Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places:

Greetings in the name and spirit of Jesus Christ!

“Love the person in front of you.”

Jimmy Carter accompanied a Hispanic pastor friend on a pastoral visit years ago and as they were walking down the sidewalk, Carter asked his friend how he did it, so moved was he by what he just experienced. It’s simple, the pastor said, “love the person in front of you.”

Is there a better phrase for the Christian life? Are there better words to describe what Jesus did in his ministry? Might these words accompany us in the new year?

Accolades have come in from across the world for what Carter did as president, but even more so for what he did after he lost his reelection, including working with Habitat for Humanity, teaching Bible Study at the Baptist Church in Plains, monitoring elections across the world, and lifting up human rights wherever he went.

Carter appeared on the national scene to run for president in 1976, at the exact same time I was grappling with a cancer diagnosis and subsequent weeks of some pretty brutal radiation treatments. My mind was elsewhere, not on politics, but when I was old enough to vote four years later some issues in Carter’s time in office had begun to cloud my vision and I ended up not voting for him.

That’s right, to my everlasting regret and chagrin. Instead, I penciled in the circle next to John Anderson, independent Representative from Illinois, who ended up receiving 6.6% of the vote (around 5 million people). How easy it is to be swayed, how sorry I have felt ever since, and how hard it is to admit, even now, how I voted in my first presidential election.

A few years after that election I met Rep. Anderson at a party at Lake Forest College, across the street from the first church I served, and at the end of a nice conversation I mentioned I voted for him which seemed to please him, probably because there weren’t many of us who did.

But I would have much rather spoken with Carter. Given the chance, I would have asked him how he handled the pressure of being President while still maintaining a moral code. How he dealt so gracefully with defeat and was able to move forward in such admirable ways. How he could still hope the world could become a better place. Oh yes, and how many people in front of him were hard to love.

Now I know my one vote didn’t make a difference in the trajectory of the world but I still feel I let him down, and not only him, but all that he stood for and all his efforts to make the world a more habitable and kinder place.

Thank you, Jimmy Carter, for a life a century long and so well-lived. And thank you for showing us what it looks like to love the people in front of us and all the world as well.

Grace and peace and blessings in the coming year.

Harry