This morning, the eyes of the nation will be on Washington, D.C., as the casket containing the final remains of James Earl “Jimmy” Carter Jr. will travel from the U.S. Capitol where the nation’s 39th president has been lying in state for two days to the Washington National Cathedral for a public funeral. President Joe Biden has declared it a national day of mourning and is expected to speak at the service. Not long after, Carter’s body will be returned to his beloved Plains, Georgia, for burial after a private gathering at Maranatha Baptist Church where he taught Sunday school.

This level of attention and respect, this extended national tribute directed toward the legacy of this modest man who drew the challenging assignment of leading his nation through the tumultuous post-Watergate era — with, at best, mixed results — seem almost surreal. Not because the salutes are undeserved; quite the contrary.

Here in Baltimore, Jimmy Carter isn’t so much associated with the highs or lows of his time in office (the Camp David Accords serving as a major highlight, the failed rescue of the Iranian hostages holding down the other end of the spectrum) but of the leadership he demonstrated post-White House. More than once, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter came to Maryland’s largest city to help build row houses and promote Habitat for Humanity — not to give mere lip service or supervise repairs but to actually put on work clothes, pick up a hammer and pound nails. Their labors not only reinforced the need for affordable housing but signaled something just as essential: that character and authenticity count.

It is clear enough that while President Carter may have lost out on a second term, he won the post-presidency. For the Carters, concern for others wasn’t just some throwaway campaign slogan, it continued to be the center of their lives. And wouldn’t it be nice to think that their longevity — Rosalynn passing at age 96 in 2023 and Jimmy making it to the century mark — was at least partly a product of their love and faith? It may be wishful thinking but we would point to research that suggests people with “strong social connections” do live longer (although so do folks who do not smoke or drink hard liquor and the couple are said to have abstained from both).

Jimmy Carter, like every president, faced challenges during his term in office. Some of those challenges he overcame, some he didn’t, and for some his performance was a bit muddier. Remember the 1979 oil crisis and the lines at the pumps? The double-digit inflation and rising unemployment that followed? How much of that was his fault is debatable. But it has become clear that in his post-presidency, freed from the constraints of political office, the real Jimmy Carter — the man, not the president — was able to shine through. He was a man of character, faith and honor. Maybe he wasn’t always the reassuring presence Americans wanted at that moment during his presidency, he was still the peanut farmer with the beer-drinking “good old boy” brother Billy. But Jimmy Carter proved that leadership is not confined to the Oval Office and that a legacy is often built not by the power you hold, but through the lives you touch and the good you leave behind.