I was 10 years old when I decided to decorate my bike for the Fairlawn, OH, Fourth of July Parade. The bike competition was a big thing in my family – my older sisters had both entered in the past and won prizes. My mother had been chairwoman of several parades over the years. 1976, the country’s bicentennial, was my year to enter.
I remember seeing articles about the peanut farmer from Georgia who was the Democratic presidential candidate that year, as I flipped through copies of Newsweek that hit our coffee table religiously. His supporters carried signs shaped like large peanuts that announced, “I am a Carter nut.” At 10, I thought that was hilarious. That is how I would decorate my bike, I decided.
So, I secured a refrigerator box from the local hardware store, cut two large and slightly lopsided peanut shapes from it, and painted them with big smiles and the slogan. I was largely unaware of the fact that the suburb where I grew up was mainly Republican. I didn’t know what being a Carter Nut might entail. Still my dad helped me bolt the figures to my bike without much discussion.
On the Fourth of July, I remember getting in line for the parade down Market Street. We would ride our bikes somewhere among the floats and the firetrucks and marching bands. Then we’d gather for the judging at the end of the route.
I didn’t win. That prize went to the girl dressed as Sacagawea riding a bike decked out like a horse. Clearly her mom had done most of the work.
At some point it started to rain on that bicentennial parade. The large cardboard peanuts on either side of me didn’t make it easy to ride my bike home. The rain-spattered figures sat in the garage for a long time.
That was my first foray into political speech, though I had no mastery of it at the time. Because I was a precocious kid who liked adult conversations, watched the news with my parents and flipped through political magazines, many of the components of Jimmy Carter’s presidency stayed with me from that time – his call to turn down the thermostat and put on a sweater in the face of the energy crisis, his work to secure peace in the Middle East, the failed rescue attempt and the white-knuckled negotiations to release American hostages in Iran, who would not be freed until Ronald Reagan was sworn in as president.
Over a lifetime, I would come to understand the depth of what James Earl Carter, Jr. stood for, not just as a candidate, or a president, but as a man of consistent and profound integrity. His example was always there in the background noise of the news – winning the Nobel Peace Prize for his work to expand civil rights through the Carter Center, building homes for Habitat Humanity, writing about the conflict between Israel and Palestine, and calling for an end to Israeli policies that he likened to apartheid.
Carter was a born-again Christian, a man of deep faith in an evangelical tradition that many found quaint and a little funny when he articulated his values on the political stage. In 2000, he walked away from his membership in the Southern Baptist Church over its stands against the equality of women, part of an exodus that occurred when the denomination swung more conservative. And in the years that followed, he worked to raise awareness and build bridges among Baptists on issues such as women’s rights, racial repair and healing, and poverty. That makes him a man after my own heart – a role model whose lessons will follow me the rest of my life.
At 10, I didn’t quite know what I was proclaiming from my bicycle on the fourth of July in 1976, but I know what it means now. That is the power of a life lived with integrity and faith for others to the end – it has staying power long after death.
President Carter’s body will be flown to his hometown of Plains, GA, where he will be interred at Maranatha Baptist Church, where he taught Sunday school for decades. This follows today’s funeral service, which was held at the Washington National Cathedral. So, I close with this prayer from the Episcopal funeral liturgy as we say our good byes to a man who will now do his work among us a “saint in light.”
Into your hands O merciful Savior, we commend your servant, James. Acknowledge we humbly beseech you, a sheep of your own fold, a lamb of your own flock, a sinner of your own redeeming. Receive him into the arms of your mercy, into the blessed rest of everlasting peace, and into the glorious company of the saints in light. Amen.
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