America is a nation of faith. So it is often said. In faith, a baker refuses to bake a cake for a gay couple’s wedding. In faith, a minister prays for the president to die. In faith, terrorists plant bombs at the finish line of a marathon. In faith, mosques are vandalized, shot at and burned. In faith, a televangelist asks his followers to buy him a $65-million private jet. And no one is even surprised anymore. In America, what we call faith is often loud, often exclusionary, sometimes violent and too frequently enamored of shiny, expensive things. In faith, ill-tempered people mob the shopping malls every year at Christmas to have fistfights and gunfights over hot toys and high-end electronics.
Too often these days, religious faith is expressed in a decidedly negative manner. We see Kim Davis using her “Christian” faith to refuse marriage licenses to same-sex couples. We see zealots outside abortion clinics, screaming at women seeking entrqnce. We see preachers declaiming the virtues of getting rich in Jesus’ name. What we don’t see are traditional Christian values such as compassion, kindness, acceptance, and/or tolerance…all things taught by the same Jesus Christ so many claim to revere.
It’s not that there aren’t those who endeavor to live their faith, to exhibit charity, generosity of spirit, and forbearance. Part of it is that those who are busy trying to live their faith generally lack the time, energy, or inclination to attract attention to themselves. They’re not about self-aggrandizement or camera-seeking behavior. They’re not about public prayer or voluble declarations of their piety and unshakable faith. They’re about trying to make the world a better place, which, when you get right down to it, is really what most religions are about.
Our churches are filled with hypocrites and haters, both in the pews and the pulpit. There are too many primarily about their own enrichment and of their own self-interested agenda. And then there’s Jimmy Carter, who really is be a shining example of how to effectively, lovingly, and meaningly make your life the expression of your faith.
For all its loudness, all its exclusion, violence and ubiquity, the faith that is modeled in the public square is often not particularly affecting. It is hard to imagine someone looking on it from outside and musing to herself, “I’d like to have some of that.” What Carter showed the world, though, was different. Who would not want to be able to face the unknown with such perfect equanimity?
Carter presented an image of faith we don’t see nearly as often as we should. Which is sad, because it is also the image truest to what faith is supposed to be — not a magic lamp you rub in hopes of a private jet, not a license for our worse impulses, but, rather, an act of surrender to a force greater than self, a way of being centered enough to tell whatever bleak thing comes your way, “So be it.” Even fearsome death itself: “So be it.”
I look at Jimmy Carter and see someone who’s lived his 90 years modeling peace, love, and tolerance- qualities not often found in abundance in the public square. His four years in office, in hindsight one of the greatest Presidencies this country has known, represents the only four years of the 20th century where the US has not been involved in some sort of armed conflict somewhere in the world. Carter wanted an America that was a good citizen, that modeled values on which this country was founded. For his efforts, he was reviled and ridiculed…which in retrospect is something those who engaged in that behavior should rightfully be ashamed of.
Carter has been the rarest of animals, the embodiment of faith and its practice in the public square. A man of peace, Carter has President endeavored to model those beliefs- something Americans, most of whom seem to expect a President willing to shoot first and ask questions later, refused to accept in their leader. It’s sad we couldn’t find it within ourselves to appreciate President Carter for what he brought to the Oval Office.
[W]ho, gazing upon the former president, can doubt the result is worth the effort?
In faith, terrorists kill the innocent. In faith, televangelists swindle the gullible. In faith, so many of us hate, exclude, hurt, curse and destroy. And in faith…Jimmy Carter told the world he has cancer in his brain.
Being the voice of truth and reason in a world addicted to rage and reaction isn’t easy. Modeling peace and tolerance when the mob mentality wants blood and retribution takes an astonishing degree of internal fortitude and moral courage. Seeing Jimmy Carter at 90 is to look at a man whose impact on the world has been far greater than anything he could have hoped to accomplish during his four years in the White House. Perhaps he was never meant to be President, those four years only meant to set him up as a public figure whose actions would set an example for the next 35 (and counting) years. Conservatives ridicule him for being a weak President, and even many on the other side of the ideological divide fail to recognize that Carter’s true contribution can’t be found in the policies he pursued, but in the example he set, then and on into the future.
Would that more of us could see our way clear to recognizing Jimmy Carter for what he truly is: a man dedicated to his faith, to doing what he can to make the world a better place. Perhaps if we could recognize that, we’d understand that the example he continues to set is one that, if emulated on a greater scale, really could make this country and this world a better and more compassionate place.
Truth be told, we could use more Presidents- and more people- like Carter. Perhaps his greatest legacy will be the example he set. My hope is that when people discuss the great peacemakers of our time- Gandhi, King, Mandela- Carter will become part of the conversation. He may not have crumbled an empire without firing a shot, fought for civil rights, or defeated institutionalized racism, but in his own inimitable way, Jimmy Carter has lived his life in a manner that stands for peace. His life of love, tolerance, and promoting peace is something all of us can- and should- learn from.
Because of Jimmy Carter, our world’s a better, more peaceful place. He can- and is- living out whatever time remains to him with equanimity and a sense that he’s quietly made a difference…because he most certainly has.
