On Dec. 29, James Earl Carter Jr. died, but the legacy of his life and work will endure for generations. He rose from the simplest beginnings, a peanut farmer in the hardscrabble clay of Plains, to serve as the 76th governor of Georgia and the 39th president of the United States.
While his term as president was marked by a number of challenges, there were also many important accomplishments that continue to shape our country and world for the better. He created the Department of Education and the Department of Energy. He signed the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty with Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev and the Panama Canal Treaties with Panamanian leader Omar Torrijos. No doubt, the centerpiece of his presidential accomplishments was the long and tedious negotiations that led to the signing of the Camp David Accords, which brokered peace between Egypt and Israel.
In 2002, Carter, a Mercer Life Trustee, was deservedly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Ironically, however, the prize was not awarded for any achievements made while he served as president but for all that he accomplished after he was out of the White House and back at his home in Plains. Although he then lacked the prestige, power and resources of the presidency, citizen Carter pursued a vigorous agenda, as the Nobel citation states, “… of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.”
Carter was once famously introduced by Dr. James Laney, former president of Emory University, as “the only man to use the White House as a stepping stone to doing greater things for America and the world.”
What is striking, then, about the life and legacy of Carter is that he made, perhaps, his most significant contributions to peace-making, home-building and humanitarian causes, not as president, but as private citizen.
I wonder if sometimes we feel relieved of the burden of making a difference in the world because we are simply ordinary people. We lack the power, the position, the influence of our heroes and heroines. We assume that it is the people of prominence and stature who should be making meaningful change in the world, not us. I wonder if we somehow give ourselves a pass on the responsibility to make the world a better place. The problems, after all, are so great, and we are so small. What difference could we possibly make?
Citizen Carter didn’t grant himself the luxury of thinking so. Instead, he lived by the credo, “My faith demands that I do whatever I can, wherever I am, whenever I can, for as long as I can with whatever I have to try to make a difference.”
I try to imagine how different our neighborhoods, cities, nation and world would be if we all took that motto to heart as seriously as Carter. I see schoolchildren being tutored in reading. I see unhoused people filing through the open doors of a warm shelter on a freezing night. I see, following directly in Carter’s footsteps, affordable homes being built. I see neighbors of different political and religious persuasions living together in harmony. I see outsiders to a community being welcomed with generous hospitality. I see friends caring for each other when sickness or tragedy strikes. I see the lonely being visited. I see the needy being supported. I see young children of every race and language, playing together in the park their families refurbished. The vision of what could be is all encompassing and all embracing.
Mother Teresa put it this way: “Not all of us can do great things, but we can all do small things with great love.”
So it was for Jimmy Carter from Plains, Georgia. May it also be so for us.