What drew you to ministry?
I grew up in a religious home and attended church all my life. I fell out of the faith when I was young. When I was older I was interested in and got involved with the civil rights movement. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was present and in the public eye. He had purpose and it made sense to me. Sadly, it was not popular to support him or civil rights causes at the time.

How did you know get to know the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.?
The Rev. King came to our church in Shaker Heights, which was starting to be integrated at that time. As far as you could see, there were people outside the church. He had never been asked to speak in a white church before that.

Why do you think you are so open to evoking change?
Justice issues are so powerful. If you understand the gospels, you see the message in many of them is to seek justice. Civil rights was so needed for justice.

My children were exposed to this. Jane watched us support the Rev. King. I am very proud of my children. They have all chosen to do something where they are helping other people and they enjoy what they do. None of them have chosen jobs just to make money or for material reasons alone.

I think my parents were a huge influence. My father was a doctor. My mother was a perpetual volunteer. My grandmother lived with us and she was very active in the church. My father used to call her the rise-and-shine lady because she was out always doing something. I grew up during the Second World War, so she worked for the Red Cross-the USO, where she was chief organizer in the Youngstown area. She brought two YWCAs together, one that was all white and one that was all black, when she was president of one of them. I remember there was an Italian doctor moving in next door to us in Youngstown and my father rallied to support him living in the neighborhood. The point is that I grew up seeing fairness and justice. No one really preached it to me.

When you were younger what did you want to be when you grew up?
Well actually, I wanted to be a lot of things like everybody does. I wanted to do television. Television was brand new. I wanted to be a television anchor. When I went to the University of Michigan, they said, "No, no you don't want to do that. The only way you get to be a television anchor is by sleeping with everybody else."

So then I wanted to be a doctor. My father thought that was a bad idea. My father put himself through medical school. His father was a minister and they didn't have any money. He said "Oh, you're too pretty. You'll get married and waste all that education. I don't want to see you waste your education." Yet, he encouraged me to do anything I wanted to do. And then I thought I wanted to be a nurse. He said, "No, doctors are terrible to them. I don't want to see you dealing with that." So this was a mystery to me.

I didn't think about being a minister because I didn't know any female ministers. It didn't really occur to me.

It was really after I got involved with Martin Luther King and I saw how important the church was to civil rights. Without the church, the civil rights movement would have failed. When I saw that leadership, I became much more interested in the church as an institution. I never went to seminary. I did individual private study and had to take examinations and become a field soldier for causes.

Did you ever expect to become so prominent in your field?
Not then, but by the time I was the general secretary for The National Council of Churches (an ecumenical coalition), I knew what it meant. I would work for six years for the World Council of Churches. Though I was director of the U.S. office, I spent a lot of time in Geneva, Switzerland, the headquarters of the World Council.

It was then that I began to know many people around the world. That was hugely educational for me. I just sat with people. When you think of sitting with Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela and Fidel Castro and Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres . all these people were those whom we met with and talked to.

This is a fun story. I turned 70 years old this year. Desmond Tutu-who was general secretary of the South African Council of Churches when I was the general secretary of the U.S. Council-sent me an email. And he writes, "Dearest Joan, you have now been given all the years that God promised you. What are you going to do with the rest of them?" I replied to him and said I have more ideas than I probably have time.

When my grandson Ryan was interviewing me last night he asked me of what I was most proud. I told him three things: my children, the people I know, and becoming a minister. And I knew those people when they were "nobody," per se. And that really has meant so much to me. When we supported these people in the church, it was difficult. Nelson Mandela, for example, was a terrorist when we supported him. I remember sitting with (African National Congress Deputy President Thabo) Mbeki in Zambia, who was writing the Constitution for South Africa. We all thought it wouldn't ever happen, that South Africa would never be free without violence. He did it and returned to South Africa.

What have you learned from this whole set of experiences?
I think the lessons that Nelson Mandela taught people are phenomenal. The first of which is that to be bitter and angry is to die. It was remarkable to me that he could walk out of that prison without hating people. I asked him, "What do you think was in you to allow you to be like this?" He said, "If I did that, I would destroy myself, and they will not imprison me twice."

I think to hold an attitude or sense of purpose . people would say to Martin Luther King, "Martin, you are going to kill yourself [doing what you're doing]. Someone is going to kill you." He would tell them, "I have to do this." That strong sense that he had to keep doing what he was doing was important for me to see. He could not have stopped. My father taught me you just live with everything you have. And I suppose that is what I have to do.

What did you learn from the Elian Gonzales experience? What did you learn about human nature?
You know, it sounds corny but it's true: love does prevail. Not just in the case of his father, but his two grandmothers. These two women had never been out of their little town in Cuba. They came with me and got on a plane. They had never been on an airplane. They had never been left alone without their husbands before. They didn't speak English. They faced the American media, who threw microphones at them. Then they faced 77 congressmen in three days and they turned it around. These grandmothers simply told the truth. They weren't political. They said, "We love him [Elian] and we want to take him home." The senators were weeping. It was such a David and Goliath. This tiny group of people fought the Cuban Americans. And we won. It was more keeping at it. We went all the way to the Supreme Court and then won.

The negotiations with Fidel Castro were pretty amazing, too. When you think about it, it was pretty nervy for an American woman to go to Cuba and tell Castro what should happen. I told him that without a lawyer he will not get this boy back, that it's that simple and we've done everything we can do. Justice prevails.

You said in your response to Desmond Tutu, you have more ideas for the future than you have time. What are some of those ideas?
I love what I do at Chautauqua. It is a wonderful place but it is very white. This summer we will work on improving Christian, Jewish and Muslim relations.

I would like to see my grandchildren to grow up to see their mother and aunt be President [of the United States]. It gives me great joy to be with those kids and to be well enough and strong enough to enjoy it.

I would like to write a book. I would like to put all these experiences in a book. I think I am basically an ordinary person who has been able to accomplish an extraordinary amount of things. My greatest asset was that I was loved. I had parents who loved me. I have a sister who was a missionary in Hong Kong for 37 years. She's now here. I would like to spend time with her.

When would you say you actually started your career?
I would say when I was about 40. I was working at the Council of Churches in Cleveland.

Do you think about age?
I do, but not a lot. I don't think about it negatively. I've been in the public light so long that people always know how old I am, but it's never bothered me. I was never embarrassed to be the age I was and I don't remember wishing I were another age.

I think the one thing I think about now is that I have far fewer years ahead of me than I have behind me. That is something that you think about. I think we all think about aging. We live in a very fortunate time. I think there are biases against older people but I think they are much less than they were. You really have to work at not looking good because there are so many things that can help people.

If you had to give advice to someone who had fears about or dreaded getting older, what would you tell them?
People worry about how they are going to die. I try to tell people, it's how you live that matters. I never try to talk people out of their fears, but I tell them "If you live your life waiting for some awful disease to kill you, then you really never live your life fully." And that's the worst thing you can do. When your death comes, I really believe that people are given the strength to deal with what they have.