In Memoriam: President Jimmy Carter; Washington National Cathedral, December 29, 2024

Washington National Cathedral; In Memoriam: President Jimmy Carter

"Washington National Cathedral and the Episcopal Diocese of Washington join the nation in giving thanks for the life of President Jimmy Carter, whose deep and abiding faith in Jesus Christ was the foundation of a public life shaped by compassion, humility and care for the least among us.

Our prayers are with President Carter’s children Jack, Chip, Jeff and Amy, and the extended Carter family.

President Carter exemplified a life of public service rooted in personal faith. Whether teaching Sunday School, or building houses for the poor, or working through the Carter Center to eradicate diseases in Africa, President Carter exemplified what it means to translate faith into action. 

President Carter’s faith was quiet and humble, fueled by a much-needed sense of generosity. His devotion to God was evidenced by his pursuit of peace and his promotion of human rights, especially for the world’s poor. Indeed, on the global road to Jericho, he was often the Samaritan who stopped to help as others passed by.

Undeterred by age, infirmity or political defeat, President Carter rose again and again to offer an outstretched hand. He embodied St. Paul’s admonition to be “afflicted in every way but not crushed, perplexed but not driven to despair, persecuted but not forsaken, struck down but not destroyed, always carrying around in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies.” (2 Corinthians 4:8-10)

We will leave it to others to judge his political legacy, but his graciousness in victory and defeat, his personal decency, and his dogged commitment to public service demonstrated that one need not hold public office to leave an enduring imprint on the fabric of America. Of all the second acts in our political life, President Carter’s post-White House years were among the most inspiring. 

Together with all the saints in glory, we give thanks for the life and legacy of President Jimmy Carter. From his selflessness and humanitarian spirit, we draw inspiration. And from his example of fidelity and generous faith, we find hope that we might yet learn to embody his example of good and faithful service. 

“Into your hands, O merciful Savior, we commend your servant James. Acknowledge, we humbly beseech you, a sheep of your own fold, a lamb of your own flock, a sinner of your own redeeming. Receive him into the arms of your mercy, into the blessed rest of everlasting peace, and into the glorious company of the saints in light. Amen.” 

The Right Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde
Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington

The Very Rev. Randolph Marshall Hollerith
Dean of Washington National Cathedral"

A truck driver's quiet kindness on the highway leads to gratitude and recognition; CBC, December 27, 2024

CBC; A truck driver's quiet kindness on the highway leads to gratitude and recognition

"When trucker Daljit Sohi spotted a woman drop her purse in a B.C. parking lot, he immediately stepped in to help.

What followed was a three-hour drive to return her belongings, a gesture that would later earn him a generous gift and nomination for a prestigious trucking award...

Sohi, who has been with the company since 2021, hadn't told anyone at work about what happened, not even his family. 

Harpreet Sabharwal, HR Manager at Triple Eight Transport, praised Sohi's humility.

"The gentleman is quite humble to not boast about himself but we were quite surprised in a positive way.""

Why Are So Many Christians So Cruel?; The New York Times, December 22, 2024

 David French , The New York Times; Why Are So Many Christians So Cruel?

"Here’s a question I hear everywhere I go, including from fellow Christians: Why are so many Christians so cruel?...

It’s a simple question with a complicated answer, but that answer often begins with a particularly seductive temptation, one common to people of all faiths: that the faithful, those who possess eternal truth, are entitled to rule. Under this construct, might makes right, and right deserves might.

Most of us have sound enough moral instincts to reject the notion that might makes right. Power alone is not a sufficient marker of righteousness. We may watch people bow to power out of fear or awe, but yielding to power isn’t the same thing as acknowledging that it is legitimate or that it is just.

The idea that right deserves might is different and may even be more destructive. It appeals to our ambition through our virtue, which is what makes it especially treacherous. It masks its darkness. It begins with the idea that if you believe your ideas are just and right, then it’s a problem for everyone if you’re not in charge.

In that context, your own will to power is sanctified. It’s evidence not so much of your own ambition, but of your love for the community. You want what’s best for your neighbors, and what’s best for your neighbors is, well, you...

Christ’s words were clear, and they cut against every human instinct of ambition and pride:

“The last will be first.”

“It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”

“If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”

“Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”

Those were the words. The deeds were just as clear. He didn’t just experience a humble birth; Jesus was raised in a humble home, far from the corridors of power. As a child, he was a refugee."

Audiey Kao, MD, PhD, on what physicians need to know about ethics in 2022; American Medical Association (AMA), January 5, 2022

American Medical Association (AMA); Audiey Kao, MD, PhD, on what physicians need to know about ethics in 2022

"AMA's Moving Medicine video series amplifies physician voices and highlights developments and achievements throughout medicine.

Kicking off 2022 with the AMA's "Look Forward/Look Back” series, AMA Chief Experience Officer Todd Unger talks with Audiey Kao, MD, PhD, the AMA's vice president of ethics, about the AMA's critical work in medical ethics and what to expect in the months ahead.

Speaker

• Audiey Kao, MD, PhD, vice president, ethics, AMA...

Unger: In addition to mandates, another one of these key ethics challenges that physicians faced in 2021, and this is a very painful one, is about allocating scarce resources. Throughout the pandemic, we've seen hospitals goal with shortages of ventilators, ICU beds, even staff to take care of critically ill patients. And sometimes, hospitals are forced to implement "crisis standards of care," in which they prioritize patients largely on their likelihood of survival. How did the AMA guide physicians and hospitals in what is an extremely difficult decision?

Dr. Kao: Yeah, I mean, you raise a great point. I mean, according to the AMA Code of Medical Ethics, allocation policies should be based on criteria relating to medical need. It's not appropriate to base allocation policies on social worth, perceived obstacles to treatment, patient contribution to illness or, frankly, past use of resources.

While the Code provides a general framework for addressing allocation decisions, the COVID pandemic revealed that much of the health care system was not prepared to implement allocation policies. To be blunt, these are not decisions we can make on the fly. So, we need to be better prepared. And for the Code, that means its ethical guidance on this critically important topic should be updated. As a living document, the Code is continually updated and this is a prime example of AMA's stewardship of the code I mentioned earlier.

Unger: That's interesting. It's almost this opportunity to take a look back at the year and look beyond what are, I don't know, more theoretical in terms of the ethics and how they were applied to help people learn that. When you're talking about a living document, is that what you're meaning?

Dr. Kao: Yeah, that's right. I mean, I think we have to have a strong dose of humility in medicine to know what we know and what we don't know. And so, to not learn the lessons of this pandemic to apply to how we should care for patients in the future would not speak well of our commitment to promote the health of the public."

Great Leaders Understand Why Small Gestures Matter; Harvard Business Review, January 13, 2020

Bill Taylor, Harvard Business Review; Great Leaders Understand Why Small Gestures Matter

"Maybe it’s time for all of us to reflect on the wisdom of Getnet Marsha and the performance of Executive Shine. So much of the business culture remains fixated on strategic disruption, digital transformation, and the meteoric rise (and disastrous fall) of venture-backed unicorns. What if we took just a moment to think a little smaller, to act a lot more humbly, to elevate the person-to-person interactions that lead to more meaningful relationships? Sure, successful companies and leaders think differently from everyone else. But they also care more than everyone else—about customers, about colleagues, about how the whole organization conducts itself when there are so many opportunities to cut corners and compromise on values. In a world being utterly reshaped (and often disfigured) by technology, people are hungrier than ever for a deeper and more authentic sense of humanity...

Small gestures—whether signage or speech, body language or handwritten messages—can send big signals about who we are, what we care about, and why we do what we do. Even (maybe especially) in this age of digital disruption and creative destruction, never underestimate the power of a shine with soul or a well-crafted card. Don’t let technology overwhelm your humanity."

Read Ryan Coogler’s Heartfelt Thank You to Black Panther Fans; Comic Book Resources, February 21, 2018

Geoff Miller, Comic Book Resources; Read Ryan Coogler’s Heartfelt Thank You to Black Panther Fans

"Black Panther took the world by storm on its way to a historic opening weekend, and director Ryan Coogler has now shared his heartfelt thoughts on the film’s resounding success.

“I am struggling to find the words to express my gratitude at this moment, but I will try,” the filmmaker wrote in a letter posted on Twitter by Marvel Studios. “Never in a million years did we imagine that you all would come out this strong. It still humbles me to think that people care enough to spend their money and time watching our film. But to see people of all backgrounds wearing clothing that celebrates their heritage, taking pictures next to our posters with their friends and family, and sometimes dancing in the lobbies of theaters often moved me and my wife to tears.”"

Bobby Sticks It to Trump; New York Times, August 5, 2017

Maureen Dowd, New York Times; Bobby Sticks It to Trump

"We are in for an epic clash between two septuagenarians who both came from wealthy New York families and attended Ivy League schools but couldn’t be more different — the flamboyant flimflam man and the buttoned-down, buttoned-up boy scout. (And we know the president has no idea how to talk to scouts appropriately.)

One has been called America’s straightest arrow. One disdains self-promotion and avoids the press. One married his sweetheart from school days. One was a decorated Marine in Vietnam. One counts patience, humility and honesty as the virtues he lives by and likes to say “You’re only as good as your word.”

And one’s president."

Donald Trump’s One Awful Accomplishment; New York Times, April 29, 2017

Frank Bruni, New York Times; Donald Trump’s One Awful Accomplishment

"The other presidents in my lifetime have at least done a pantomime of the qualities that we try to instill in children: humility, honesty, magnanimity, generosity. Even Richard Nixon took his stabs at these. Trump makes a proud and almost ceaseless mockery of them.

And while I worry plenty that he’ll achieve some of his most ill-conceived policy goals, I’m just as fearful that he has already succeeded in changing forever the expected demeanor of someone in public office.

All around me people shrug and yawn at his latest petulant tirade, his newest baseless tweet, his freshest assertion that the numbers that the rest of us see are just optical illusions and he really did win the popular vote. Even outrage grows boring, and it begins to feel pointless: His obnoxiousness isn’t going to get him impeached.

Besides, the mendacity, the grandiosity: That’s just Trump being Trump. It’s old news by now. Many readers will get this far in this column and wonder why I and other naysayers don’t just let it go and cut him a break. As if we’re stuck on piddling things and his bearing is nothing more than peculiar.

But when something no longer provokes remark, it becomes unremarkable, and the road from there to acceptable is a short one."

THE LIBRARIAN OF CONGRESS AND THE GREATNESS OF HUMILITY; New Yorker, February 19, 2017

Sarah Larson, New Yorker; 

THE LIBRARIAN OF CONGRESS AND THE GREATNESS OF HUMILITY

"The new Librarian of Congress, Dr. Carla Hayden, is highly motivated to make this library, and all libraries, a favorite object of the people. Hayden is the first person of color, and the first woman, to lead the Library of Congress; she is also the first actual librarian to lead it since 1974. Her predecessor, Dr. James Billington, a distinguished Russia scholar appointed by Ronald Reagan, was beloved for his intellect but criticized for mismanagement; he neglected, for many years, to appoint a chief information officer, which was required by law, and he also didn’t use e-mail. Hayden, a former head of the American Library Association, revitalized and modernized Baltimore’s twenty-two-branch Enoch Pratt Free Library system. President Obama nominated her, in 2010, to be a member of the National Museum and Library Services Board, and, last year, to become Librarian of Congress...

Like many librarians, Hayden is a big believer in the rights of all people to educate themselves, and in the importance of open access to information online. (This inclusive spirit has become more urgent nationally in recent weeks: see “Libraries Are for Everyone,” a multilingual meme and poster campaign, created by a Nebraska librarian, Rebecca McCorkindale, to counter the forces of fake news and fearmongering.) In September, Hayden gave a swearing-in speech in which she described how black Americans “were once punished with lashes and worse for learning to read.” She said that, “as a descendent of people who were denied the right to read, to now have the opportunity to serve and lead the institution that is our national symbol of knowledge is a historic moment.”...

I thought of the drafts of Lincoln’s first Inaugural Address that a curator in the Inaugurations exhibit had shown me. Lincoln had originally ended his speech with a challenge to the South: “Shall it be peace or sword?” William Henry Seward had suggested an edit that pushed Lincoln toward a more conciliatory tone, and the phrase “guardian angel of the nation.” Lincoln turned that into the sublime “better angels of our nature,” an appeal to our common humanity. Our greatest President was also, possibly, our greatest reviser—a cutter and paster who questioned his imperfect ideas, accepted input, made them better, and kept all of his drafts, so that history could learn not just from his speeches but from the workings of his mind. The contents of the library, like Hayden herself, often directed my attention to the systems by which progress is made and recorded."

Son Of Immigrants Is First Openly Gay Man Elected To Georgia Legislature; Huffington Post, 11/10/16

Kimberly Yam, Huffington Post; Son Of Immigrants Is First Openly Gay Man Elected To Georgia Legislature:

"“The election of an openly gay man to the Georgia General Assembly represents just one more step on the road to full equality for LGBT people in Georgia,” Jeff Graham, executive director of LGBTQ advocacy organization Georgia Equality, said in a statement about the historic win...

The 31-year-old, whose campaign focused on economic growth and security, healthcare, and civil rights, explained that it was his mother’s cancer diagnosis in 2014 that impacted his decision to run for office.

“As I take my mom to her chemo appointment every two weeks, I am constantly reminded of the importance of health insurance. Access to healthcare is a matter of life or death,” Park wrote on his website. “Knowing this, based on my experiences and faith, I am compelled to run for public office to ensure all Georgians have access to healthcare by expanding Medicaid in Georgia.”"

New U.N. Leader Sets Goals: Humility, Empathy, Empowering Women; NPR, 10/14/16

Malaka Gharib, NPR; New U.N. Leader Sets Goals: Humility, Empathy, Empowering Women:

"On Thursday, the U.N. General Assembly welcomed Antonio Guterres of Portugal as the new secretary-general of the U.N., replacing Ban Ki-moon.

In a short speech expressing his "gratitude and humility" to the assembly for the five-year term, he highlighted his priorities: humility, empathy for the underprivileged and the "empowerment of women and girls."...

What has made us immune to the plight of those most socially and economically underprivileged? All this makes me feel the acute responsibility to make human dignity the core of my work."

Tony Perkins blamed gay people for God's wrath. His house was swept away; Guardian, 8/18/16

John Paul Brammer, Guardian; Tony Perkins blamed gay people for God's wrath. His house was swept away:

"In a 2015 interview with Messianic Jewish pastor Jonathan Cahn, Perkins agreed that Hurricane Joaquin, a devastating storm that hit the Bahamas last year, was “a sign of God’s wrath”, punishment for abortion and for the legalization of same-sex marriage...

“This is a flood of near-biblical proportions,” Perkins said on his radio show. “We had to escape from our home Saturday by canoe. We had about 10 feet of water at the end of our driveway. Our house flooded, a few of our cars flooded.” Thankfully, none of his family was harmed.

You could be forgiven for thinking of this as some kind of twisted justice, or at least as a delicious bit of divine irony.

I’ve been out of the closet long enough that Perkins’ words don’t affect me anymore, but I remember what it was like to read them when I first came out in rural Oklahoma, before same-sex marriage was legalized and before I had other gay people supporting me. It was incredibly painful. It was a reminder of the thing that had kept me in hiding for so long: we are so misunderstood. We are so hated.

But to react with glee to news of Perkins’ plight – to regard it as comeuppance or karma – would, though tempting, be to engage in the toxic one-dimensional thinking that I loathe in the religious right...

I wish Tony Perkins hadn’t spent so much of his life squarely positioning himself against my thriving and that of my community. I wish Tony Perkins didn’t think of hurricanes and floods as God’s wrath. But I don’t wish harm on him. He’s a person.

My hope is that the flood makes Perkins reflect on his past statements. I hope that he contemplates whether or not his actions have truly been Christian.

Tony Perkins and I disagree over whether God sends storms to punish people. I don’t believe that. But if in these events he sees a sign from above to humble himself, I hope he heeds it."

Americans can choose better than Trump; Washington Post, 7/1/16

Marc Racicot, Washington Post; Americans can choose better than Trump:

"It is inescapable that every decision made by every leader reflects the character of the man or woman making the decision. Character is the lens through which a leader perceives the path to be followed. It conceives and shapes every thought and is inextricably interwoven into every word spoken, every policy envisioned and every action taken.

Persistent seriousness, solemn and honest commitment to the interests of others, exhaustive study and detailed proposals, sincerity, humility, empathy, dignity, fairness, patience, genuine respect for all of God’s children, durability, modesty and the absence of self-interest are those qualities of principled leadership absolutely essential to presidential decision-making."

Doonesbury; GoComics, 6/19/16

Garry Trudeau, GoComics; Doonesbury:

Nobody