Published by Simon and Schuster, 2015
A month or so ago a public
announcement was made in newspapers and other periodicals as well as on the
major TV stations that our thirty-ninth President, Jimmy Carter, had been
stricken with Stage IV Melanoma and that the disease had reached his
brain. Because of the deadly cancer’s
degree of advancement to that part of the body, the chances of his survival for
more than weeks and months are very dim.
Many including myself heard this news with great sadness. I have been an admirer of this man for as
long as I remember ever hearing of him – before he launched his campaign for
election to the White House in the early 1970s.
No ex-President has been more active in the healing of humanity over the
thirty-five years since leaving office than this peanut farmer and ex-Naval
officer from Plains, Georgia. He has
never been noted for bombast or ostentatious rhetoric but has poured his energy
into fruit-bearing labors, scarcely pausing to take a breath between
projects. That all his drive and all his
insightful reflections upon crucial social and political topics must soon be deactivated,
like a water tap to be shut off forever, is cause for much grief.
Re-enforcing my respect for
him is his choice of going on the air and making the announcement about his
failing health himself, and doing so with a smile and a no-nonsense manner that
could not have been more humble and friendly, and certainly not more positive
in terms of a faith he has never attempted in the slightest to conceal or
minimize. He took us all right into the
crisis – gently and reassuringly, like a member of the family. Even some of our most conservative pundits
have indicated how moved they were by these words from this moderate-to-liberal
man of influence.
The timing of this health
crisis, however, and his publication of “A Full Life”, almost certainly to be
the last of his plethora of writings, could not have been more timely. He was about to begin a tour to sell it when
he was presented with the medical findings and decided to postpone the tour in
order to continue the focused radiation treatment his doctors at Emory
University have prescribed. Now, because
of what looks to the public like an announced death sentence, the book will
doubtless not need any special promotion.
I have just completed my reading of it and feel much served by its content.
The account of his work on so
many fronts over the space of a half century and more, beginning with his
childhood on his father’s farm, is thorough and fascinating to read and
follow. That farm was rather huge; the family
did more than grow crops, milk cows and slop hogs. They had a shop, a business, in which Carter
learned many skills, especially working with wood. By the time he was grown he could make or repair
just about anything wooden. But if that
were not enough, he was also an accomplished student in school and excelled in
the sciences, an aptitude that served him tremendously after he graduated from
the Annapolis Naval Academy.
In the Navy he rose to a very
high rank and became proficient in the knowledge and use of atomic science and
engineering. He was actually on the
cutting edge of the peaceful use and development of nuclear fission. He even commanded an atomic submarine, one of
the first of them, and got to visit many countries during his sea duty
travels. He speaks of two near death
experiences during those years on the ship, a collision with another vessel and
a capsizing, both barely averted. If the
worst had happened, the western world would have lost out on a very productive
and inspiring life.
One section of the book that
I found especially significant has to do with the factor of race during his
growing up years. Though he lived in the
Deep South and in a community where racial mores of white supremacy were taken
for granted and largely unquestioned, Carter had a mother who was a practical
nurse and who spent most of her nursing energies caring for the African
Americans in the region. He even had
black playmates and remained on good terms with them until he was mature enough
to begin fathoming the invisible barriers that separated him from them. He was spared exposure to the vilest form of
bigotry – enough that his consciousness did not require all that much raising
on the subject of racial tolerance and equality when he reached adulthood. He has always felt indebted to his mother for
this role modeling; unlike his father she did not deny a black friend the
opportunity to visit in the home.
Four years as Governor of
Georgia were invaluable in preparing him for the Presidency. Those who comb their way through this
autobiography will note how life in the Governor’s chair allowed him to cut his
teeth on many of the issues he later confronted in his leadership of the
nation. But what landed on his plate as
the head of the country carried him far beyond them. I will name but a few: the deregulation of
all industries to permit better competition in the manufacturing sector; making
treaties with Panama; fighting members of Congress for the preservation of Alaskan
territory set aside as memorials or as Native American or Eskimo possessions,
with oil drilling confined to offshore; brokering peace in the Middle East;
influencing foreign leaders, particularly Brezhnev, in the reduction of nuclear
weapons; pressing for human rights in Latin America; contending with labor
union leaders; taking a stand for renewable energy sources; and coping with the
famous Iran Hostage Crisis (for which he was assigned a most undeserved
blame).
There is to this day great
disparity of opinion as to why he lost the 1980 election and failed to be
granted a second term. But in a
nutshell, he had, in spite of his polite, unassuming manner of speech and
interaction, made too many enemies among certain elements in the government. You can read Carter’s own account and decide
for yourselves.
His post White House years
have found him every bit as active and hard at work as his previous time in
politics, perhaps more so. He set up The
Carter Center in Atlanta, an agency still going strong today that has given him
leverage to address and become involved in numerous social and humanistic
concerns. Again, I name only a few:
improving farming methods in Africa; intervening as a conflict resolver between
nations and tribes across the globe; once again brokering peace; monitoring
elections in areas where democracy is just beginning to find rootage; extensive
work overseeing projects for Habitat for Humanity, which he calls “difficult,
unpredictable, exciting, and gratifying”; writing and publishing a total of
almost thirty books; birthing Special Education schools in China; interceding
between nations to keep the peace; and all this long while teaching on the
faculty of Emory University and teaching a Sunday School class in his home
church. He has kept close ties with all
former living Presidents. And he has not
hesitated to keep thumping for what he believes to be crucial to the peace and
good health of the planet, not the least being America’s declining influence
across the globe. He has also spoken
sharply about the scourge of rape on college campuses, and that very recently.
Carter is one of those
individuals for whom there is no such thing as retirement. He continues to spend himself selflessly and
enthusiastically for the country and the world he loves.
But as highly as I regard
this man, I am compelled to recognize his limitations as a writer. This is the only one of his twenty-nine books
that I have read, but if his mode of composition is the same in all or most of
the others, I must conclude that he is first and foremost a writer of
content. He does not write with any real
style. His book is an autobiographical
composite of facts and details. He wants
to complete the record, to get it all down.
He is not one to do much self-reflecting; he is skimpy in talking about
his inner life. He comes across more as
a scholarly commentator.
There are two good examples
from the text that bear me out. One
moment he is filling us in on, and taking us through, his remarkable life as a
submarine pilot and nuclear scientist, but suddenly he gets word that his
father has died and soon afterward he resigns from the Navy and goes back to
Georgia, taking on considerable financial struggle and starting life over as a
farmer. People he knew intimately in the
service were shocked and felt cheated, and his wife Rosalynn, having enjoyed
life as a Navy wife, took his announcement quite hard. But nowhere does he even begin to tell us
what his motivation was for doing this drastic thing. Did he feel he owed it to his father? He just reports on the event. No explanation!
The other example is his
measly mention of winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. I was looking forward to being taken through
that chapter – getting the word of his selection, traveling to Europe to
receive it, the occasion of its presentation, and most of all what it meant to
him and his wife. How did he feel about
it? Did he undergo any conflict in the
acceptance of it? But all he does is
make passing reference to it, once again as if it is just a particle of
happen-so information. Was he afraid he
would come across as bragging? Why so
much purposeless modesty, if that is what it was? His silence makes us wonder if he valued it
at all. It is just possible that he
does talk about it in one of these other books, but as part of the complete
story of his full life, it should have been
included in this writing. In my view a
very serious omission!
Carter had a great love for
all of the arts. No chief executive ever
sparkled with more overt pleasure as he did when he sat in on a concert or a
musical rendition at the White House; during his administration; at his
invitation scads of performers came to entertain, those of every mode and
variety and tradition, and he was quite exuberant with pleasure and excitement
occupying the Presidential seat at the Kennedy Center Honors. This country boy even loves classical music;
he is especially fond of Wagner. Since his
departure from public office he has also taken up painting, which he does not
speak about at any length, but I hope he finds enrichment for his soul as well
as a good time exploring himself as an artist.
Those of you who have read
all I have said in this review can now decide if it is the kind of thing you
wish to read for yourselves. Those who
crave the knowledge of history, even the tiny footnotes, should find great
satisfaction in poring over it. It
filled in a lot of spaces in my own knowledge.
And those who value as I do the place of faith and faith practice as a
motivation for imaginative, open-minded and open-hearted leadership will
benefit spiritually by reading an earnest account of a life fully lived without
a doubt. He may not be with us for long
in the flesh, but he will. . .be with us.
God bless you, Jimmy, in this life and the next, as you so richly bless
us!
To
read other entries in my blog, please consult its website: enspiritus.blogspot.com. To learn about me
consult on the website the blog entry for August 9, 2013.
