c. 1997 Religion News Service

UNDATED _ Former President Jimmy Carter deeply loves Jesus and his wife Rosalynn, although at times he has been estranged from both.

In his 11th and”most difficult”book, Carter describes his spiritual and marital journeys in deeply personal detail, recounting squabbles with Rosalynn over an electric blanket and the painful divorces of their children. And those kinds of details, he said, upset his wife.”This was a very difficult book to write, by far the most soul-searching and self-revealing,”Carter said in a telephone interview.”Rosalynn looked at the first drafts and said, `No way are you going to put this in the book!'””Rosalynn and I have had serious problems in our marriage and serious problems with our children. But I decided I couldn’t write a book to people about faith that was just preaching. I had to include myself,”he added.”Living Faith”(Times Books) has rewarded Carter with strong sales and large crowds at book signings. It is in its third printing, is at the top of the current Publishers Weekly list of best-selling hardcover religious books and has been on The New York Times best-seller list for the past six weeks.”The crowds that come to the signings come for several reasons,”Carter said from a hotel phone in Kansas City where he was promoting the book.”Some are looking for what the book might give them, others are old friends who want to express their friendship. Some want to ease some pain.” Carter himself felt quite abandoned by God in 1966, when he lost the Georgia governor’s race to Lester Maddox, an avowed segregationist.”I couldn’t understand how God could let that happen, allow me to lose to a racist like that,”Carter said. His evangelist sister Ruth Carter Stapleton helped him out of his self-centeredness.

Then a bruising four years in Washington left the defeated president with his own bitterness and a few unsettled scores. He told one story of a difficult reconciliation that he decided to delete from his book.”During preparations for my debate with President Reagan _ and he would only debate me once _ we had a voluminous briefing book with my points and his anticipated responses and my counterpoints,”Carter said.”Someone stole a copy of that briefing book and gave it to a prominent Washington correspondent and he took that book and briefed and rehearsed President Reagan.”In my Sunday school classes, I tried to ask people to look into your own minds and see if you have a long-standing resentment and see if you can overcome it. Well, I had one.” Carter took his anger to a used bookstore in Atlanta and bought a baseball book for $1 by George Will _ the Washington correspondent. He read it and wrote its author.”I wrote him that although I resented the handling of the briefing book, I enjoyed the book about baseball enough to call it even,”Carter said.”He wrote me back that he was glad I liked his book but he resented that I only paid a dollar for it. He said I should have paid full price.” Carter chuckled at this settling of accounts, and at his own reputation for great care with a dollar.

At age 72, Carter does not miss the rough action in Washington. He clearly enjoys his stature as informal diplomat, poet, peacemaker and retired peanut farmer. He became famous as a politician, but he became respected for his good works after leaving office.

While other retired leaders often golf and yacht, Carter has established a center in Atlanta to promote global humanitarian efforts and swings a hammer for Habitat for Humanity, building homes for the poor.

Although he keeps a full and itinerant schedule, Carter says he is more absorbed these days in simpler things.”After leaving the White House, I wrote my presidential memoir,”he said.”As I examined the 6,000 pages of personal diary notes I had written and the voluminous official documents prepared at the time, I was surprised at how faulty a memory I had. I could hardly recall some truly historic events.”But recently my 10-year-old grandson, Joshua, and I were out on a little two-person fishing boat with an electric motor, and he wanted to be captain of the ship. After a long period of silence, Josh looked at me and said, `Papa, this is the life.’ It won’t appear in any history books, but that was a moment I’ll never forget.” Carter credits his faith and his desire to emulate Jesus with helping him grow out of his autocratic, harsh treatment of Rosalynn and their children during his younger years.

Nevertheless, the former president tried mightily to keep his religious convictions out of his political life. This stemmed partly from his infamous Playboy magazine interview, in which Carter admitted to”lust in his heart”for women other than Rosalynn. He believes it nearly cost him the 1976 election.

So after the election, Carter forbade religious services in the White House as a way of separating church from state. Yet, Carter says he never prayed more than during his presidency.”I have had to confront physical danger, financial despair, family tragedy, political failure and quandaries concerning my career,”he writes.”In all such cases, prayer is the most essential element.” In a lifetime of Bible study and church-going, Carter cites a sermon by the Rev. Otis Moss of Olivet Institutional Baptist Church in Cleveland as one of the most meaningful.

Both men spoke at the funeral of Alberta King, the mother of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. But Moss’ five minutes, Carter said, stayed with every member of the congregation.”He said there was a marker on Mrs. King’s grave, with her name and a couple of dates, when she was born and when she died _ and a little dash in between,”Carter writes.”He said he didn’t want to talk about when she was born, or when she died, but about that little dash. … He said everybody has what might be considered just a tiny dash, but that to us, with God, it is everything.” (OPTIONAL TRIM – STORY MAY END HERE)

Over the arc of his lifetime, Carter has witnessed much change. He grew up in rural, southwestern Georgia, where his Southern Baptist parents wouldn’t play cards on Sunday and Rosalynn’s parents wouldn’t touch cards at all.”Together, our parents were dominant, and we children respected and obeyed them,”Carter writes.”In fact, I never deliberately disobeyed them.” Carter’s children and grandchildren occupy a different landscape, familiar with divorce and comfortable skipping Sunday worship. But Carter says he harbors no sense of superiority.”Societal standards have gone through a seminal change,”Carter said.”And yet I think the moral values of my children and grandchildren would be equally as good as mine were at a similar age. What’s more, they are more flexible, more accommodating and more aware of the greater world than I ever was.”I never knew anybody in Plains (Ga.) who was divorced, even when I left for the Naval Academy. That anyone would violate the marriage vows uttered before God was unthinkable. But then Chip and his wife divorced when Rosalynn and I were in the White House. That was terrible for us. And it was terrible for them. They tried very hard to save their marriage but they just weren’t compatible. They are still close friends.”And I have just had to learn what I quoted my teacher, Miss Julia Coleman, as saying: `We must adjust to changing times and still hold to unchanging principles.'”

MJP END LONG