did I write this blog?  Well, the point isn't to offend people who vote, the point is to point out the practical implications of an individual's vote.  There just aren't many.  Basically, it can be fun to argue about whether the dress was blue or gold, but there's no need to go throwing punches over it.  How Brant Copen votes doesn't necessarily say anything at all about his character or values, isn't right or wrong, and doesn't even have any practical consequences. 

And one more thing while I’m on my soapbox.  In fifteen years nobody is going to remember or care about this election.  I can't even remember who ran in the election four years ago.  I think the main political issue of our day that is going to have very long-term consequences that really impact the trajectory of our world and individual's lives is the refugee crisis and how we are responding to that.  That might actually be something worth arguing about.  Okay that's it, thanks for reading, leave a comment about who you are voting for if you want but don't spend too much time deliberating on it.  Argue if you want but try to keep it fun.  And most importantly, look up that Youtube video "Sympathetic Canadians Have a Message for Americans"

2016 Dan Hoffman Memorial Hike: San Juan National Forest of Colorado

I sat down shakily on a giant boulder, stretching my tight legs out in front of me, and tried to catch my breath in the thin air.  I was on the peak of Mt Eolus - the most remote 14er in Colorado and the tallest peak in the entire San Juan mountain range at 14,090 ft.  I snapped a photo of my boots perched over the precarious route I had slowly come up.  The last few hundred feet consisted of vertical faces, loose scree, and a narrow catwalk with thousand foot drops on either side.  It was day three of the 9th annual Dan Hoffman Memorial Hike.  This year was a year to remember.  Three days ago I had guessed we had a 3% chance of making it to the summit, and for good reason. 

When we had arrived in Silverton we'd had exactly 11 minutes to pack all of our things, park our cars, print out our tickets at the depot, and walk over to the train and board.  And we didn't even know where the depot was.  Or that we had to get our tickets printed out.  To make matters worse, Dan's back had gone out and started spazzing with extreme pain on the drive in.  Now he was walking like a 95 year old man on a mission, yelling out curses every few steps.  Bearded DHMH participants were barking out orders, sprinting full speed down random streets, and parking illegally.  I thought our best bet was probably to give up and hope that we could catch the next day's train.  Even if we made it on the train in time we couldn't possibly do the ten mile hike to Chicago Basin from the random spot where the train dropped us off in the wilderness; not with Dan's back like it was.  But then, I wasn't counting on the sheer stupid stubbornness of our group. 

I'd had another moment of doubt when at 2PM the next day, as I was frantically trying to set up my tent in Chicago Basin, I started getting pelted with hail.  For a minute I didn't notice the pain, being so engrossed in my self-preservation, but then something in my brain shouted that rain shouldn't hurt that much and I realized that it wasn't water driving sideways into my ribs, it was pieces of ice!  If this happened the next day we couldn't even try for the summit of Eolus.  But then, the next morning was as clear and blue as an Arizona sky and it stayed that way past noon, which basically never happens in Colorado. 

I'd had a few doubts in the morning too in the form of glances up at the ever steepening terrain as I climbed.  Up and up and up and up and up.  My legs were aching and my lungs were gasping and it seemed like the trail would never end.  Even if we didn't make it the trip would still be a success.  The point wasn't really to get to the top of Mt Eolus.  It would have been worth the nine flights and 70 hours of travel even if we had never made the train.  The DHMH isn't about the peak, and despite what Miley says, it's not really about the climb either.  It's about the hugs at the airport, the shared bites of dehydrated food, the discussed failures of the last year, and the overused retellings of past DHMH stories.  It's about intentionally depending on your friends and trusting that they'll be there no matter where circumstances leave you.  Not reaching the destination just meant one more story to tell next year.  My legs kept pumping though, one after the other, almost beyond my control and before I knew it the saddle was under my boots and there was just a couple hundred feet left. 

Maybe after all the DHMH is also, just a little bit, about sitting on top of a fourteen thousand foot mountain and looking out over the hundreds of jagged peaks beneath you stretching out as far as you can see, and feeling the sense of accomplishment that comes with conquering your own doubts.  I laughed as I stood back up to start the long journey down.  The 9th annual Dan Hoffman Memorial Hike of the San Juan National Forest; another epic success. 

Sometimes I Forget Who I Am

I've been following Jesus for a long time now.  So long that I have a hard time remembering what life is like apart from Jesus.  I think after someone has been "living the dream" long enough they tend to forget just how great they have it.  They eventually stop comparing their abundant life with their previous life and the past mixes in with the present in one blurry mess.  And when I say someone I mean I.  Is it possible for me to have so much joy for so long that I'm no longer thankful for it?  Can a person be so blessed that it becomes a curse?  I think most of the time if someone were to ask me, "How do you have so much peace in your life?" I would think about it for a minute and say, "I don't know, I guess that's just how I am."  I forget that I haven't always had peace, that my life hasn't always been great.  I forget that I used to search for peace and couldn't find it.  I forget that everything I have, everything I am, came and continues to come from God. 

Today I was reading a little passage from the Gospel of John.   Jesus is talking to a big crowd and he says, "Don't work for food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternity."  What?  Talk about being counter-cultural!  Jesus is encouraging people not to work for their food!   Then he says, "The bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world…  I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst." 

I think the point Jesus is making is that we people tend to think that food gives life.  You need food to eat and air to breathe in order to live, if you don't eat, you die.  But it's really a misconception.  Food doesn't give life, God gives life!  We don't need food, we need Jesus.  It's like believing fish come from fish-hooks.  If you focus enough time and energy on gathering enough fish hooks you'll catch a fish!  But just because you take your fish from the hook doesn't mean the hook is what is providing fish.  Fishes don't come from fish hooks.  The lake is what provides fish.  In the same way it's not food, but Jesus who gives life.  "For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate, and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever."

It's a good reminder for me that everything that is life comes from Jesus.  Anything that is good in my life, any peace or joy or fruit is directly from Jesus.  Anything good in my life came because of Jesus, not because I was seeking something good.  Anyone trying to focus on obtaining food is missing the point.  If you just get to know the source of all life then you won't have to worry about food!  Not just metaphorically, literally you won't need to worry about food, you won't need to worry about a job, you won't need to worry about a spouse, you won't need to worry about purpose, you won't need to worry about death.  If you are looking for peace, if you are looking for life, then you need to stop focusing on peace and life and start focusing on the source of peace, the source of life.  Looking back, I guess that's what happened to me.  I never did try to find a way to "live the dream"; I never assumed I could find fulfillment or peace or joy by searching for them and I was much too skeptical to believe that income sustained life.  The hope that I found in Jesus lured me into sacrificing all of those things in order to follow him and then somewhere along the way I was surprised to find that he was the source of everything I really wanted anyway.  Sometimes I forget that. 

A Cheapskate's Guide to India: 8 Buys Sure to Blow Your Mind

You always hear that things in India are cheap, but what does that really mean?  Well, even a cheapskate like me gets shocked by some of the prices.  Here is a list I've compiled of 8 shockingly cheap buys in the Far East.

1. A night's stay on the beach in the most exotic Indian city (Goa) complete with A/C and lockers - $7

   

   This guy was so worried about looking good for his selfies that he forgot to don his swim shorts

2. Filet Mignon and King Prawns with a vinaigrette salad and glass of red wine - $10

   

   Not sure why they were served in a hugging position though

3. A ticket aboard a cross-country sleeper train (Delhi to Kolkata: 1100 miles over 38 hours) - $9

   

   This pictures was taken by Drea on the train to Goa 

4. A pound of fresh, organic, local tomatoes - $0.08

   

   This is the only picture I could find that had tomatoes in it.  I think Drea is arguing the price of those gourds. 

5. A custom tailored plaid business shirt - $4

   

   The one on the right is the custom tailored one

6. A couple hours from an electrician to repair the wiring in your flat - $4.50

   

   Our friend Corny was held liable for these damages but later we discovered it was actually a rat

7. A made-to-order, piping hot street food breakfast of Dosa (giant rice pancake filled with potato and onion curry with peanut and ginger dipping sauces) - $0.30

   

   Vlad is actually eating Baskin Robbins in the picture but you get the idea

8. A city bus ride to the city center (6 miles) - $0.20

   

   You also get free life experience and character development with every ride 

Unfortunately not everything in India is super cheap.  Boneless skinless chicken, though literally as fresh as possible, costs $3.50 a pound, cheddar cheese $15 a pound, an average laptop $1000, and land is crazy expensive.  Also there is no way to ever buy anything used, no Salvation Army and no yard sales; so there is no cheap option for furniture.  Overall though India is pretty much the ultimate dream of a cheapskate. 

You Have to Worship Your Mother as a God

"మాతృ దేవో భావ - Matru deyvo bhava - it means you have to worship your mother as a god."  said Varma this morning.  I raised my eyebrows and flattened my lips hoping to communicate "hmm that's interesting."  Varma is my language teacher and he is teaching me some sacred texts from the Vedas - ancient Hindu writings.  Basically this little part of the text outlines four commandments: Worship your mother as a god, worship your father as a god, worship your teacher as a god, and finally worship your guest as a god.  This core Hindu teaching reveals a lot about India.

First it shows the emphasis of strong family.  There is another Vedas commandment that says outright "don't leave your relatives."  For the most part in India children will not leave their parent's house until they get married; even if they are 35, and even when they do get married a lot of time they move in with Mom and Dad or at least next door.  I remember one time in Delhi a shopkeeper told me to go find a phone and call my Mother immediately; she said she would die if her son was out traipsing around a foreign country.  In the rural areas of India the divorce rate is less than 1% and even in the modern cities it is below 7%; nursing homes don't even exist.

It also reveals the Indian view of education.  Education and learning are priorities here and teachers are to be respected and revered.  My language teacher Varma knows more facts about geography and even my own calendar than I do.  India had universities before the Roman empire even started.  (Unfortunately only the higher castes can afford to take advantage of this)

The last line shows just how important hospitality is to India.  Most families will give you a meal worth weeks of wages just because you are a stranger and a guest.  They treat foreigners like they are Bollywood stars. 

Busy India street in central Hyderabad (just to break up the text really)

It's important to really try to get to know a people before you make assumptions about what they need or don't need, what they believe or don't believe, and why they hold onto their traditions.  Without having discovered these core beliefs it would have been easy to assume that because Indians live at home so late they are fearful and dependent, or that Indian teachers are prideful and condescending, or that Indians' over-the-top hospitality is because they find you exceptionally attractive; when really it is stemming from a tradition of honor.  Honor that extends to the point of divine reverence albeit, but that can be addressed later. 

This is just one tiny example, but immersing yourself as a foreigner and studying a different culture can be incredibly interesting and rewarding.  You can join me if you like…

First Week in India Photos

I finally made it back to India!  It's been amazing eating all my favorite foods and riding tuk-tuks around.  Here are some pictures from the first week. 

Waiting in the Atlanta airport

We made it to Doha, Qatar!  And found some creepy sculpture...

Finally in India!!  You can tell by the McDonalds menu.  "Try the new Maharaja Mac, the social burger"

Our new friend Suresh is about to get lemon in his ears.

Naveen explaining his special hand gestures 

Waiting for my order of chicken biryani and modeling my new shirt. 

Hyderabad as seen from the back seat of a tuk-tuk

The buffalo are using the motorcycle lane, but that doesn't slow us down.

Trading guitar lessons for Telugu lessons 

Me, Drea, and Sabrina - India Team!  Well the half that is here anyway

If you'd like to hear more about what I'm doing in India through my monthly newsletter, just send me your email address.  

Some Photos of My Christmas in Ohio

Some photos from my visit to Ohio to see family for Christmas.  Most of them are kind of ridiculous but that's just what happens in the Copen household. 

Dad and Grandma Bonnie waiting for the kids to wake up Christmas Morning

To Benjamin: A painting of Lenny Pepperbottom!  Oh boy!

Oooo, that's a nice painting

Nephew is unimpressed

All I want for Christmas is Indian Rupees!

The grandparents enjoying Christmas dinner.  They are happier than they look. 

"Time to do the dishes!!???"

Copen opens his presents late

A wild woodsman snuck in unnoticed

My sister Bethanie showing off her skills on one of many instruments

"STOP!"

Scuba Steve got locked out of the gingerbread house

Mom was getting sick.  Whether it was of the flu or her children is yet to be determined.

Ike - the mentally challenged family dog

Selfie time with Grandma!

Drama day 3 in Gratiot, Ohio - The mystery of the dead hawk

Uncle Benjamin feeds his willing but easily distracted nephew 

The head of the household - Bigtha

Watch out world.  The Copen kids are bored and on the prowl

Merry  Christmas and a happy new year from the Copens!