OnWord

“Never forget!” It’s an urgent call that requires not only personal serenity sufficient to recollect truths, but also a strong social infrastructure able to reignite awareness.

Although the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, seem far behind us, we who have felt their impact probably agree they still deserve a place in our memories and emotions—and in some sort of “lesson plan” for the future. Shouldn’t succeeding generations examine that day through the insights of their parents and ancestors?

Yes, but Baby Boomers and others will differ about what they want to remember, maybe what they can remember. Some individuals signed up for the military. Others faced deep sorrow they want to leave behind.

We have set aside September anniversaries for 23 years in order to ponder how America was transformed in the short term and long term. We’ve seen a lot of greatness, learning, anger, fear, and grave error.

On the positive side, Americans have instituted activities which recall virtues illuminated at the time, providing inspiration and healing. President Biden and our presidential candidates, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, attended the 2024 memorial service to show solidarity at New York’s Ground Zero.

But the current environment of rapid change and serial crises worldwide outpaces the healing. Large groups this year have faced critiques of their reactions to the events of a newly prominent date of terror—Oct. 7, 2023. That day hearkened back to a “never forget” call issued long ago.

After the Holocaust, decades of efforts to capture that encounter with evil in words and images, museums and initiatives, and disciplines like history and philosophy built a potent but partial bulwark against blights like antisemitism.

However, no “lesson plan” can transform human nature or dictate uniform judgments about justice. Any endeavor to spell out the meaning of 9/11 will be vulnerable to changing fact patterns and priorities, not to mention our short attention spans and imperfect wisdom.

So, what can we do? As with all matters of jeopardy, let’s frame our answers in the form of a question.

We can prompt discussions about 9/11 by assembling stories from that day and its aftermath which continue to challenge us. The best stories will drill down into themes about protecting human dignity. Honest inquiries will encourage young people to reflect on connections between the personal and public, specific and multidisciplinary, fact-based and passionate, earthly and transcendent.

Jesus, following his own people’s traditions, expanded hearts and minds by asking questions and telling parables that prompt ongoing interpretation, even today.

“I will open my mouth in a parable, unfold the puzzling events of the past,” says Psalm 78. “What we have heard and know; things our ancestors have recounted to us. We do not keep them from our children; we recount them to the next generation.”

We should formulate our parables and perplexity now while we’re attuned to the mystery in our history. We’re nervous that society’s puzzles have missing pieces.

“Those of us reared on reason, logic, and basic human decency find ourselves a bit befuddled these days, trying to make sense of what is rapidly devolving into a Grand Guignol of political, moral, and cultural horrors,” Liel Liebowitz wrote in the latest edition of First Things. Questions now debated about such fundamental topics as law and order, rights and freedoms, and nationhood provide “all the proof we need that this is a grave moment for our republic.”

Our stories of concern will be hopeful but raw, confronting souls with the fog of war that rose up after the Twin Towers collapsed. We must invite help in today’s battles against isolation, polarization, and despair.

The post-9/11 secular society craves strong anchors like the wisdom of our founders, who cobbled together faith in God, ourselves, our communities, and our country to establish an orderly (albeit flawed) whole.

With those aspirations in mind, here are six components of a lesson plan, or discussion guide, which might promote justice down the road while also doing justice to those who perished in New York City, at the Pentagon, and on United Flight 93.

Help the nation come together.

Most Americans earnestly want to find unity amid our diversity, and 9/11 reactions offered a glimpse of progress, at least at first. Now, liberty seems geared more toward expressive individualism than solidarity among citizens. Suspicion toward “nationalism” overshadows patriotic pride.

NewsNation TV host Chris Cuomo recently voiced deep frustration over the societal damage done by political purveyors of violence and chaos. He opened his Sept. 16 program mulling the previous weekend, when President Trump faced a second assassination attempt.

“United we stand, divided we fall,” Cuomo said, quoting patriot Patrick Henry. “And it’s even more true today…. We need a reason to believe in who we are at our best, and we are starved of that…. And I keep seeing the use of the word ‘hate’ everywhere in our politics.”

Cuomo demanded soul-searching. “We’ve got to get out of the judgment business, unless it’s judging ourselves…. Why aren’t we caring about each other?”

The neglect of human dignity is not bubbling up from the grass roots, Cuomo assured viewers; most Americans “don’t feel a connection to [the partisan rancor] in your life.” That’s because “our communities are strong, our people are strong, we care about one another,” he said. “But there is a top-down phenomenon, and it is corroding us.”

If our leaders are obscuring the opportunity to renew compassionate camaraderie, an outline of learning from 9/11 is neither necessary nor possible.

Beware of overreaction to hatred and violence.

The average American’s direct experience from 9/11 was not hatred or violence, but literally terror. In 2024, hatred and violence seem to have spread organically.

Too many thought-leaders have found that fear—whether personified by migrants or “extremists” or other assorted labels—is a powerful influence. It’s fertile soil in which to plant seeds of enmity, promises of protection, and risks of overreaction, military or otherwise.

We can remind young people of a legendary leader, Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948), who told us, “The enemy is fear. We think it is hate, but it is fear.”

Terrorism claims many victims. Besieged individuals take cover. Nations “watch over” their people and take action abroad, perhaps overdoing one or the other, or both.

When President Joe Biden met with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu shortly after last year’s murderous raid by Hamas, he combined his appeal for humanitarian aid to suffering Palestinians with an admission of guilt.

“Justice must be done,” Biden said as quoted in The Guardian. “But I caution that, while you feel that rage, don’t be consumed by it. After 9/11, we were enraged in the United States. While we sought justice and got justice, we also made mistakes.”    

Cherish first-responders, “look for the helpers.”

Almost 3,000 people died in the attacks on September 11. According to the United Nations, more than four hundred first-responders lost their lives in New York alone.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres pointed out on the twentieth anniversary in 2021 that firefighters and others headed toward the World Trade Center that day, “with many making the ultimate sacrifice, exemplifying the very humanity and compassion that terrorism seeks to erase.”

Before turning our heads away from documentaries about that day’s horrors, or from coverage of other human tragedies, it is wise to recall the script-flipping guidance of a more grass-roots influencer, television personality Fred Rogers (1928-2003).

This host of the long-running gem for children, Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, is known for the timeless advice he offered for viewing scenes of terrible harm and fear. Quoting his mother in a scene archived on YouTube, he instructed, “Always look for the helpers. There will always be helpers….”

Self-sacrificial instincts for heroism, seen every day in big and little forms, are a worthy subject for meditation in the post-9/11 world.

How can people develop this preferential option for service? The Gospels, with the Beatitudes and the parable of the Good Samaritan, are a good place to start.

The Tunnel To Towers Foundation has created a “9/11 Institute” website with educational resources. They’re intended to teach children “about the extraordinary heroism and goodness of everyday people who inspired our nation and demonstrated the strength and resilience of America’s spirit.”

Be prepared.

It’s neither cliché nor sexist to admonish people with the traditional Boy Scout motto, “Be Prepared.” Today’s Boy Scouts of America has emerged from bankruptcy and welcomes girls as members in such programs as “Scouts BSA.”

The BSA website says its mission is “to prepare young people to make ethical and moral choices over their lifetimes by instilling in them the values of the Scout Oath and Scout Law.”

Here’s the oath: “On my honor, I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law; To help other people at all times; To keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight.”

What’s the law? “A Scout is: Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Kind, Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty, Brave, Clean, & Reverent.”

We could add to that checklist of holistic health a diligent pursuit of excellence, an embrace of teamwork, and the kind of fortitude which enabled so many emergency workers to perform grueling duties at Ground Zero for many months.

Much of what we can absorb from the Boy Scout oath was taught in a mightily adult way by the passengers of United Flight 93 as they resisted their captors in the skies above Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

Speaking to families at that memorial site on the twentieth anniversary of the terror attacks, former President George W. Bush highlighted even deeper qualities all citizens should be prepared to display—such as sympathy, empathy, self-reflection, and loving memory.

“Today,” he said, “we remember your loss, we share your sorrow, and we honor the men and women that you have loved so long and so well.” Across the country on the day of terror, “there was shock at the audacity of evil and gratitude for the heroism and decency that opposed it.”

Bush continued: “As a nation, our adjustments have been profound. Many Americans struggled to understand why an enemy would hate us with such zeal. The security measures incorporated into our lives are both sources of comfort and reminders of our vulnerability. And we have seen growing evidence that the dangers to our country can come not only across borders but from violence that gathers within.”

Be imaginative.

There’s one form of preparation in which America proved insufficient on 9/11. It may elude us more than ever in these times of passive, indifferent spectatorship and addictions to entertainment and sloppy thinking.

We should never forget the insightful warning found in the Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. The 9/11 Commission’s observation about the failures which led to that disastrous day has eye-popping relevance to this moment before our 2024 elections:

“The most important failure was one of imagination. We do not believe leaders understood the gravity of the threat. The terrorist danger from Bin Ladin and al Qaeda was not a major topic for policy debate among the public, the media, or in the Congress. Indeed, it barely came up during the 2000 presidential campaign.”

We must demand more of our government even as contemporary democratic governance demands more of us. If indeed this year’s selection of a new president is largely about each candidate’s character, as some pundits argue, we must seek characteristics that go way beyond those cultivated by partisan machines, superficial popularity, and political paralysis through fear or personal animus.

A lack of candid, informed, and widespread debate in the public square about crucial issues deprives us and our leaders of outside-the-box ideas and ingenious, foresighted overviews.

Find the Cross at Ground Zero.

Good questions about, and good uses of, imagination lead us into the world of philosophy and theology. Many people today—whom we might place in such categories as relativists, positivists, materialists, progressives, or the depressed—limit their own power for creative thinking. The 9/11 Commission would probably call that limitation suicidal.

“When you are anxious or worried, you shut imagination down,” wrote Robert Evans Wilson Jr. in a Psychology Today blog. He quoted motivational writer William Arthur Ward (1921-1994) as saying, “Nothing limits achievement like small thinking; nothing expands possibilities like unleashed imagination.”

Just as it can be true that “seeing is believing,” we can sometimes say that “believing is seeing.” We find what we’re looking for, Wilson pointed out. We see only what is familiar.

We need open minds and keen imaginations—not to invent fanciful distractions, but to see a wider range of important possibilities more clearly. That’s the purpose of a liberal arts education, ideally one blending faith and reason.

In The Cross at Ground Zero, Franciscan author Father Benedict Groeschel (1933-2014) discussed how post-9/11 rescue workers preserved a cruciform remnant of World Trade Center girders because it spoke of their belief in Christ’s redemptive presence at that scene of devastation.

Groeschel said in an archived video that the cross was a reminder of mysteries which, when acknowledged, can be liberating. “Evil is a mystery,” he commented, adding that it does little good to keep asking “why did this happen?” Instead, the useful questions are: “Where do we go from here? What do I do now?” For those rescue workers, the answer was, “Keep digging.”

When Pope Francis visited New York City in 2015, he spoke to representatives of various religions at the 9/11 Memorial and Museum. He called it a “place of sorrow and remembrance,” but he added that “our presence together will be a powerful sign of our shared desire to be a force for reconciliation, peace, and justice in this community and throughout the world.”

Many additional faith-filled insights emerged from the terror attacks, including the view—now echoed even by some secular commentators in connection with today’s turmoil—that society is in a spiritual battle. In other words, we need strong alliances with our guardian angels.

The angels are a good reminder as we strive to follow the lesson plan presented above. We’re not alone, either on this mortal plane or higher. Learning from 9/11 is a group exercise, an open-book test, with plenty of resources available, and we get credit for showing our work.

When the twenty-fourth anniversary of that day arrives, perhaps we’ll be better prepared to assess the information guiding our minds, hearts, and homeland. All generations should want to improve at reacting to, and shaping, the opportunities for transformation ahead. Our simple message can be: Try to remember the kind of September we should never forget.

Image from ClipSafari.com, a collection of Creative Commons designs.

This commentary is also published in “Phronesis in Pieces,” at billschmitt.substack.com. Please consider subscribing there to support a large archive of articles at the intersection of faith, public affiairs, journalism, and our society’s craving for truth, hope, and love. You’ll also find aditional coverage of the Vatican’s annual World Communications Day messages and abundant links to online content for students of wisdom as a virtue we citizens are called to practice.

Vice President Kamala Harris “does it all with a sense of joy.” That’s how her running-mate, Governor Tim Walz, has described the current campaign of “happy warriors.”

Their opponent, former President Donald Trump, briefly evoked exuberance in an August 14 speech. He promised his audience that “every day will be filled with opportunity, hope, and joy”—so long as they “never let [Harris] get anywhere near the White House.”

Trump’s grumpier approach to happiness—his salesman-like focus on a “burning platform” for which he’s the ideal firefighter—had already prompted TV’s Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough to summarize the two candidacies. The Democrats reflect “hope and optimism,”  he said, and the Republicans show “dourness and anger.”

Beloved Christian author  C.S. Lewis (1898-1963), whose many books included Surprised by Joy, might have balked at such casual descriptions and distinctions now common in secular American politics.

Lewis once called joy “the serious business of heaven,” cautioning against extended earthly embraces of festive “dance and game.” Appeals to “frivolous” optimism are “unimportant down here,” he wrote, “for ‘down here’ is not their natural place.”

We still should defend joy. It’s not a bad thing, and the Lord knows we need to experience it before our eternal reward. It’s one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22), not just a free sample for shoppers in the marketplace of ideas.

One can expect it to be a theme, or at least the tone, of the 2024 Democratic National Convention, starting August 19.

Recall that attendees at the Republican Convention last month showed authentic joy about their candidate, who had just survived an assassination attempt. They also danced to country music and applauded the showmanship of Hulk Hogan.

Episodes of delight bring people together and boost their resilience. A journalist for Politico opined that “the joyful aspect” of the Harris-Walz campaign helps them to “not get bogged down in the attacks which are coming on them.”

But we can acknowledge that joy is most meaningful as “an unsatisfied desire” which points beyond itself, toward the real bliss to which God invites us, according to Lewis. We dare not make the world’s escapism our false idol if we believe that, one day, we will escape.

This long-term view is akin to Aristotle’s description of true happiness: the one thing you can choose for itself. “Everything else is selected for the sake of happiness,” as noted by the Magis Center, a Catholic  website about faith and reason.  

Our task is to decide wisely where we shall seek and find the fulfillment called happiness. Perhaps in hedonism or egotism. Better choices would be a contributive life or a loving relationship with God and others, Magis recommends.

These are high-minded ideals which challenge us to think critically and elevate our perspectives.

Sadly, many folks have a more mundane reading of the “pursuit of happiness” promised in the Declaration of Independence. And “joy” now has a dubious role as a popular buzzword in the marketing of food products and luxury items.

A strategy called “joy marketing” drew attention from Advertising Age back in 2015. The makers of Reddi-Wip hired a psychologist to help them sell whipped topping, and they created ads exclaiming, “Share the Joy!”

Other companies also sought psychological help based on a finding that “93% of Americans want to find more ways to experience joy,” the newspaper reported. Fully 83% “would like to experience small amounts of joy daily vs. larger, occasional doses.”

Marketing Scoop commented this year that we’ve seen many more examples of feel-good marketing. Think of the “I’m Lovin’ It” campaign McDonald’s adopted. Burger King tells us, “Have It Your Way! You Rule!”

Joy is in danger of being dumbed down.

Especially these days, when so many people are suffering from depression, anxiety, stress, isolation, and polarization, we naturally want to bring some delight into others’ lives right now.

Politics has become a space for offering respite or revenge in a culture of victimhood and quick complaint. As noted by comedian Chris Rock, society has become an “emergency room” full of people with paper cuts. It’s tempting to resolve grievances with hefty doses of affirmation and occasional pandering.

But C.S. Lewis would advise people to question government handouts of joy by citing life’s inevitable ups and downs, summoning a sense of solidarity with a recognition that we all carry crosses. In light of the diligence we must cultivate, we can be forgiven for occasional outbreaks of grumpiness.

Happiness stands as a counterpoint to the sacrifices and tough choices we must make although we prefer easy answers. Suffering deepens and sweetens the message of joy, making it less propagandistic, more realistic, and prone toward community-building. 

St. Francis of Assisi (1181-1226) is known for his philosophy of “perfect joy”: Even those who suffer an offense or marginalization can survive when an opportunity for earthly joy has gone awry. They can become more keenly aware of the superior sweetness which awaits them.

This awareness is most fruitful when both the bestower and the recipient participate.  

For example, a Franciscan residence where humility is lacking might erroneously become “closed to the poor and forsaken, to those who knock uninvited and unwanted at the friary door,” as explained at the Franciscan Media website.

Once the residents have grown in humility, however, “the friars have learned to see their own brokenness, their jealousy, their desire for power. And they have learned to forgive that in themselves and in each other.” They can laugh at themselves, develop perfect joy, and welcome the stranger. That makes their friary “a healing place for others.”

This is a lesson for politicians—and voters. If we don’t adopt a more forgiving and people-centered mind frame, joy shrinks to a marketing gimmick that can’t be deeply shared.

The Judeo-Christian call to accompany others on their life journeys requires understanding their pleasures and pains, as well as cooperatively choosing paths toward hope and change. For politicians, this demands honest clarity about policy proposals and the reasoning behind them.

Voters are now turning to presidential campaigners Harris and Trump for more details of their plans, plus transparency regarding their perspectives. Next steps must include not only debates between the candidates, but also lively deliberations among Americans, fostered by the news media.

It’s not sufficient for aspiring leaders to exchange insults which enrage and engage electoral warriors. Likewise, it’s silly to recruit warriors with pacifying messages like “You Rule!” or “Share the Joy!”.

Voters should settle for neither political condemnations of “victimizer” groups nor politicians’ vows that they have America’s best interests at heart.

Tokens of goodwill are inadequate in 2024. Our imminent decisions are complicated by fundamental differences in how one defines America and its proper trajectory among powerful global movements. Think of such catchphrases as “oppressor vs. oppressed” and “you will own nothing and be happy.”

Louis Brandeis (1856-1941), who served as an associate justice of the US Supreme Court for more than two decades early in the 20^th century, warned about easy answers based on good intentions, whether they’re evinced by smiles or smirks, whether they spring from expertise, gut instinct, or focus group findings.

“Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the Government’s purposes are beneficent,” he said. “Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in the insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding”. (emphasis added)

The urgency of Brandeis’s wisdom has grown at our “moment in time” when emotions and social-media videos, often centered on promises of joy, are all too dominant in our thought patterns.

Many of today’s appeals to mere optimism echo the old General Electric slogan, “Progress is our most important product.” Members of the Baby Boom generation (including Trump, born in 1946, and Harris, born in 1964) grew up with this ethos.

Both candidates need to scrutinize their own worldviews. The allure of progress is similar to the allure of joy. Both must be seen in a bigger context of short-term realism and long-term purpose, as Lewis told us.

Another great Christian author, G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936), agreed that secular societies set oversimplified goals. “Progress,” he wrote, “is a comparative of which we have not settled the superlative.”

In other words, we in this secular age must determine our answer to the pressing question Jesus asked in Mark 10:36. “What do you wish me to do for you?”

The political observations above are intended not as judgments against particular campaigns or parties, but as thoughts to help us decode what joy might mean when it pops up in political news headlines.

Clearly, the word captures something humanity craves at this time, at all times. We have witnessed that its impact is limited when God is banned from competing in the public square.

Dismissing “the serious business of heaven” makes our thinking less coherent, our ideas less compelling, our society less compassionate, our spirits less buoyant, and substantive change less likely. Or maybe the chance of change has grown more likely, given this world increasingly poised to pivot.

Thank goodness, we can still be “happy warriors,” staying anchored amid today’s mix of danger and occasional delight. When we embrace a robust pursuit of happiness, it creates an informative and formative framework for our lives. The pursuit might even spark fruitful political discussions. We should sing an ode to joy, hopefully within earshot of our future leaders.

Image from ClipSafari.com, a collection of Creative Commons designs.

We tend to shower praise on people who “fit in,” but it’s more instructive to appreciate folks who are unique—which is everyone. Former President Jimmy Carter has blazed new trails, and The Washington Post on June 22 reminded us that he’s three months away from being unusual again—his 100^th birthday.

It’s timely to pay tribute to Carter now because it takes the whole book of one’s life, not the first or last chapter alone, to establish a unique legacy. In Carter’s case, he has become exceptional step-by-step, piecing together his special set of endeavors, values, and relationships in a changing world.

He has been a farm-owner, Navy submariner, governor, president, humanitarian, Nobel Peace Prize recipient, and now a hospice patient.

We learn much by cherishing people’s entire lives as they unfold, intertwine, and move forward, not merely judging one aspect or awaiting a definitive obituary.

Carter has sought to influence the whole world and to let the whole world influence him. We can illustrate this by remembering a unique friendship he formed. Twenty years ago, on June 28, 2004, he delivered the eulogy at a 13-year-old’s funeral service.

A shared passion for peacemaking placed Carter in contact with Mattie J.T. Stepanek a few years earlier. The Make-a-Wish Foundation inquired whether Carter could visit Mattie, who had asked to meet his hero. Doctors deemed Mattie’s death imminent.

Suffering from a particularly cruel form of muscular dystrophy (MD), he had known for a while that each day could be his last. His similarly afflicted siblings had died. But he had plunged into a vigorous existence filled with faith and purpose—to be a kid while building a legacy.

He wanted to be remembered as “a poet, a peacemaker, and a philosopher who played.”

Raised by a Catholic mother who is alive today facing a less corruptive form of mitochondrial disease, Mattie spent time in prayer and received insights he called “heartsongs.”

These thoughts affirmed for him every person’s distinctive worth and mission, and God’s unifying love, prompting Mattie to write poems. His simple eloquence yielded a 2002 book, Heartsongs, plus six other New York Times best-sellers during a four-year span. (Two were published posthumously.)

Mattie gained media attention, sharing hopes of peaceful human flourishing and personal striving—a beacon of both childlike wonder and understanding deepened by his painful disability.

Meanwhile, his local Maryland parish and the Archdiocese of Washington, DC, made it possible for him to receive the sacraments of First Communion and Confirmation by age 8. He became a parish catechist, teaching the faith to sixth-graders.

His growth in knowledge, reason, and faith was swift, as told by his mom, Dr. Jeni Stepanek, who was interviewed recently on EWTN. She quoted his motto: “Think gently, speak gently, live gently.”

His buoyant spirit lifted up countless adults, leading to TV appearances with super-influencer Oprah Winfrey and MD celebrity-fundraiser par excellence Jerry Lewis. (See Lewis and Mattie together in this video at about the 1-hour mark.)

President Carter did indeed visit Mattie. The boy had singled out Carter as a peacemaking paradigm. Jimmy and Mattie began to correspond, exchanging many thoughts, spiritual musings, and plans for the future.

Of course, this ended in 2004 when the doctors’ prognosis eventually proved correct. Carter contributed two sets of remarks to the final collection of Mattie’s poetry and prose, a book titled Just Peace: A Message of Hope, published two years later.

The former president wrote a foreword, plus closing notes whimsically called a “forthword.” Even the word was unconventional. It may have been a neologism sparked by Mattie’s creativity. Internet search engines still today do not recognize it. Such a clever term should have spawned more copycats!

Carter’s implication was that Mattie had put his finger on a starting point from which young and old alike could go forth on pilgrimages of peace.

He wrote that the boy “has been able to comprehend his own inner feelings, to extrapolate them with a unique resonance for the understanding of other people, and to embrace in his brilliant mind the challenges and opportunities of the entire world.”

But the most quotable part of the forthword was Carter’s observation that his friend was “the most remarkable person I have ever known.”

The former president made a video in 2014 repeating that assessment. He honored Mattie’s courageous exploration of humanity as an amalgam of wisdom he had not seen in any world leader.

A message about lifespans and legacies is worth considering in civil society and public affairs today. No specific level of experience or age, from teen to senior citizen, can guarantee leadership that resonates with reality. We need to stay alert for out-of-the-ordinary inspirations whose seeds are sown gradually, in partnership with others, in dialogue with God and the world.

The unscheduled synchronicity and synergy of lives—including our own—are hints that God is working at the intersections of one-of-a-kind gifts. As Scripture (1 Kings 19:12) suggests, He is present in the quiet breeze, not in a political windstorm or an individual’s bluff and bluster.

When the time comes for Jimmy Carter’s obituary to be published, we would be foolish to read his life only as random headlines. The best role models boldly surf a current of connectedness which flows where it will, in the right direction for the right duration.

Such paths will be roller coasters. Carter’s one-term presidency was marked by his promise of truthfulness amid a full measure of tumults and errors. Later, he served on crucial diplomatic missions and worked to monitor democracies’ free and fair elections, but he was also called antisemitic for his criticism of Israeli policies.

Pundits mocked this compassionate evangelical Christian for his 1979 “malaise speech,” in which he coached Americans to overcome their “crisis of confidence.” He spoke prophetically:

“We can see this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our nation. The erosion of our confidence in the future is threatening to destroy the social and the political fabric of America.”

The June 27, 2024, debate between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump affirmed Carter’s prediction of disabled governance.

A polarized populace witnessed that societal structures and party machines which once generated unifying leaders are now producing shadows of statesmanship who merely “fit in” and hardly bring us solace. Imaginative, big-picture ideas have morphed into performative survival strategies. Malaise has decayed into malice.

Upon Carter’s death, presidents of the past and present will gather at ceremonies to remember him, prompting millions to review the paths we’ve taken together. Sadly, we may see we’re stuck in ruts of narcissism and relativism. Perhaps too few people have stepped forward to share fresh, authentic, virtuous messages, or to respond to them when recognized.

An extra dose of quotes from the former president will help us recall, and maybe recapture, his heartsongs. This founder of The Carter Center and long-time partner with Habitat for Humanity has said he wants to be known for “waging peace” and championing human dignity.

His “tough love” for our nation carries the power to stir and strengthen us: “America did not invent human rights,” he said. “In a very real sense, human rights invented America.”

He wants us to be instruments of those rights: “To be true to ourselves, we must be true to others.” But it all must start with our own initiative, enabled by higher truths.

Carter, like his young friend Mattie, explained he was driven by a relationship with God. He has said, “My faith demands that I do whatever I can, wherever I am, whenever I can, for as long as I can, with whatever I have, to try to make a difference.”

People inspired by Mattie’s similar determination have formed the Mattie J.T. Stepanek Foundation, which provides resources for the teaching of peace studies. A variety of activities named for him continue in various locales to spread the message, “just peace.”

There is also a Mattie J.T. Stepanek Guild, which is gathering information on how this young humanitarian lived and how he inspired others. As they are wont to do, some Catholics are thinking of sainthood as the ultimate legacy—not something to capture and categorize in an obituary, but a reality with which we can always interact.

The guild must compile documentation to present for archdiocesan review, leading to a “cause for canonization.” That would await Rome’s scrutiny and papal review.

Like all worthy pursuits, this will take time. It’s an opportunity for regenerating uniquely dynamic hearts and minds that can lead us beyond 2024. Fortunately, the influential lifespan we desire—for Mattie, for his friend Jimmy, and for all of us—is unlimited. Carter is here to tell us: Go forth.

You can find this commentary also in “Phronesis in Pieces” at billschmitt.substack.com. Please consider subscribing and sharing.