top of page

What Can We Learn About How to Live the Good Life From A Practitioner of Good Works?

"America did not invent human rights. In a very real sense . . . human rights invented America." 38th president of the United States, President Jimmy Carter


 Sometimes something wonderful happens and uplifts me…and John.  I hadn’t expected that it would be a death – and the ensuing celebration of a man who, according to President Biden is a model of how to live the good life.  It was, of course, the death and funeral of Jimmy Carter, a past U.S. president, Nobel prize winner, faithful husband, and Georgia man. And it causes me to write this blog on the heels of the one yesterday about character and moral development.


I laughed and I cried when I listened to Carter’s grandson, Jason, and then President Biden and Andrew Young talk about Carter’s dedication to the Christian (and universal) ethic of loving our neighbor.


The anecdotes that stuck with me the most (other than Jimmy and Rosalynn having a drying rack to wash, dry, and re-use zip lock bags) were the ones told by Andrew Young. 


One story was of Jimmy telling Young that he was friends with a sheriff that Martin Luther King, Jr. had called the meanest man in the world.  Young’s point seemed to be that Carter had a unique ability to connect with all sorts of people. 


According to Young, Carter also requested, to the powers that be, that the first black cadet to be admitted to the Naval Academy be assigned as his roommate.  Since Carter had grown up in Plain, Georgia where only 25 percent of the population was white, he felt he understood how it felt to be a minority.  He believed he could help the young man better adjust.


But the story I take with me about Jimmy Carter, the one that has impressed all these many years, is another true story from 1978.


President Jimmy Carter had arranged a summit in which he brought the prime minister of Israel, Menachem Begin, and the president of Egypt, Anwar Sadat, to Camp David.

Carter deeply desired a peace deal between the two countries, but the odds seemed remote. Egypt wanted Israel to return land and political prisoners. Israel was opposed to the idea.


Israel wanted Egypt to promise a permanent truce. Egypt seemed unwilling. Negotiations were going badly.


Prime Minister Begin packed up. However, Carter caught him at the elevator.

Carter had a folder containing nine photographs. The photos captured the three of them – Carter, Begin, Sadat together at the summit.


Carter handed the photos to Begin. He explained that they were mementos for his nine grandchildren. In fact, Carter had inscribed the name of one of Begin’s grandchildren on the back of each picture.


Begin looked at the photos …saying nothing for a while. Then Carter noticed that his eyes had tears. Begin read aloud the names of each of his grandchildren and said, “There must be a way. There is a way. For our children, for the next generation.”

Begin returned to negotiations. By the end of the week, Begin and Sadat shook hands and solidified the Camp David Accords.



When Carter won  the Nobel Peace Prize in December of 2002, he said: "War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always evil, never a good. We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other's children.”


Over the years, Rosalynn and Jimmy Carter dedicated themselves to human rights and health care across the globe. And he had another concern and choice of causes to dedicate himself to:


"Among all the possible choices, I decided that the most serious and universal problem is the growing chasm between the richest and poorest people on earth. Citizens of the ten wealthiest countries are now seventy-five times richer than those who live in the ten poorest ones, and the separation is increasing every year, not only between nations but also within them….”


"The results of this disparity are root causes of most of the world's unresolved problems, including starvation, illiteracy, environmental degradation, violent conflict, and unnecessary illnesses that range from Guinea worm to HIV/AIDS."


President Biden called Carter a man of character.  A man of character. A man of character.


I agree with Biden, he’s an excellent example of how to live a meaningful, good life. Perhaps it’s no accident that the man who has been called in Washington, “a practitioner of good works” lived to be 100 years old. 


Carter himself, credited his long life to marrying “the best spouse.” Supposedly he met her when he was only three years old, and his mother helped deliver her. They were married for over seventy years.


(I’m taking a bit of a lateral here on how he saw the secret of their long relationship.  He said they gave each other “a lot of space” to do their own thing, but they shared a lot too.)


We can learn a lot from the life of Jimmy Carter.  To use a word I’ve been using lately, he ripened well.  Early on in life, he seems to have attained that last stage of moral and human development dedicated to universal care and concern for others. For example, though he was a nuclear engineer, he worked to contain nuclear power.  He consistently opposed a nuclear “breeder reactor” near my home state of Tennessee though it cost him a lot of congressional support. 

 

As I was talking to friends from different political parties today.  The general sentiment was Carter was a man whose life inspires them and heartens them and makes them want to be better people as well as work to make America good again.




What might we learn about character, peace, universal concern for others, diverse and long-lasting relationships from the life of Jimmy Carter to help us journey together to The Good Life?

 



Comments


bottom of page