environment

I celebrated the election of Jimmy Carter with fellow students, faculty, and administrators of a theological school, munching Southern ham biscuits in the student lounge. Following the presidencies of Nixon and Ford, President Carter and Rosalynn walked hope and joy into the national psyche as they stepped out of their car and made their way to the White House on foot.

Those 48-year-old memories still evoke hope and deep respect for the man. In stark contrast to the incoming administration that thrives on divisiveness, revenge, and the pursuit of wealth and power, Jimmy Carter was all about service.

Recently I read two articles that provided insight into the exceptional life and character of President Jimmy Carter.

The first was Samatha Power’s New York Times opinion piece, “Samatha Power: The Conscience of Jimmy Carter.” In it she noted that Carter often quoted Jesus in Matthew 25:40 saying that whatever we fail to do to the least among us, we fail to do to him.

Human Rights

Inspired by profound faith, President Carter worked tirelessly, during and after his presidency, to promote human rights at home and around the world. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 “… for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.”¹

In her opinion piece, Power outlines the central role human rights played in Carter’s foreign policy. He followed the dictates of his conscience, not political polls. He was the first president to publicly support a Palestinian State. He brokered a peace between Egypt’s Anwar Sadat and Israel’s Menachem Begin. His public denunciation of South Africa’s apartheid was the first for a U.S. president.

January 14, 1979, President Carter accepted the Martin Luther King Jr. Nonviolence Peace Prize at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia. Image Credit: Jimmy Carter Library

Civil Rights

He grew up in a predominately Black area in rural Georgia and saw first-hand the effects of racism and the courage of those who worked to end it. Martin Luther King, Sr. was a close friend and inspiration. Beginning as a State senator, Carter worked to increase the presence of Black Americans, people of color and women in judicial and government positions. He appointed more African Americans, Hispanics, and women to these positions than all previous presidents combined.² He also worked to increase fair election practices. As Governor of Georgia, he announced “The time for racial discrimination is over.” He signed the Refugee Act into law in 1980 and welcomed hundreds of thousands of Cuban refugees to our shores.

Jimmy Carter and Rosalynn Carter working on building homes in D.C.’s Ivy City neighborhood for World Habitat Day 10.1.2010 Photo: Sammy Mayo, Jr. – HUD

Habitat for Humanity

Carter’s understanding of human rights included the right to food, shelter, health, and education.³ He worked with Habitat for Humanity, along with Rosalynn, building houses, even in his 90s! (I read the book The President Builds a House to my children at dinner one evening, exposing them to a role model and to the truth that helping others is a responsibility we all share, regardless of social position.)

Women’s Rights

He was long a vocal advocate for women’s rights, and he cut ties with the Southern Baptist Convention in 2000, citing the church’s rigid stance on women’s roles both in the home and in church leadership. In 2009 he wrote an essay addressing his action, “Losing My Faith over Equality.” In 2014 he published a book, A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence, and Power. (Jimmy Carter wrote over 30 books including poetry and children’s books.)

Jimmy Carter tries to comfort 6-year-old girl at Savelugu Hospital in Ghana as Carter Center assistant dresses her extremely painful Guinea worm wound 2007 credit: The Carter Center — Former President Jimmy Carter tries to comfort young girl at Savelugu Hospital in Ghana as Carter Center techinical assistant dresses her extremely painful Guinea worm wound. 2.8.2007 Image Credit:The Carter Center

The Carter Center

In 1987, he and Rosalynn founded The Carter Center to promote human rights, democracy, and disease prevention. Along with other organizations (including the United States Agency for International Development where Samantha Power is the administrator) the Carter Center helped reduced cases of the Guinea worm that caused millions of deaths in the 80s and only 13 in 2023. The Carter Center also has all but eliminated the scourge of river blindness.

Foreign policy

Environment

According to Power, Carter “… was the first American president to elevate environmental conservation to a global concern.”⁴ Carter recognized the human right to clean air and water and the need to protect the environment. He installed solar panels on the West Wing of the White House, providing power to heat the water. (They were removed by President Ronald Regan.) He created 39 new park sites including 13 in Alaska, and in 1980 he signed the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act that provided protection for over 100 million additional acres in Alaska.⁵

NASA

An engineer as well as a peanut farmer, Carter approved money for the floundering NASA shuttle program. Skeptical, but not wanting to waste money already spent on the program that was years behind schedule and well over budget, he approved millions of dollars and saved the project. His decision was not popular, but in the long run it enabled the creation of the International Space Station (ISS), which today remains a center of scientific inquiry and international cooperation. Shuttles also delivered large payloads into orbit, perhaps most well-known, the Hubble Space Telescope.

In 1977, Carter recorded a message of peace and hope on the Voyager Golden Records included on both Voyager 1 and Voyager 2. (His message was also included in printed form.) The records carry information about life and culture on earth including science, music natural sounds, and spoken greetings to any extraterrestrials who might find and decode it. Amazingly, both spacecraft are still traveling, now in interstellar space.

A copy of the Presidential Proclamation of July 16 – July 24, 1979, as the “United States Space Observance” signed by President Carter hangs over the desk of a NASA engineer I know. Besides the proclamation, the letter contains Carter’s appreciation of NASA’s work, the importance of space in daily communications and monitoring earth’s environment. He wrote that continued exploration held promise for “… the wiser management of our planetary resources, for the expansion of knowledge and for the development of civilization.” (Today, astronauts on the ISS and hundreds of satellites are monitoring our environment, giving us a more complete picture of the state of earth’s climate and resources.)

Faith and Being Salt

You may know all these things. It’s difficult to list the all good he has done. His persistence in pursuing policies and actions that contributed to the well-being of all people was rooted in his faith.

Which brings me to the second article “Why Does Salt Matter,” by Debie Thomasin the Center for Action and Contemplation’s Daily Meditations. I have a saltshaker sitting beside my pepper mill, but Debie Thomas reminds us that historically, salt was precious and used for much more than seasoning food. It was used medicinally as a disinfectant, to staunch bleeding, and to treat skin diseases. She points out that when Jesus called his followers “salt of the earth,” he likely had this broader sense in mind. Of course, salt used in excess can ruin a dish, overwhelming the flavor. In Debie’s words: “Salt doesn’t exist to preserve itself; it exists to preserve what is not itself… Salt is meant to enhance, not to dominate. Christian saltiness heals; it doesn’t wound. It purifies; it doesn’t desiccate. It softens; it doesn’t destroy…”⁶

Her reflection was published two days after Carter’s death, and as I read, he immediately came to mind. Jimmy Carter was salt. The best kind. His faith was the bedrock of his life and his actions. While today the label “Christianity” is sometimes used by those whose actions don’t reflect Jesus’ example, Jimmy Carter’s life and actions did – before, during, and after his term as president.

He was salt. He was the city on the hill, the light on a stand. He and his wife left a legacy of love and service and faith that touched and inspired people around the world. I am one. And I am deeply grateful.

Notes

1 The Nobel Peace Prize 2002

2 Presidential Campaign and the Carter Presidency The Carter Center This is an excellent summary of Carter’s presidency. Other aspects of Carter’s life and legacy can be found on The Carter Center site.

3,4 The Conscience of Jimmy Carter by Samantha Power

5 Jimmy Carter’s conservation legacy

6 Why Does Salt Matter? by Debie Thomas

éFirst published in The Catholic Times July 16, 2017 issue

PHOTO: Mary van Balen

And since the nature of goodness is to diffuse itself…the Father is the fountain-fullness of goodness. Ilia Delio

Yet access to safe drinkable water is a basic and universal human right, since it is essential to human survival and, as such, is a condition for the exercise of other human rights. Pope Francis

Standing Rock is everywhere. Chief Arvol Looking Horse

Water has been on my mind. As Ilia Delio, O.S.F. writes in Simply Bonaventure: An Introduction to His Life, Thought, and Writing, the 13^th century saint whose feast we celebrate on July 15 referred to the first principle of the Godhead as the fountain-fullness of goodness. (Bonaventure referred to this self-diffusive Goodness as “Father,” not in a biological manner, but in the sense that God is generative, Delio explains.)

I first heard this phrase over fifteen years ago while attending a lecture by Delio. When she made time for questions, I was unable to formulate any but sat in silence allowing some of the imagery and expansive thought she presented to find a place within me. The image of God as infinite fountain-fullness, pouring out Divine self, has always remained.

PHOTO: Mary van Balen

I’ve thought of it while standing at Niagara Falls, getting soaked in a rainstorm, or while drinking a refreshing glass of water: God, ever-flowing outward, creating and sustaining all.

In his encyclical, Laudato Si’, from the conviction that “…everything in the world is connected…” Pope Francis reminds us that fresh drinking water holds primary importance because “… it is indispensable for human life and for supporting terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems.” As with the effects of other instances of environmental degradation, the lack of clean water and the consequences of that fall most heavily upon the poor.

He addresses the people of the world, calling for a change of lifestyles of consumption and immediate gratification into lifestyles of sacrifice and sharing. Pope Francis quotes Patriarch Bartholomew’s eloquent words saying we all need to repent since in some ways we have all harmed the planet.

That realization deepened for me when I recently viewed a water bill for my apartment. The amount of water used was surprising.

I began to notice that water usually runs while I wash my hands and brush my teeth. Without a dishwasher, I often fill the sink with soapy water, even when only a few plates and glassed need cleaned. As weeks passed, water and my consumption of it became an exercise in mindfulness. A big water drinker, I usually find two or three half-filled glasses on tables or counters at bedtime. No longer dumped down the drain, the extra now waters my plants. In a month’s time, my water use decreased by half.

Who would’ve thought that such small efforts would make a difference? Patriarch Bartholomew realized that we all “generate small ecological damage.” Some is unavoidable; some is not.

Water came to mind again this week when a longtime friend sent a copy of an article published in the June 26 issue of America Magazine. “The Spirituality of Standing Rock: Activists see a moral imperative for protecting our water” by Eileen Markey begins with the historic gathering of Native Americans and their supporters from around the globe at the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota to prayerfully protest the building of the Dakota Access Pipeline under their water supply.

“Water is life,” the women said. While oil now flows beneath their land, the stand to protect the environment, particularly the water, continues as groups and individuals across the country carry on the protests, calling for action from governments, corporations, groups, and individuals. The setback at Standing Rock was not the end of the issue.

“Standing Rock is everywhere,” Lakota chief Arvol Looking Horse said in the article. Indeed, it is.

Summer, with its long spells of hot, dry days interspersed with sudden storms or a day or two of soft showers, is a good time to reflect on water and how we use it. To change wasteful habits. To stand with Pope Francis in his call to work together to move into lifestyles that reflect reverence for the earth and recognition of the importance of good stewardship, especially as it affects the poor. And it is a good time to join our voices with that of Saint Francis, in thanksgiving and in praise of the Creator, the Fountain-Fullenss, the source of all that is.

With Gratitude for Jimmy Carter

Fountain Fullness and Good Stewardship