And Many More

Jimmy Carter accomplished two things today that few ever do, and even fewer politicians: he turned 100 years old, and he retained his integrity. I speak not of political valediction but of moral character, a charitable nature, and a century’s worth of genuine concern for his community, his country, and his church. While I disagree with so many of his policies, I can’t help but love the man. 

Maybe it’s because he was unashamedly a country boy from the South. The Georgia soil where he grew with the peanuts his daddy raised is as much a part of his DNA as his sainted mamma’s blood. He was formed by his native land as he plowed its back; nourished by it, both literally and metaphorically, as he turned rows and picked their fruits. 

Or maybe it’s because his affection for his small, home town has ever been as inspirational as it has been aspirational. Save for a few years spent beneath the Pacific on a Navy submarine and four languishing as a foreign exile in Washington, he poured the better part of a century in his native neighborhood. And until quite recently, he sat on the same pew of the same little Baptist church he first entered in 1924.

I suspect that, more than anything, I am fond of Jimmy Carter because I have found it impossible not to be. When he left office, no one would have batted an eye if he had simply decided to enjoy his retirement in leisure. Spend his Autumn years playing golf or casting about in his favorite fishing holes somewhere on the backside of Georgia. But he didn’t. Instead he strapped on a tool belt and built houses for poor people. Since 1981, Jimmy Carter has simply been a plain man from Plains, Georgia. There were no more elections to win, no more rungs to climb on the political ladder–he had already reached the top. He gave his time, his labor, and his heart to those who needed a little help. If he has ever had an agenda, however falteringly he has pursued it, it could be summed up in one word–others.

Jimmy Carter may not have been a good president but he has been a good man. And after it’s all said and done, that’s probably more important. 

So I wish you a happy birthday, sir. Normally at this point we would add an extra note of benediction, “and many more!” But you have already realized that particular blessing in a way most of us never will. Instead, I make it a different kind of prayer. May God in his mercy give us more men with your manifest humanity and long-lasting integrity. More men who love hearth and home, who have cherished country and church as you have. More men who have loved one wife for one whole life and devoted themselves to fidelity above all else. In Jimmy Carter, God has given us one such man, so I believe he can give us another—and many more.