Bodhisattva in Blue Jeans

A Lesson in Unguarded Joy from President Carter & Bob Dylan

Hi all,
I wrote this in February 2023, when President Carter first entered hospice care. That he stuck around for almost two more years is a testament to his resilience and tenacity. This is a meager tribute to one of my longtime heroes and role models. I hope you enjoy it.

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February, 2023.

As I write this, Jimmy Carter is still here. His passing could be hours, days, or weeks away. Perhaps even months, given his tenacity. The news of his decision to end medical treatment and live his remaining days at home with hospice care feels like the final strains of a 98-year symphony filled with grace notes.

Much can and will be said in the days ahead about this profoundly good man. He is the rare example of Christ’s message on earth, a Bodhisattva in blue jeans. A servant, pounding nails into the foundational frame of a Habitat home while others insist the path to heaven is paved with stones arrayed to bludgeon the excluded and downtrodden. Even Carter’s harshest political critics have a hard time mustering anything less than begrudging respect for the architecture of his life: humility, charity, and selflessness.

These qualities alone are enough to fill a book about A Sense of Wonder. After all, how does one make it through 98 years in this world, witnessing racism in Plains, GA, political derision across the globe, and abject poverty which most of us turn a blind eye to, without losing hope? Without deciding that, perhaps, the best thing to do is just get on with your own life and pursue your own earthly desires. President Carter is worthy of mention alongside other iconic leaders like Nelson Mandela, Dr. King, and the Dalai Lama in his lifelong pursuit of justice and peace.

So, I’m not going to even attempt to honor this aspect of the man. Others will do it better and with greater awareness of the arc of his altruism. No, I’d like to celebrate a wondrous aspect of Mr. Carter, unveiled on a night that filled me with a deep sense of wonder, indeed, and a mighty, mighty shot of joy.

It was December 1, 1997, and I’d procured a ticket to see Bob Dylan at The Roxy Theater in Atlanta. This was Dylan’s big “comeback”. He was touring on what would be his Grammy-winning Album of the Year, Time Out of Mind, a blues-soaked rumination on aging and death, resignation and regret, an unflinching existential gaze into the abyss. The sonic architecture is front porch Mississippi blues mixed with juke joint touches that keep the tone atmospheric and ageless. It’s primordial, yet of the times; an album that feels like it could’ve been recorded in 1937 or 1997. You can almost taste the dust on the walls.

Dylan concerts are a crap shoot. Bob’s a showman, but his interest in being a cordial entertainer, a’la his pals Bruce Springsteen and Willie Nelson, is limited. He is more than willing to render a song unrecognizable with a newly reworked arrangement, and he’s just as likely to give you a nasally mumbled recitation as he is a full-throated troubadour’s rendition. Still, it’s Dylan. A true fan wants to roll those dice and hope they come up a seven.

On December 1, 1997, a sold-out Roxy won that bet. Dylan was in rare form, tearing through faithful renditions of “Mr. Tambourine Man”, “Like a Rolling Stone”, “Highway 61 Revisited”, and “Tangled Up in Blue”, amongst others. But the real joys of the night came just before showtime and during the final encore.

The tickets (remember having physical tickets for a concert? Another thing of wonder.) read “Show begins at 8 pm SHARP”, indicating that Mr. Dylan wouldn’t be lingering for latecomers. However, 8 pm came and went. 8:15. 8:30. 8:40. Soon, that mandate on our tickets seemed like another empty ploy from a diva musician or perhaps one of Ticketmaster’s ongoing betrayals. The balconies had reserved seats, but the floor was all general admission, standing only. So, those of us who’d been on our feet for hours to stand in line to get in, jockey a good spot on the floor, and await the mystical bard’s arrival were getting antsy.

Then a murmur spread throughout the crowd, growing into a loud cheer. But the houselights weren’t going down, and there wasn’t so much as a guitar tech onstage. We all turned around to see President Carter and Rosalynn, accompanied by friends and the requisite Secret Service agents, moving toward their front-row balcony seats. They waved. They settled. Then, almost on cue, the houselights dipped and Bob Dylan took the stage, launching into “Maggie’s Farm”, a song Carter said helped him understand the plight of the working man, the chasm between the farm worker and the one who owns the farm.

The rush of seeing a President - any President, honestly - in person is exciting. Seeing the President you hold in the highest regard for how they’ve navigated the ethical channels of this world is invigorating. Seeing him at a Dylan concert was, at the time, purely surreal.

We were into the second term of our nation’s first “Rock and Roll President”, a title bestowed upon Bill Clinton because of his 1992 Arsenio Hall appearance when he played “Heartbreak Hotel” on saxophone. It was a turning point in his campaign, reaching demographics who were impressed by a candidate who seemed a bit more in touch with their cultural passions than anyone since Kennedy.

But make no mistake, the original Rock and Roll President was Jimmy Carter. He enlisted Willie Nelson, Jimmy Buffett, and the Allman Brothers to play campaign concerts for him, had Aretha Franklin and Paul Simon perform at his inaugural ball, and welcomed visits from Crosby, Still, and Nash, the BeeGees, James Brown, Linda Ronstadt, Johnny & June Carter-Cash, and others to The White House.

In 2023, the notion of seeing a President “rock out” seems commonplace. President Obama certainly normalized an appreciation for current musical trends during his time in office, and President Bush was no slouch either in this regard. They were younger, hipper leaders who recognized the connections that music can create, and saw no reason to hide their authentic love for the artists who helped shape them. But in 1997, seeing a 73-year-old former head-of-state at a rock concert was curious, a juxtaposition that was, both, novel and delightful.

Eventually, though, we were enveloped in the tapestry of Dylan’s lyricism, the tightness of his band, and the sense that Bob was delivering on all cylinders this evening. Perhaps it was the joy of being back in the saddle with a critical and commercial success, or perhaps it was an awareness that his good friends Jimmy and Rosalyn had aisle seats and he wanted to be sure they got their money’s worth. It was a hypnotic show, right up through the encore. And that’s where the real magic happened.

After a blistering set of hits and songs from his new album, Dylan wound the night down with a handful of favorites, ending with the twelve-bar blues “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35” (known to many as the “everybody must get stoned” song). Widely interpreted as a drug song upon its release, it was banned by a number of radio stations. Dylan would later explain the song, always a slippery state of affairs where Bob is concerned, because his explanations often shift with the same frequency as his song arrangements. He said that the song is about going against the tide and being punished for doing so. Punished on a Biblical level. Given the timing of the song’s initial release, it could be inferred that Dylan was referencing being “stoned” by folk audiences who turned on him in the mid-60s, labeling him a “Judas” for going electric and, thus, selling out.

As the song’s chorus erupted, an amalgam of fun and fury, we all joined in. Soon, we took our eyes off Bob and his band and turned toward the balcony. There, on their feet, were President and Mrs. Carter, singing along and dancing with the kind of abandon one would usually reserve for 2 AM at a nightclub. It was joyous, so unexpected, and yet so organically perfect. At 73 years of age, aware of the dignity of the office that he carried, President Carter was boogying his ass off at the Roxy Theater, unapologetically singing that everyone, indeed, must get stoned.

Does it seem out of character for a rural peanut farmer? A Southern Baptist Sunday School Teacher,? A former Commander-in-Chief? Not at all. Not this one, at least. It was another piece of the complex puzzle that makes up a simple man. This small-town saint who won a Nobel Prize. A Bodhisattva in blue jeans.

May we all recognize that our journey here offers vast and divine permission to be defined by steps that contradict expectations. We can be, both, disciples and renegades. Peacemaker and rabble-rouser. Devout and messy as hell. A source of light and a long, long shadow. You are here to act justly, love mercy, and dance your ass off when the music that stirs you is playing.

May we all hear that music and answer that calling as fully as President Carter has.