the man called cash
My wife bought me The Man Called Cash on CD for my commute from and to home each day. It is an authorized biography written by Steve Turner about Johnny Cash.
Publisher’s Weekly said about the book:
Published in time for the first anniversary of Johnny Cash's death, this eminently readable biography of the Man in Black feels more honest about its subject than most authorized biographies, perhaps because Cash himself was more honest about his flaws and modest about his successes than many other public figures.
As I listened to the words being read, I learned a lot about Johnny Cash, as well as people like Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, and many others who were the ones that generated so much buzz about music in the 1950’s. Toward the end of the book, I was sad because I knew that it would speak of his death. I found myself not wanting to hear about it, because I had loved learning about his life so much.
My favorite story in the whole book was about a prayer he prayed at dinner. His dinner guest recalled the story:
Cash prayed and said, “… and we thank you Lord for this food, and we ask that you would bless it to our body. We pray these things in Jesus’ name, Amen." When he finished praying he winked at me and said, “I still miss the drugs though.”
It is precisely that juxtaposition of piety and weakness that I think I love about him. It reminds me of another man who is known well for his writing, he wrote:
I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do … What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?
In case you didn’t catch that, the other man to whom I referred is the Apostle Paul. He happened to be one of Cash’s favorite people for obvious reasons. I have wondered why I am so enamored by people like Johnny Cash and Paul; these men of such conviction, but at the same time so open about their transgressions. I think it is because they knew themselves well, and they never allowed the good in them to elevate them to a place where they could look down at others. They knew the darkness, and that it was always waiting if they would just relent and turn to it.
Cash turned to it a lot. However, like Paul, he also said:
Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!
At the end of his life, after June Carter died he hung around for a few months more. He could barely walk, was in massive pain, and was eighty percent blind. In this state, however, he still had the Bible enlarged big enough so he could read it. Others spoke about his love of Jesus, his kindness, his generosity, and his faithfulness to June.
So many want to be cynical about people who struggle, fall, get up, and fall again. They like to point and yell to expose someone else’s flaws. I am more convinced that the ones who yell the loudest are the ones who are the most scared of having their flaws exposed.
One of my favorite lines in music comes from a song sung by Cash. It was written by Bono and performed with U2 (yeah, I know big surprise). The line goes:
I went out there,
In search of experience,
To taste and to touch,
And to feel as much,
As a man can,
Before he repents.
Isn’t that all of our stories? I know it’s mine. I also know that it is mine everyday. I walk around, and like a little kid test the boundaries of God’s love. Some days, I may not go far, other days I may feel restless and I just want to run. Yet each time I return home to talk with God I find myself speaking the words of Paul:
Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!