This past week, I, along with the rest of the nation, watched the funeral service for President Jimmy Carter and followed along as his remains were transported around the country for his final goodbyes and honors. I was born well after Carter’s Presidency, so I never grew up with any baggage regarding his Presidency nor Governorship. I knew him at the President that lived down in Plains. I knew he was a Georgian, grew peanuts, and taught Sunday school. My grandfather was a Georgian, grew peanuts, and taught Sunday school, so did my grand-uncles and half of all the other men their age in my Georgia hometown. Jimmy Carter was just like all the old men I knew in Georgia, only he had been President. In some ways, I think the fact that he had been President was lost on me, that a peanut farmer from Plains had been the President of the United States. That misperception changed when all the trappings of the Presidency moved into action upon his passing.
Atlanta was a flurry of action. Friends of mine paid their respects at the Carter Center before the former President was taken to Washington to lie in state at the Capitol. I watched along online through the grand and moving ceremony at the National Cathedral. I saw the care with which his coffin was brought in and set to rest in that soaring Cathedral to the grand music of the organ and surrounded by the most powerful people in the world. I began to realize what it meant that Jimmy Carter had been the President. All of the eulogies, including the one from President Biden, were genuine and meaningful. President Carter’s life of faith was at the center of many of these tributes in such a way that, despite the grandeur of the place and the people gathered, it felt reminiscent of funerals of my own loved ones in the Baptist churches of Middle Georgia.
There were, of course, some elements of the funeral I found strange, such as Garth Brooks’s and Trisha Yearwood’s rendition of the left’s favorite tired old anthem “Imagine.” However, overall, the service was very moving, especially the recessional, the hymn I grew up singing in the Baptist church, “All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name.” The pomp and ceremony of the state funeral served their purposes, and I began to see Carter as now this larger-than-life character who had steered the barque of the Western world order.
“It always comes back to Plains” the Carter’s grandson said, and so the President made one final journey to his hometown. It was in his hometown that I was truly struck by the greatness of this former President. I saw a single-story red brick Baptist church with a white four-columned portico and a white steeple. It was nearly identical to the one in which I was baptized. That commonplace church was adorned in splendor due to its connection with the President. Men and women in uniform lined up at attention outside the church, twenty-one planes flew over in formation, and the Presidential anthem of “Hail to the Chief” echoed out front. It was a contradictory image – the most mundane venue was the site of the nation’s highest honors.
Inside the church, as servicemen carried in the casket, not on the grand pipe organ of the National Cathedral, but on the familiar whine of an electric organ, the tunes of “God of Our Fathers, Whose Mighty Hand” cried out. In the two-row choir loft behind the pulpit a military choir stood solemnly. When the service ended, “It Is Well with My Soul” was expertly played on piano. As the casket left the building, once again “Hail to the Chief” rang out; the Presidential anthem was proclaimed proudly from this small, rural church, nearly identical to any other across the South. Then the casket was once again loaded onto the hearse as the band played the familiar “Old Rugged Cross.”
The scene was striking, and the two funerals set a powerful juxtaposition. With roots in Middle Georgia, I grew up in the North Carolina Piedmont which, while distinctly Southern, is also a community of strivers. The Piedmont breeds hard workers and social climbers. I grew up in the kind of red brick Baptist church I saw at Carter’s funeral but as a kid was embarrassed to tell my friends that I did. In my circle everyone went to the megachurch with flashy lights and smoke machines or to the old Presbyterian churches downtown with big organs and robed clerics. I thought of my small Baptist church as a provincial place, and I had seen other relatives who met success eschew the Baptist church for the Presbyterian and Episcopalian churches. To me, part of success was making this move. However, Carter stands steadfastly defiant to that trend; the President, the most powerful man in the world, was laid to rest not in the grand Cathedral in Washington, but at the little red brick church in a small town in Georgia. The church wore the honors of her son’s station uncomfortably; the organ whined, the congregants sat cramped in the limited pews, and there was little space in which the honor guard could maneuver.
Carter’s two funerals have taught me a lot. I think many Southerners who meet success struggle to balance what it means to be a Southerner and a man of success. So much of our culture comes from a history of struggle and poverty that it can feel difficult to align that with success; that is the struggle of the New South. Jimmy Carter, though, has already left us a blueprint, for few of us can hope to be more successful than him. What his life teaches is the importance of place, that being a Southerner, especially in the modern context, means being tied to the land of one’s fathers. As his grandson said, “it always comes back to Plains.” Generations of his family are tied to that little town. We can, like Carter, go wherever the demands of life and career take us, but the critical part is not forgetting where we come from and having that place to return to. Carter shows us that our culture and traditions are tied to the land and that we must work hard to maintain our connection to our place for ourselves and our posterity.
President Carter’s final journey to Plains serves as a poignant reminder that no matter how far we go or how much we achieve, our origins remain an integral part of who we are. Carter’s life teaches us the importance of staying connected to our roots, honoring our heritage, and finding strength in the simplicity and authenticity of our beginnings. As we navigate our own paths, let us remember the lessons of President Carter’s life and strive to maintain a deep connection to the places and people that shape us.
“…but the critical part is not forgetting where we come from and having that place to return to.”
Amen.