PLAINS, GA — It never gets old.
No matter how crowded the humble sanctuary of Maranatha Baptist Church was, there was always some wisdom to be gleaned from Jimmy Carter’s thoughtful, Bible-inspired words.
This was another side of the 39th president, a man of strong faith who, when he wasn’t building homes for the poor, advocating for fair elections, or helping to eradicate terrible diseases, somehow found time to teach Sunday school classes. .
For young and old, straight and gay, believers and non-believers, black, white and brown, Maranatha was an off-the-beaten-path destination in southwest Georgia, where Carter, now well into his 90s, maintained contact with his fellow citizens. world.
Anyone willing to travel to the plains, his homeland of one blinking warning light and hundreds of inhabitants, is rewarded with a meeting with the white-haired man who once held the highest office in the land.
Carter taught Sunday school classes approximately twice a month to accommodate crowds that sometimes grew to more than 500 people. (On other Sundays, services were usually attended by a few dozen regular believers and a few visitors.)
Here, the former Commander-in-Chief and one-time First Lady are joined by Jimmy and Rosalynn, his wife of more than 70 years. And when we worshiped with them, everyone was welcome.
Before the former president entered the sanctuary, which had bomb-sniffing dogs outside and was dotted with security guards, Jan — Jan Williams, a longtime churchgoer and friend of the Carters, laid out strict rules. She must have been quite the trainee.
It felt like the daily routine of good cops and bad cops. The rules you know that Jan exclaims come directly from Jimmy, who studied nuclear physics and approached everything with the disciplined mind of an engineer.
The most important thing for those who wanted their picture taken with the Carters – and almost everyone did – they had to stay for the 11 a.m. church service. The photo shoot started around noon.
If you leave the church grounds before then, you will not be able to return. If you stayed, you followed the rules. There is no cause of death. There are no handshakes. Don’t try to make the conversation go beyond a quick “good morning” or “thank you.”
Carter, consistently wearing a sports jacket, slacks and bolo tie, began the class by walking around the reserve and asking with a candid face whether any visitors, who always made him laugh, were there and where they were from. Having traveled to Maranatha multiple times, I’m sure I’ve heard of all 50 states, not to mention many far-flung countries.
If anyone had answered Washington DC, the answer was predictable. The one-term president said this with a toothy smile. “I lived there.”
Carter’s Bible classes focused on a central theme: God gives life, loves unconditionally, and gives us the freedom to live a fully successful life. But the class usually began with an anecdote about what he did or his perspective on world problems.
Carter could be talking about building homes with Habitat for Humanity or lamenting the conflict in America since World War II. He might talk about his work with The Elders, a group of leaders from around the world, or about his trip out West to go trout fishing with Ted Turner. He might tell the story of the Carter Center’s success in eradicating Guinea worm or his long friendships with Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan.
“Willie Nelson is an old friend. “He used to visit me at the White House.” Carter once spoke, very gently alluding to Nelson’s love of cannabis.
“I don’t know what Willie and the kids did after I went to bed. “I heard a rumor.” The former president spoke with a sly smile and wink as if he believed everything he said.
My favorite is when Carter talks about his latest book project and how he has been using encyclopedias for research for a long time.
Carter decided the collection was taking up too much space, so he boxed it up and headed to local schools and libraries, hoping someone would be willing to donate it from the former president. Instead he got the standard refrain: sorry. No one uses encyclopedias anymore.
It reminds me of the punch line. “How do I search now?” asked a man born five years after the end of World War I. stop Then say ‘Google’.
For most of my visit to Maranatha, Carter spoke for 45 minutes without sitting down. Although his mind was sharp enough to occasionally look at notes written in the Bible, his body became increasingly weaker as he entered his 90s. He spoke openly about the ill effects of aging.
He resisted pleas from church members to sit down while he taught. I went there for the first time in August 2018.
He said, “It’s uncomfortable to sit, but I think I’ll get used to it.”
Not at that time. Carter sat for less than ten minutes before getting up. He stood at the table for the rest of class.
Upon his return the following year, Carter gave up using the remote-controlled white chair. Once he was on board – voila – he pressed a switch and slowly lifted him onto the lectern so that the people in the back seat could see him as well.
If there was not enough space in the chapel, folding chairs were lined up in the fellowship hall and a few small classrooms. Carter’s classes are shown on a TV connected to a feed in the main room.
Disappointment for visitors? maybe. But the relegation to the backroom had its advantages.
Carter, who usually arrived about 15 minutes before the 10 a.m. class began, would stop by these rooms before heading to the chapel. He even took a few questions, which doesn’t happen in front of a large crowd.
A 2018 profile in The Washington Post said the Carters regularly had Saturday night dinners at the home of their friend Jill Stuckey, which included a glass of “discount brand Chardonnay.” . I asked Carter how many glasses of wine he had that night. before.
“Let me tell you one thing.” Carter replied with a sly smile. Stucky, standing behind him, shook his head and held up two fingers.
No matter where you sit, whether in the main sanctuary or the back room, everyone is Mr. Jimmy and Ms. I took a picture with Rosalynn. For many, this seemed the greatest reward.
When we first started attending, the photos were taken under a tree right outside the church. Carter and his wife, who was diagnosed with cancer in 2015, posed with visitors inside the sanctuary. Carter liked to joke about how taxing it was to sit down to take hundreds of thousands of photos.
“I’m excited to take pictures with all of you,” he quipped after his last class. “Actually, I’d like to tell you that since I’m at the church, I’d be willing to take a picture with you all.”
For our family, that photo is of Jimmy and Rosalynn filling the frame, showing their son growing from a boy to a man. What a treasure.
During the Great Recession, participation in Carter’s Sunday school classes declined. But after the announcement that he had cancer, the crowds returned, with some people queuing outside the church the night before.
Although Carter declared himself cancer-free, other health problems began to catch up with him. After a fall at his home in October 2019 and a minor fracture to his pelvis, the church announced that Carter would not be teaching the next class on November 3, which we had planned to attend. I was disappointed and canceled my hotel reservation.
But Mr. Jimmy isn’t done yet.
The church canceled without even checking with him. He made it clear that he would not cancel. We quickly rebooked. Carter’s lesson that day, based on the Book of Job, was especially poignant in retrospect.
“Let me start with a very profound question,” he said. “How many people believe in life after death?”
Carter admits he had doubts his whole life until he got cancer, and all his skepticism finally disappeared. When the end of the world comes, he will be ready.
“After you die, you have nothing to fear,” Carter said with a reassuring smile.
At the end of class, he challenged everyone to do one good deed for a stranger. “I will hold you back,” Carter promised.
He didn’t get the chance.
His health continued to deteriorate, ruling him out during the Christmas season. Then, in 2020, the entire world came to a halt due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
By that summer it was clear that Mr. Jimmy’s valuable role as an evangelist, which he had begun at age 18 and resumed after assuming the presidency, was over.
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Paul Newberry, a national sportswriter and Associated Press columnist who lives in Atlanta, has traveled to Plains, Ga., about 20 times with his family and friends to attend Carter’s Sunday school classes. He was there for Carter’s last class.
