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1
1
A Lesson from
a weekend visit to my in-laws
| in South Georgia, we rounded
out the family time with some
thing we had always heard
about but never done: attending a Sunday
School class taught by an ex-president.
It was a beautiful morning, and we made
the eight-mile drive from my in-laws' farm
to Plains and the Maranatha Baptist Church,
where Jimmy Carter holds forth about one
Sunday morning a month. An excellent
Squeeze song came on just as we entered
town and the speed limit dipped to 35. A cou
ple of blocks past the main drag, Maranatha
sits in a pecan orchard just off Highway 45.
On a Sunday morning when Carter is iri town,
there are far more cars than the small country
church would normally boast. You can't miss
it.
No one seems too put out by the local
deputies parked near the road nor the Secret
Service folks at the church entrance—very
civilized, only one metal-detector wand.
Firm, but fair. We think we're early, but as
we walk up to and enter the back doors, the
former president is already talking, asking the
crowd of maybe 175 to tell him where they
are from—and what religious denominations
they profess. We dodge a videographer in back
and take up an empty pew a couple of rows,
further up. The church is nearly full, but there
is room.
He's at the front but not in the pulpit,
conversing with the crowd like it's his natural
state. And it must be. The former president
is in his 80s and, from the back of the room,
both looks it and doesn't. In his jacket and
bolo tie he is at ease and in command. He
asks how many of the assembled have traveled
to Cuba: one. Then, how many would like to:
hands go up all over the room. He tells us that
he and Rosalyn have just returned from there
and what a mistake it was for the U.S. to have
isolated Cuba via embargo all these years.
While there, he met with prisoners, wives and
mothers of Cubans held in the U.S., as well as
members of the thriving Cuban-Jewish com
munity in Havana—which, he reported, is in
need of a rabbi. He also met with Raul and
with Fidel, who, he reports, is recovering from
his intestinal problems quite well. Candid,
humble and witty, Carter shares these details
Jimmy Carter
not like they are in confidence or evidence of
his importance, but simply as one might news
of people one had visited while away.
With a word, but little more, of his upcom
ing trip to North Korea, he seems to have ful
filled the requirement of answering for himself
and what he's been up to, and moves toward
the lectern down front and his lesson.
If you've ever been to any Sunday School
class, he segued to the chapter and verses
that would be his focus precisely as any such
teacher would: with seriousness, an awe for
the subject that dwarfed our surroundings
and a quiet confidence that most in earshot
knew what he was talking about. I won't go
into the lesson—it was from Colossians and
concerned Paul's letter to a community of
early Christians. But as I listened to him speak
so knowledgeably on the writings of Paul, the
first-century Roman setting and the essence of
his letter to these people he had never met,
Carter's precise mind and open soul were both
equally on display. But this was no exposition;
just when I was asking myself why he did this
at all, he seemed to provide ar, answer as he
searched for the right word to express a par
ticular thought: after all he had accomplished,
he was still studying, preparing, thinking,
praying... all of the habits that had kept his
mind sharp, and his heart open, all of his life.
This is of course my opinion and nothing
he ever need explain or admit. But what better
way to honor the source of joy, comfort and
grace that had taken him through life, through
elation and trying times alike, than to open it
up in a familiar setting a dozen or so times a
year? Sharing his beliefs is likely neither help
nor hindrance to appreciating this incredibly
nimble servant's mind sharing some of its core
tenets. Because it's Sunday School, he doesn't
come across as preachy; the reverence cuts a
different way. It's personal. You can't discon
nect the truth of what he says from who he is
and all that he continues to do.
Beautiful words from a beautiful, dear man.
Our former president teaching Sunday School,
for a while longer yet. You %hould probably go.
Alan Flurry
Originally published by Alan Flurry at www.whaldoes
greenmean.net.
8 FLAGPCLE.COM APRIL 13,2011
AVr FLURRY
