The Day I Met President Jimmy Carter

As President Jimmy Carter turns 100 on Oct. 1, he reaches significant historical markers.

He has lived through 40% of U.S. history since the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and more than a third of all U.S. administrations since George Washington took office in 1789.

I spoke briefly with President Carter in the men’s room of Maranatha Baptist Church, after he taught Sunday school on July 10, 2011. I was standing at the restroom urinals with the 39th president of the United States.

“When I tell this story later, I’m going to say that I offered not to shake hands,” I said to the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize recipient.

He chuckled kindly and smiled, the very definition of Paul’s advice to Corinthian Christians to suffer a fool gladly.

He asked where I was from.

Earlier, before teaching his regular Sunday school class, Carter asked the nearly full church if there were any pastors in attendance and asked us where we were from. He seemed interested in hearing how far we had traveled to his country church on the outskirts of Plains, Ga.

He seemed a very serious man, but also charitable and humble.

Former President Jimmy Carter teaching Sunday school. — President Jimmy Carter teaching Sunday school at Maranatha Baptist Church, Plains, Ga.

During his Sunday school lesson, the scripture referenced Mount Sinai, and Carter paused to mention that when he was negotiating the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt, Mount Sinai and the Sinai Peninsula was a source of contention. Carter said it was an example that this region of the world had been in conflict from ancient Biblical times through the modern era.

But despite assassinations and constant regional conflict, the treaty Carter negotiated has held.

Peace is possible, even in the most violent places in the world.

Carter understands that peace is always possible.

I’ve written about him here: