The Jimmy Carter Memorial

​​

A very inspiring surreal moment for me when I went through the Carter Museum as I waited in line to see his body lie in repose. The intricacies of life in its pure and undiluted state dawned on me as the tapestry of the eventful life played out in the well curated museum.

The start of the tour was his early years on the farm,greatly inspired by Rachael Clark, a black woman, and the mental intermingling of his rural Georgia Plains upbringing and his later achievements in life. That moment showed me the indescribable insight on the dynamism of life, and it reiterates the ethos that your background must never put your back to the ground. The story of Carter is a clear indication that values will always be the most important factor in the conduct of man.

Those values held sway when Carter said, “I will be honest” to the American people. America had just come out of the debacle and the perilous dishonesty of the Watergate scandal and they needed a moral anchor. A Peanut butter farmer from Plains, Georgia, provided that. Carter wasn’t a perfect man and the strive for perfection is a lost battle as human beings are fallible(I surmise that our fallibility makes us human).Some say Carter was too soft, but his meek nature played a role in bringing Sadat to Camp David to make peace. He might have lost badly to Reagan but what he did afterwards was impactful by deciding to help the world to eradicate diseases with the Carter Center.

In the end,life is about the impact in the life of others, not the greed and tempestuous craze for wealth, as our politicians do. The famous Juju Maestro, King Sunny Ade puts it succinctly, “Saying if you go seeking wealth and you meet honor, Go back, because when you get the wealth, you will spend it to get honor”. James Earl Carter Jr. (October 1, 1924 – December 29, 2024)the 39th president of the United States, had honor and he didn’t get it by seeking political wealth, stealing or lying. He got it by helping others with the little he had, the influence he had, the love he had and the light he had. I ask: what are you doing with your life?

Rufai Oseni,rufaioseni@gmail.com