A Life Very Well-Lived

Someone To Tell It To values service to others. We value integrity. We value character. We value respect and the dignity of every human being and the creation around us. 

These values inform and inspire everything we believe and do, or try to believe and do, in our own imperfect ways. 

With these core values uppermost on our minds, we mourn the passing of one among our human family who exemplified and lived those values for an entire century. 

James Earl Carter, Jr.

The 39th President of the United States. A public servant all of his adult life - to his nation, his community, and our world. The recipient of the Nobel Prize for Peace. The volunteer for Habitat for Humanity. The philanthropist who strove to eradicate pernicious diseases, homelessness, and poverty. The human and civil rights activist. The democracy and election integrity champion. The best-selling author of dozens of books. The person of deep and abiding faith, whose faith inspired him to model compassion, equality, kindness, generosity, and love, toward everyone, and most especially the “least among us”. 

Well into his 10th decade, until the very end, he lived his values in every human way he could.

His legacy is utterly remarkable, transformative, and transcendent. 

Whether you agree with his politics or not, with every one of his statements, with every action or opinion he rendered, it is very difficult not to respect and admire his convictions about treating everyone with dignity and living a life of service to help make this world a fairer, better place.

His was a life fully lived, one of integrity and purpose to create a world in which everyone had value and their our have meaning. 

Our world is better for those values and for his efforts to live them, even when he was not perfect, as none of us are. 

We honor his tireless efforts, his astounding service, and his unwavering commitment to that service. 

We hope that our own humble efforts to see people as worthy of grace, dignity, and love will make a good difference. We hope that by providing a means for real human connection to be created and to grow, it will change hearts and lives for the good. We hope that to listen compassionately to others and to teach others to do it too, will help to create the connection and respect for ourselves and one another that our world so desperately needs. 

Jimmy Carter’s life has been a model for genuine service and devotion to    the human family and to the splendor of creation. May his legacy only live on and grow to inspire us all to burnish our own legacies for the betterment of all of our lives. 

A life very well-lived