A Good Man to the End

I'm too young to remember much about President Jimmy Carter's actual presidency.  I do know that, even by his own estimation, it was not particularly robed in glory.  I know that he has second guessed his own handling of the Iran hostage crisis, and I know, basically that his own tendency towards peace, diplomacy and sanity was what cost him the Oval Office and gave birth to the Ronald Ray-gun administration.  Carter is a scion of a bygone era, an era where you could be a soldier and a diplomat, a politician and a person of deep convictions, a scientist, a farmer, a Christian, a Southerner and an ally of civil rights.  You can probably tell, I rather admire the man, but again, I don't remember his presidency, I was like 6 when big Ronnie took over.
What I know about Carter comes from hindsight, and what he has done since then: Habitat for Humanity, global campaigns for human rights, various and sundry acts of diplomacy and public welfare, a couple of books he wrote, and now, how he is facing his own mortality.  Ex-presidents have some real clout, and a place in the public discourse, Bill Clinton has salvaged some dignity, even Richard M. Nixon managed to open diplomatic relations with China before he resigned from the mortal coil.  But Jimmy Carter has been consistent in demonstrating that he probably deserved to sit in the big chair more than anyone who has occupied it since 1980.  He has also rather quietly, yet steadfastly, refused to reach for that ring again.  It did not fit him.
I think it was simply because he was too good a man, too attracted to non-violence, too insistent on the good of the commonwealth of all humanity, and too trusting of the rules of public discourse as they eroded under his very feet.  I have grown a very well-founded distrust of politicians, but I trust Jimmy Carter.  I am always glad of his distinctly Christian ethics and the way he represents the faith in a world where religious charlatans are as common as political ones.  He shows us a faith that is rooted in tradition but not afraid to challenge injustice, even and especially in his own house.  When his Southern Baptist Convention refused to modify their self proclaimed "biblical" postition regarding the equality of women, Carter withdrew his membership, yet continued to serve his church as a Sunday School teacher.  He dissented, yet he didn't simply take his ball and go home.
He shows us that faith and science are not at odds, he shows us that politics and decency are not mutually exclusive.
A few years ago, he wrote a book called Our Endangered Values, and he wasn't talking about traditional marriage or having prayer in schools, or even freedom of speech and religion.  He was talking about discourse, about the ability we used to have to disagree and come to a compromise.  His book was a more well reasoned and thought out version of this, without the profanity, and in a form that is not simply on the lips of a fictional character.
I'm writing this because Jimmy Carter probably will not be with us much longer, even if his brain cancer is successfully treated he is in his nineties and even remarkable men are mortal.  But in his final chapter he is showing us dignity and grace, and this is needed more than ever in a world that abhors considering mortality and despises old age as nothing but weakness and something to be avoided.
To some Carter may be a sort of political punchline, a one term president who accomplished next to nothing and whose most famous action was an abject failure.  But to me, he is a sign that perhaps we are not so desperately lost as a nation.  Perhaps decency, integrity and common sense still have a place in our society.  Here's to hope.