On Monday in sharing thoughts about Sara Miles' new book City of God--Sara, who is today imposing ashes on the streets of the Mission District in San Francisco--I called the imposition of ashes a ritual of hallowing.

We just finished the Ash Wednesday service for our majors here at ACU. And I tell you what, it's a profound and moving experience to have your students--all these bright, talented young people--come up to you, one by one, so that you can impose the ashes.

You look into their eyes, make the sign of the cross on their forehead and say the ancient words.

"Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return."

You feel like your heart is about to explode. This ritual of hallowing fills you with a crazy mix of feelings.

Joy, awe, sadness, gratitude, love.

And it all intensifies when one of those young people, Caren, who transformed a basement classroom into a candlelit chapel, looks at you and says the words.

"Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return."

And here is the first selfie I ever took or posted online. This, the cross of ashes Caren made on my forehead.

Where are those words--"Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return."--on a college syllabus? Where is that lesson found in our learning outcomes?

Nowhere.

But it's a lesson of the church.

And I feel so grateful that it's a lesson I shared today with my students.

And they with me.

Today in the Psychology Department of ACU we are having an Ash Wednesday service. We'll be using the service from The Book of Common Prayer and including the imposition of ashes.

This is a new thing for our department and it'll be new--the imposition of ashes thing--for a lot of our students, most of whom don't come from liturgical traditions.

So for the Order of Service we'll be handing out I asked Caren, who is a student worker in our department and my partner in crime for most of the "innovations" I try out in the department, to write up something to explain Ash Wednesday and the imposition of ashes for our majors who are unfamiliar with these practices. Here is what Caren wrote:

Regarding the Imposition of Ashes 

Originally called dies cinerum (day of ashes), Ash Wednesday dates back from at least the 8th century. Ashes historically symbolize an outer manifestation of inner repentance or mourning. It is not commanded biblically but is deeply rooted in Christian antiquity, bringing followers of Christ together each year to begin the season of Lent. Just as Daniel comes “pleading in earnest prayer, with fasting, sackcloth and ashes” (Dn 9:3) as a sign of Israel’s repentance, we too come together as an acknowledgement of our own frailty and need for atonement.

In the service, reminded that we are dust and that it is to dust that we shall return (Gn 3:19), ashes are placed on the penitent’s forehead (if so desired) in the shape of a cross to signify the sacrifice of Christ, which brings forgiveness for all sins. These ashes are ideally made from burning palm branches from the previous Palm Sunday, remembering Jesus approaching Jerusalem and his imminent death. Although the need for humility and repentance is great with the imposition of ashes, the anticipation and hope of Easter Sunday remains present all the while.

And a penitential psalm for the day:

Psalm 32.1-7
Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven,
whose sin is covered.
Blessed is the one against whom the Lord counts no iniquity,
and in whose spirit there is no deceit.

For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away
through my groaning all day long.
For day and night your hand was heavy upon me;
my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer.

I acknowledged my sin to you,
and I did not cover my iniquity;
I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,”
and you forgave the iniquity of my sin.

Therefore let everyone who is godly
offer prayer to you at a time when you may be found;
surely in the rush of great waters,
they shall not reach him.
You are a hiding place for me;
you preserve me from trouble;
you surround me with shouts of deliverance.

May you have a holy Lenten season.

Two weeks ago it was my privilege to deliver the 44th Annual Integration Lectures for the School of Psychology at Fuller Theological Seminary. I delivered two lectures regarding my recent book The Slavery of Death.

In many ways, in the US at least, Fuller is ground zero for the integration of psychology and Christianity as Fuller was the first faith-based institution to offer an APA-accredited PhD in Clinical Psychology. So it was quite an honor to be invited to deliver the lectures this year, which was also the 50th anniversary of the School of Psychology as well as the 25th anniversary of the Travis Research Institute at Fuller.

I've engaged with the work of many of the scholars working at Fuller, in both the School of Psychology and in the Seminary. So it was wonderful to finally meet many of them. And it was a rich experience having psychologists, biblical scholars and theologians sitting in the audience for the lectures.

I thought I'd take a few posts this week and next to share some reflections about the lectures and some of the breakout sessions I attended.

I'd like to start with a few posts sharing thoughts I had about the four responses to the lectures, which were all quite stimulating and helpful to me.

In this post I want to reflect a bit on a part of Dr. Winston Gooden's response to my first lecture. Specifically, Dr. Gooden, Dean of the School of Psychology at Fuller, wondered about how our beliefs in God can be held non-neurotically and non-violently.

If you don't know my work well let me quickly explain the issue. In both The Authenticity of Faith and The Slavery of Death I make the case made by Ernest Becker, and supported by the empirical work of what is known as Terror Management Theory, that our self-esteem is constructed by the pursuit of "cultural heroics," the ways in which any given culture defines a good and meaningful life. However, according to Becker this pursuit of significance is, at root, a flight from death as the pursuit of significance and meaning is being driven by a desire to "matter" in the face of death. We all want to make a dent in the universe, to have the cosmos recognize our life, to register that we existed.

By and large all that is a good thing as our neurotic pursuit of significance leads to culture creation. We build, work, and create. Psychologists call this sublimation, where neurotic anxiety is channeled into culturally valued outlets.

But there is a dark side to all this. Specifically, the cultural worldviews that support our pursuit of significance can become challenged and relativized by out-group members. People and cultures who don't share our metrics of "success" threaten the foundation of our self-esteem projects. And this makes us anxious.

So in the face of that anxiety we engage in what Terror Management theorists call "worldview defense." Basically, we denigrate, demean and demonize out-group members in order to protect our self-esteem projects and, thus, continue to experience meaning and significance in the face of death.

Importantly, this is no mere speculation. Worldview defense has been observed in the laboratory. For example, in a study I focus on in The Authenticity of Faith Christian participants have been found to become increasingly anti-Semitic--denigrate Jewish persons--when they were made to ponder their eventual death.

All this goes to Dr. Gooden's question. If our worldviews are being driven by neurotic anxiety and this anxiety makes us violent how can we believe in God non-neurotically and non-violently? Because, as we know, religion often sits at the heart of our worldviews.

How, then, can our faith be emancipated from, in the words of Hebrews 2, our "slavery to the fear of death"? A slavery that makes us violent toward others?

This was a question I tried to answer in The Authenticity of Faith. But in many ways that answer wasn't wholly satisfactory. In The Slavery of Death I try to improve upon that answer and it's the answer I gave at Fuller to Dr. Gooden's question.

In The Authenticity of Faith my argument is that doubt is what protects us from believing violently. That is, if you hold your beliefs provisionally you'll retain your openness and curiosity toward out-group members.

However, there is a cost to be paid for that openness. Specifically, if you hold your beliefs provisionally you'll forgo the existential benefits of conviction, certainty and dogmatism. Doubting makes you more open and hospitable toward others but doubting also leaves you open to a lot of uncertainty in the face of death.

Basically, The Authenticity of Faith posits a trade-off between hospitality and anxiety. The more open your are to out-group members the more existential anxiety you'll have to carry. Conversely, the more dogmatic you become the less anxiety you will feel but at the cost of being less welcoming and tolerant of those who disagree with you.

That's where I left things in The Authenticity of Faith. But in many ways that's not a very satisfactory ending place. Specifically, while doubt may be a prerequisite of love--by creating an openness toward difference--doubt doesn't pull you into love. A lot of doubting Christians are 1) spiritually spinning their wheels (e.g., they don't know if they are Christians or agnostics) or 2) emotionally suffering (often to the point of clinical depression) given the weight of existential anxiety they are carrying.

So in many ways The Slavery of Death is a sequel to The Authenticity of Faith in trying to retain openness toward others but situating the provisionality of belief in a more helpful way.

If you've read The Slavery of Death (or recall the earlier blog series) you know the crux of the argument I make: eccentricity.

Specifically, using the work of Arthur McGill and David Kelsey, I use the notion of eccentricity to contrast an identity rooted in either grasping or gift. That is, if God is a possession of the faith community then God needs to be protected from the threat of others. This is why belief becomes violent. If God is owned by a faith community then they can assert their proprietorial rights over God over against others. That's the root of dogmatism: We have God and you don't. God is for us and against you. God is here experienced as a possession.

And this is the the important thing to note: possessions have to be defended. Because possessions can be lost or damaged.

If, however, God is received as gift then the faith community can never possess God. This is the notion of eccentricity, that God is outside the boundaries of the faith community. And if God is outside the boundaries of the faith community then the faith community has to wait on God. The faith community is always looking for God outside of herself. And this expectant searching keeps us looking for God in the world and in the Other. It's a Matthew 25 orientation. God is always showing up in unexpected places and faces.

God is found in the stranger.

This, in my estimation, the how The Slavery of Death improves upon The Authenticity of Faith. Doubt is replaced with the experience of gift.

Critically, gift keeps the provisionality of doubt. Gifts are never certain. They are hoped for, but they are not under our control. You can never be certain of gift. You can't be dogmatic about gifts. And you can't protect a gift you don't possess.

Let me be concrete. Consider the relationship between a belief in heaven and death anxiety. Shouldn't our belief in heaven help us with our death anxiety?

Well, that all depends. As I argue in The Authenticity of Faith for many a belief in heaven is, in fact, symptomatic of a fear of death. Belief in heaven is being clung to because it is a comforting belief in the face of death. But the problem, as we've noted, is that if belief in heaven is being motivated by fear you'll behave aggressively toward anyone who threatens that belief. In that instance the belief in heaven is comforting--it reduces anxiety--but it also makes you violent.

Phrased in the categories I use in The Slavery of Death if heaven is possession, if it is something you control and possess, then that possession has to be protected from threats.

But if heaven is experienced eccentrically, if heaven is a gift rather than a possession, then I don't have to protect it from others. Because I don't possess heaven. I have to wait for it as the gift. And because heaven is outside of my control--because it's a gift rather than a possession--I can't guarantee heaven. Or be certain of it. All I can do is cultivate a posture of openness and surrender, to say with Jesus "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit."

So that's the root of the answer I gave to Dr. Gooden.

How can we believe non-neurotically and non-violently? By cultivating eccentricity.

To experience God and heaven as gift rather than possession.

Sara Miles is one of my very, very favorite authors, a part of the small handful that if they have a book coming out I get it and read it immediately.

Sara has a new book out--City of God--and it was my honor to give the book an endorsement. Here is what I wrote:

A poignant, gritty and joyous vision of the city of God as we experience Ash Wednesday on the streets of San Francisco's Mission district. Page after page I had to stop when I found my heart aching or tears flowing because of the beauty and truth of what I had just read. Profound, inspiring, unforgettable and ultimately life-changing.

That's pretty gushing. But it's true.

To get my endorsement Sara's publisher asked if I'd like a PDF copy of the book or a paper copy. I said paper so I was sent the book printed on one-sided 8 1/2 x 11 paper. A stack about two inches high. I three-holed punched the stack of pages and put it in a big three-ring binder and took it on a trip with me, reading most of City of God on the plane and in the airport.

And page after page, as I flipped through that big binder, I had to pause and stop reading. I'd read a passage that would just blow me away, theologically or emotionally and often both. I would set the binder down on my lap, breathe and look out the window taking in what I had just read.

Listen, it's hard to recommend books to others. Some authors really speak to us but not so much to our friends. Haven't you wildly recommended a book to a friend, a book that blew you away, and your friends went "Meh" after they had read it? You feel offended and rebuffed. Shouldn't everyone love your favorite authors and books?

My point is, I can't guarantee you'll react the same way I did to City of God. All I can say is that if there is an author who speaks to my soul right now it's Sara Miles.

Let me try to explain why.

If you've read Unclean you'll recall that in the last chapter of the book I make an argument that the Eucharist might be used as a ritual of hospitality, a liturgy of welcome. But a critical feature in that vision is that the Eucharist would be practiced as open communion, as an expression of Jesus's radical, even wasteful, embrace of humanity. All of humanity.

Anyway, when I described this vision of the Table people often asked me what it all might look like, this "liturgy of welcome" that can erode the psychological obstacles to hospitality that I describe in Unclean. Basically, Unclean ends with this intriguing theological notion but what people really want is a practical example of what all this might or could look like in a church.

So two years ago, teaching a class for Rochester College's Missional Leadership Degree (the only graduate program I teach a theology class for), I was at this point in discussing Unclean, how the Eucharist might be used as a liturgy of welcome and inclusion. And, as expected, the students asked for examples. And I struggled to give some.

But after the class my colleague for that class, Natalie Magnusson, asked if I had read Sara Miles's Take This Bread. Natalie said Take This Bread is a great illustration of what I was trying to describe.

So I rushed out and bought Take This Bread and read it. And I was blown away. Here, in Sara's conversion story and her starting the food pantry at Saint Gregory's Episcopal Church in San Francisco, was an example of I was trying to articulate in Unclean. Not only was Sara converted, at the age of 46, through Saint Gregory's practice of open communion, Sara went on to connect the Eucharist with the food panty she soon started, sharing food with the poor and needy in her neighborhood. The food given away at St. Gregory's every weekend is given away in the sanctuary, the food stacked up around the Eucharistic altar. The symbol couldn't be more clear: the food shared at the pantry is the same food shared in the Eucharist. 

Here, as clear as a bell, was a vision of what I was trying to describe in Unclean. Open communion ritually connected to the sharing of food with the poor and broken. 

Here was a liturgy of welcome. Here was a ritual of hospitality.

If you want to see Unclean enacted and incarnated read Take This Bread.

And so I became a Sara Miles fan. 

City of God is in many ways a sequel to Take This Bread. If in Take This Bread we see the Eucharist "given away" to the world as a liturgy of inclusion in City of God we see this happen with the imposition of ashes on Ash Wednesday. City of God is the narrative of a single day, Ash Wednesday, where Sara and others take the ashes "to the streets," imposing ashes on those passing by or working in the Mission District in San Francisco. 

In the final climatic scenes of the book, as the ashes are smudged on the foreheads of the diverse neighbors living and working in the Mission district, this ancient ritual of the church reveals "the City of God" in our midst. The ashes and the words "dust you are and to dust you shall return" reveals, in the middle of a bustling work day, the shared and sacred bond of our fragile humanity. A bond recognized and hallowed as the ancient ritual is "given away" to the world. 

Once again, here is a liturgy of welcome. Here is a ritual of hospitality.

There is more I could say about Sara's books, but let me end with this. This is what really speaks to me about Sara Miles, about why she's greatly impacted my faith.

Sara shows us how to reenchant the world. It's not just that Sara shows us how the Eucharist or Ash Wednesday can become rituals of welcome. What I love about Sara is how she uses these rituals to recover enchantment in a cold, dehumanized, secular and disenchanted world.  

More and more I've come to think that faith isn't belief in enchantment. Faith is, rather, the act of enchantment. Faith is the practice of hallowing.

This is important as a lot of liberal, progressive Christians struggle with disenchantment. Many liberal, progressive Christians feel like they've been left holding all these rituals from Church tradition, rituals that seem empty and hollowed out. Prayer, church, the Eucharist, Lent, anointing with oil, singing, the laying on of hands. Our religious doubts and theological sophistication make all these things seem quaint and superstitious. 

Why pray, for example, if you wonder if God even exists?

Disenchantment hits progressive Christians really, really hard. So hard they stop praying, stop going to church, stop singing, stop anointing, stop fasting, stop reading the bible, stop imposing the ashes. 

And why? Because progressive Christians often have a hard time believing in these things.

Which is why I love Sara Miles. Sara, if I'm reading her right, is as doubt-filled as any of us. But what Sara shows us is how all these rituals and liturgies can be used to reenchant and hallow the world. In her books you see Sara share the Eucharist, anoint with oil, pray and impose ashes. And in doing these things the world becomes sacred, holy and enchanted. Alive with the fire of the Holy Spirit. 

That's what overwhelms you in the final scenes of City of God. How this ancient and very weird ritual of the church opens our eyes to the sacred bond connecting us. The ashes help us see each other. Really see each other. 

The ashes take what was once a bustling city street full of stressed, weary and alienated strangers and transforms them into the shared humanity of the City of God. 

And when you see it happen it takes your breath away.

My recent series on Johnny Cash may have gotten some of you interested in exploring the music of Johnny Cash.

Where to start?

Though opinions will differ, here are my suggestions in exploring and buying the music of Johnny Cash.

Compilations
First Cut: The Legend of Johnny Cash
Probably the best single CD to sample Cash's entire career. Has the early hits like "I Walk the Line" and "Folsom Prison Blues," mid-career hits like "Ring of Fire" and selections from the Rick Rubin years like "Rusty Cage," "Hurt," and "When the Man Comes Around."

Deeper Cut: Love God Murder
A three CD set hand-picked by Cash spanning his career. Liner notes from June Carter on Love, from Bono on God and Quentin Tarantino on, you guessed it, Murder.

The Concept Albums
First Cut: Ride This Train
Cash's first concept album, the one many consider to be his best. Songs of America with Cash narrating between musical "stops" on a cross-country train ride.

Deeper Cuts: Bitter Tears and Sings Ballads of the True West

The Prison Concerts
First Cut: At Folsom Prison
The legendary concert. If you have only one Johnny Cash album this should be it.

Deeper Cut: At San Quentin
The concert that brought the world "A Boy Named Sue."

The Sun Years
First Cut: With His Hot Blue Guitar!
Johnny Cash's very first album. This is Cash's early Rock & Roll sound as he recorded at Sun with Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis.

Deeper Cut: Sings the Songs that Made Him Famous

The Columbia Years
First Cut: The Fabulous Johnny Cash
Cash's first Columbia album.

Deeper Cut: Orange Blossom Special
Bob Dylan gave Cash three songs for Orange Blossom Special, a time when Cash was trying to connect with the folk music movement. Beyond that there are so many albums from the Columbia years that's it is hard to pick.

The Rick Rubin Years
First Cut: American IV: The Man Comes Around
The last album released by Cash before his death. Has "Hurt" and "The Man Comes Around."

Deeper Cuts: Any of the American albums: American Recordings, Unchained, American 3: Solitary Man.

I'll now turn it over to Johnny Cash fans. What are your favorite Johnny Cash albums?

This will be the last post in this series on the theology of Johnny Cash. And we conclude with what Cash considered to be his greatest song. His legacy song. A song he wrote just before his death.

"The Man Comes Around."

"The Man Comes Around" was the standout song in the final album--American IV--Cash recorded with Rick Rubin just before Cash's death. Cash was so weak he almost couldn't finish the album. For some songs Rubin had Cash sing a single line and then stop to rest and catch his breath. Later Rubin spliced the lines together, building the song piece by piece.

Most of American IV are covers, songs like "Hurt" and "Personal Jesus," along with older Cash songs like "Give My Love to Rose." But Cash brought to the recording sessions one last original song, a song he had been feverishly working on for months and months. "The Man Comes Around" is Johnny Cash's last great song.

The central lyric of the song came from an odd dream. Cash had a dream after having recorded the song "The Wanderer" with U2 for their album Zooropa. "The Wanderer" is an apocalyptic song inspired by the book of Ecclesiastes. (An early title of the song was "The Preacher" taken from  Qohelet, the Preacher/Teacher of Ecclesiastes.) Apparently, the apocalyptic imagery of "The Wanderer" had gotten into Cash's dreams. In this particular dream Cash finds himself speaking to, of all people, the Queen of England. In the dream the Queen laughs, looks at Cash and says, "Johnny Cash, you're just like a thorn tree in a whirlwind." Robert Hilburn, from his Cash biography, about how the image expanded into the song:

The image stuck with Cash, though he had no idea where it was from until, he claimed, he came across a reference in the Old Testament. Soon after, he began thinking of using the line in a story--a poem perhaps--and he continued to seek out accompanying images in scriptures. He eventually changed his plan from a story to a song...

Though the lyrics didn't mention Jesus's name or the words "judgment day," it was about Jesus's second coming and the final judgment, the fundamental tenet of his faith. In the series of verses, Cash cited other images from the Bible, including the "whirlwind in the thorn tree" and "the virgins are all trimming their wicks." [The song] was more overtly spiritual than U2's "The Wanderer," but just as majestic and bold.

Interestingly, the song "The Man Comes Around" also strikes a universal note. As recounted by Hilburn, Cash came to his son asking for some help with the lyrics:

John Carter remembers his father asking him one day as he was working on the song: "So, the word for 'shalom' is Hebrew for peace. What is the word in Arabic?"

John Carter told him "shalam."

"He wanted the song to be universal," his son says.

As I've mentioned, Johnny Cash read the bible just about every day. Even during the years of heavy drug use. And you can see this reflected in the lyrics of "The Man Comes Around." It is a song that could only have been written by a person steeped in biblical imagery:

Spoken:
"And I heard, as it were, the noise of thunder. One of the four beasts saying, 'Come and see.' and I saw, and behold a white horse"

Sung:
There's a man goin' 'round takin' names.
And he decides who to free and who to blame.
Everybody won't be treated all the same.
There'll be a golden ladder reachin' down.
When the man comes around.

The hairs on your arm will stand up,
At the terror in each sip and in each sup.
Will you partake of that last offered cup,
Or disappear into the potter's ground?
When the man comes around.

Chorus:
Hear the trumpets hear the pipers.
One hundred million angels singin'.
Multitudes are marchin' to the big kettledrum.
Voices callin', voices cryin'.
Some are born and some are dyin'.
It's Alpha and Omega's kingdom come.
And the whirlwind is in the thorn tree.
The virgins are all trimming their wicks.
The whirlwind is in the thorn tree.
It's hard for thee to kick against the pricks.

Till Armageddon no shalam, no shalom.
Then the father hen will call his chickens home.
The wise man will bow down before the throne.
And at his feet they'll cast their golden crowns.
When the man comes around.

Whoever is unjust let him be unjust still.
Whoever is righteous let him be righteous still.
Whoever is filthy let him be filthy still.
Listen to the words long written down.
When the man comes around.

Chorus:
Hear the trumpets hear the pipers.
One hundred million angels singin'.
Multitudes are marchin' to the big kettledrum.
Voices callin', voices cryin'.
Some are born and some are dyin'.
It's Alpha and Omega's kingdom come.
And the whirlwind is in the thorn tree.
The virgins are all trimming their wicks.
The whirlwind is in the thorn trees.
It's hard for thee to kick against the pricks.
In measured hundredweight and penny pound.
When the man comes around.

Spoken:
"And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts. And I looked, and behold a pale horse, and his name that sat on him was Death, and hell followed with him." 

A listening note. There are two versions of this song. The original version that Cash sent to Rubin is a country take on the song. The version Rubin released on American IV has more of a rock flavor. You can listen to both and see which one you prefer.

There is a part of me that would like to just end this series with the lyrics of this song. The song is theology, through and through. I don't need to insert any.

But the apocalyptic imagery of judgment is so strong in the song that I'll end with some final reflections.

I think religious liberals have really liked most of this series with its themes of "the Man in Black" solidarity with sinners along with the downtrodden. Those are themes religious liberals enjoy.

But Johnny Cash is hard to classify. Cash is not so easily placed in the liberal or the conservative box. Up against the song "The Man in Black" you have this song "The Man Comes Around," a song religious conservatives and fundamentalists would resonate with more than liberals and progressives. Liberals and progressives generally don't like the image of the Last Judgment.

So there are these two theological themes in Johnny Cash that are difficult to reconcile.

On the one hand you have the tolerance and solidarity of "the Man in Black" for the sinners of the world. Even the very worst sinners. The Man in Black was a man who loved and entrained murderers and rapists in prisons across the country. This is the man of At Folsom Prison and At San Quentin.

But on the other hand you have the words of judgement from "The Man Comes Around."

How to fit the two pieces together?

I don't think you do fit them together. At least not neatly and cleanly.

Personally, if I had to, I'd reconcile the pieces by pointing to the prophets and the Psalms, where the language of judgment is reserved for those exploiting and harming the anawim, the vulnerable ones. That's how I'd make the pieces fit if you forced me to do so. But I'm hesitant to do that here so quickly and easily.

Because what I think most interesting about the song "The Man Comes Around" is how, as I mentioned above, it is so steeped in the biblical imagination. And the biblical imagination, I'd argue, is always going to explode the boxes of conservative and liberal theology. The biblical imagination, like the God it is trying to describe, is like that whirlwind in a thorn tree. The biblical imagination cannot be codified or systematized. The biblical imagination is going to be wild and untamed.

And because the theology of Johnny Cash was so shaped by the Scriptures, due to Cash's daily and lifelong reading of the bible, I think it's fitting to note here at the end that Johnny Cash's theology, being a biblical theology, will also be difficult to pin down and put into a box.

And that, I think, is what makes the theology of Johnny Cash so complex and intriguing, all the currents and crosscurrents.

The mix of fidelity and unfaithfulness in trying and failing to "walk the line." The dance of light and darkness in the moral juxtapositions of gospel music and murder ballads. And, finally, the man in black standing in solidarity with sinners and the man coming around in apocalyptic judgment.

It is a compelling and potent mix. A wild and unsystematic theology.

Like the man himself, a whirlwind in a thorn tree.

It is the theology of Johnny Cash. 

Today is Johnny Cash's birthday.

In the last few posts we've been tracing the "Man in Black" theme of solidarity through the music of Johnny Cash. Having articulated the "Man in Black" theme we explored it in a three different social locations, from the suffering of Native Americans to the hopelessness of prison to the darkness of addiction.

One more post before leaving this theme.

In the Old Testament the anawim are the poor, afflicted and oppressed people of the land. The anawim are the vulnerable ones who God cares for and will bless.

Psalm 37.11
But the anawim will inherit the land
and enjoy peace and prosperity.

Isaiah 61.1
The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the anawim. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners.

These are the same texts--expressing God's care for the anawim--that Jesus invokes in the Sermon the Mount and his Nazareth Manifesto. The anawim were very much on the heart of Jesus.

And like Jesus, if Johnny Cash was anything he was a troubadour for the anawim. When you think of Johnny Cash songs you think about the anawim, songs about the downtrodden and beaten down.

I think the song that illustrates this best is a song that Cash wrote early in his career, a song he recorded with Sun Records. It is, perhaps then, the primordial Johnny Cash song if we think of "a Johnny Cash song" as being a song about the anawim.

You can tell it was a song that was important to Cash. He returned to it again and again. The song shows up on the At Folsom Prison album and on the last album Cash recorded with Rick Rubin before his death, American IV (the same album that has "Hurt" and "When the Man Comes Around").

Recall, in Cash's early career at Sun he was working alongside other Sun artists like Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis establishing the early sound of Rock and Roll. Consequently, Cash's early work with Sun tended to focus on the sock hop crowd, singing songs about teenage love and heartbreak. The tunes were fast-paced and catchy. The lyrics lighthearted.

And to be honest, I really like the Sun recordings of Johnny Cash. For fun and listenability I go for the Sun recordings when popping in some Johnny Cash.

(Also, Cash's voice was at its very best during the Sun years. If you want to hear how Cash's drug addiction affected his voice compare Cash's voice on early Sun recordings like "I Walk the Line" with his voice on the song "Orange Blossom Special" from the album Orange Blossom Special when Cash was heavily using drugs. I love the album Orange Blossom Special, but it's tragic that Cash's voice wasn't better for the album.)

At Sun teenage pop songs were the sorts of songs that Sam Phillips wanted from Cash. So Cash was increasingly pulled in that artistic direction. Pop music that would get played on the radio or punched in at the jukebox. But that isn't the sort of music we think of when we think of Johnny Cash "the Man in Black."

So when did that guy show up?

To be sure, we caught a glimpse of him in one of Cash's first hits with Sun, "Folsom Prison Blues." But it had been awhile since Cash had recorded a song like that. Even so, "Folsom Prison Blues" was an up-tempo song.

So today, on Johnny Cash's birthday, we ask when was "the Man in Black" officially born? When did Johnny Cash start singing the songs of the anawim?

I think you could make an argument that "the Man in Black" was born, that the archetypal "Johnny Cash song" was written, when Cash sat down and wrote the song "Give My Love to Rose." Robert Hilburn, in his recent biography of Cash, tells the origin of the song:

On the long car rides [to and from concerts], Cash thought hard about his writing, trying to figure out what was different between some of his best early songs and the ones he'd been writing recently. He realized he had drifted away from writing from his personal experience. Wanting to get back to that approach, Cash recalled the time a stranger came up to him backstage during his first trip to California. The man had just been released from prison and was looking forward to going home to Shreveport to see his wife. But he didn't know how or when he could get there because he was broke and jobless. He knew that Cash was a regular on the Louisiana Hayride and asked him to say hello to his wife if he got to Shreveport first.

The story reminded Cash of his own bouts with loneliness, and he liked the idea of telling a different kind of prisoner story...

[The song] wasn't just a [teenage] weeper for [Sam] Phillips or a generic song for the jukebox. This was a song Cash felt deeply...He like the idea of casting a prisoner in a tender light because it meshed with is Baptist values of forgiveness. He liked the song so much, he used his older daughter's nickname in it.

When Cash got back to Memphis in late June, he played the song for Clement [Cash's producer], who shared Cash's fondness for the song, though he privately wondered whether DJs would find it too slow-paced...

The lyrics of "Give My Love to Rose":

I found him by the railroad track this morning
I could see that he was nearly dead
I knelt down beside him and I listened
Just to hear the words the dying fellow said

He said they let me out of prison down in Frisco
For ten long years I've paid for what I've done
I was trying to get back to Louisiana
To see my Rose and get to know my son

Chorus:
Give my love to Rose please won't you mister
Take her all my money, tell her to buy some pretty clothes
Tell my boy his daddy's so proud of him
And don't forget to give my love to Rose

Tell them I said thanks for waiting for me
Tell my boy to help his mom at home
Tell my Rose to try to find another
For it ain't right that she should live alone

Mister here's a bag with all my money
It won't last them long the way it goes
God bless you for finding me this morning
And don't forget to give my love to Rose

Chorus:
Give my love to Rose please won't you mister
Take her all my money, tell her to buy some pretty clothes
Tell my boy his daddy's so proud of him
And don't forget to give my love to Rose 

I think with this song, recorded in 1957, "the Man in Black" was born.

Artistically, Cash had figured out--in the midst of all those jukebox and pop songs--who he was going to be and who he was going to sing for.

He was going to sing for the man dying alone by the railroad tracks. And for all the rest.

Johnny Cash was going to sing for the anawim.

Part 8: A Whirlwind in a Thorn Tree

We continue our reflections on themes of solidarity in the music of Johnny Cash. In this post we turn to drug use and addiction.

Recall the lyric from the song "The Man in Black":

[I wear the black] for the reckless ones whose bad trip left them cold

As I've mentioned in these posts, Johnny Cash struggled with drug use and addiction for decades. The drug use began in the late '50s, taking amphetamines to keep awake driving between stops on tour and for energy during concerts. The drug use worsened through the early and mid-60s with band and family members increasingly expecting an overdose that would end Cash's life. And Cash had many close calls.

Things got to such a point that Cash wanted to kill himself. In Cash's autobiography he describes going into a cave in 1968 intending to commit suicide (by getting lost in the cave). But something else happened. Laying in the dark of the cave Cash had a spiritual experience, an encounter with God. Cash found his way back out of the cave and claimed that his encounter with God allowed him to quit drugs right then and there.

But as Robert Hilburn recounts in his recent biography, Cash's story isn't true. Cash still took drugs after 1968, if somewhat less frequently. The biggest event that reduced Cash's drug use, according to Hilburn, wasn't the cave experience but the birth of Cash's son--John Carter Cash--in 1970. Still, even after his son's birth Cash continued to struggle with drugs and had to eventually seek inpatient care at the Betty Ford Center in 1983.

Bono, the lead singer of U2, tells the story of visiting Cash and eating dinner at Cash's house in Nashville. As Bono recounts, “Johnny said the most beautiful, most poetic grace you’ve ever heard. Then he leaned over to me with this devilish look in his eye and said, ‘But I sure miss the drugs.’”

All that to say, Johnny Cash was a man who could speak to those in the darkness of addiction, those who know the cycles of dependence, cleaning up, relapse, and moving through these seasons of light and darkness throughout a lifespan.

Two songs--one early and one late career--come to mind in thinking about how Cash gave voice to those struggling with drug use and addiction.

The first song is "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down." The song was written by Kris Kristofferson and was covered by both Ray Stevens and Kristofferson. But Cash's version in 1970 topped the country charts.

The lyrics of "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down" tell the story of a man waking up on a Sunday morning with a hangover. To help with the headache he drinks two beers for breakfast. Disheveled, the man stumbles out of the house to take a walk.

On the walk the man lights up a cigarette. He passes by a home where he smells "the Sunday smell of someone fryin' chicken." The smell takes him back to a painful memory, "back to somethin' / that I'd lost somewhere, somehow along the way." The man passes by a full church. And a park with a Dad pushing his daughter on a swing. All these sights, smells and sounds bring the ache of alienation. The life of drug use has caused the man to be solitary and alone. And so he sings a lament, the chorus of the song:

On a Sunday morning sidewalk
I'm wishing, Lord, that I was stoned
'Cause there's something in a Sunday
That makes a body feel alone

And there ain't nothin' short of dyin'
As half as lonesome as the sound
Of a sleepin' city sidewalk
And Sunday mornings coming down

Johnny Cash knew that feeling. Waking up from the drugs on a Sunday morning and feeling adrift, cut off from family from faith from life itself.

The second song to note here is the song "Hurt," the Trent Reznor (of Nine Inch Nails) song Cash covered on the Rick Rubin produced album American IV: The Man Comes Around.

In 1993 Cash felt his music career was over. But the successful hip-hop and rock producer Rick Rubin wanted to work with a legend. So Rubin approached Cash. Initially, Cash was skeptical. Mainly from self-doubt. But the two men hit it off and eventually produced six albums. Rubin and Cash recorded songs together right up to Cash's death in 2003. The albums Cash and Rubin did together were both critical and popular successes and made Johnny Cash relevant to a whole new generation.

One of Rubin's ideas was to have Cash cover material outside of Cash's genre, songs from punk, metal and alternative rock bands. The idea was genius. The lyrics of angst-filled youth when paired with Cash's older, faltering and gritty voice pulled out of the songs unseen depths of meaning and pathos. The most famous example of this is Cash's version of "Hurt."

"Hurt" was written by Reznor in the midst of his heroin addiction. But sung by Cash the song takes on a retrospective feel, a old man looking back on a lifetime of pain, loss and hurt. And much of that hurt, we know, was due to Cash's own personal struggles with drug addiction. Sung by a man looking back on a lifetime of pain and regret Cash's "Hurt" is haunting and heart-breaking:

I hurt myself today
To see if I still feel
I focus on the pain
The only thing that's real
The needle tears a hole
The old familiar sting
Try to kill it all away
But I remember everything

Chorus:
What have I become
My sweetest friend
Everyone I know goes away
In the end
And you could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt

I wear this crown of thorns
Upon my liar's chair
Full of broken thoughts
I cannot repair
Beneath the stains of time
The feelings disappear
You are someone else
I am still right here

Chorus:
What have I become
My sweetest friend
Everyone I know goes away
In the end
And you could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt

If I could start again
A million miles away
I would keep myself
I would find a way

The award-winning music video done by Cash for "Hurt" is widely considered to be one of the best music videos of all time.



Part 7: The Birth of the Man in Black

Any theology of Johnny Cash is going to spend time with the theme of solidarity expressed in his iconic song "The Man in Black." In the last post we focused on the solidarity Cash expressed for Native Americans in his album Bitter Tears. For other examples of that particular theme see also the openings of the albums Ride This Train and Sings the Ballads of the Old West.

In this post we turn to look at how Johnny Cash expressed solidarity with those in prison.

After switching from Sun Records to Columbia in 1958 Cash struggled to maintain the early success he had experienced with Sun. Columbia was starting to wonder if it should renew Cash's contract. In 1963 Cash found another hit single with "Ring of Fire" which temporarily buoyed his prospects with Columbia, but Cash was struggling to find a hit album with the Columbia label. Much of Cash's artistic struggles during this time were due to his deepening drug addiction.

For years Cash had been doing concerts in prisons. And the reception he received from those audiences and the energy created in those venues made Cash interested in doing a live album recording of one of these concerts. But Cash couldn't get the record label or his producer to take a chance on such a project.

But when Bob Johnson took over producing Cash's work for Columbia in 1967 Cash had finally found someone interested in the idea of recording a live prison concert.

And so it was on January 13, 1968 that Cash and his band recorded a concert in the Folsom State Prison in California. The recording of the concert became the album At Folsom Prison.

At Folsom Prison was a popular and critical success. The album threw Cash back into the national spotlight, revitalizing Cash's sagging career. Today At Folsom Prison is widely considered to be Cash's finest album.

Listening to At Folsom Prison you are struck by Cash's ease and rapport with the men in the prison. And while he never served a prison sentence, some of this rapport was due to the fact that Cash had himself been in jail many times. Cash's most publicized arrest occurred in 1965 when he was arrested by a narcotics squad in El Paso, TX. The picture of the handcuffed Johnny Cash, wearing dark sunglasses, made national headlines. His mug shot is pictured here.

The theme of solidarity for those in prison is vividly captured in the liner notes of the re-release of At Folsom Prison which contain a handwritten note from Johnny Cash written a few years before his death. It reads:

Folsom Prison Blues

The culture of a thousand years is shattered with the clanging of the cell door behind you. Life outside, behind you immediately becomes unreal. You begin to not care that it exists. All you have with you in the cell is your bare animal instincts.

I speak partly from experience. I have been behind bars a few times. Sometimes of my own volition sometimes involuntarily. Each time, I felt the same feeling of kinship with my fellow prisoners.

Behind the bars, locked out from “society,” you’re being re-habilitated, corrected, re-briefed, re-educated on life itself, without you having the opportunity of really reliving it. You’re the object of a widely planned program combining isolation, punishment, taming, briefing, etc., designed to make you sorry for your mistakes, to re-enlighten you on what you should and shouldn’t do outside, so that when you’re released, if you ever are, you can come out clean, to a world that’s supposed to welcome you and forgive you.

Can it work??? “Hell NO.” you say. How could this torment possibly do anybody any good…..But then, why else are you locked in?

You sit on your cold, steel mattressless bunk and watch a cockroach crawl out from under the filthy commode, and you don’t kill it. You envy the roach as you watch it crawl out under the cell door.

Down the cell block you hear a steel door open, then close. Like every other man that hears it, your first unconscious thought reaction is that it’s someone coming to let you out, but you know it isn’t.

You count the steel bars on the door so many times that you hate yourself for it. Your big accomplishment for the day is a mathematical deduction. You are positive of this, and only this: There are nine vertical, and sixteen horizontal bars on your door.

Down the hall another door opens and closes, then a guard walks by without looking at you, and on out another door.

“The son of a ….”

You’d like to say that you are waiting for something, but nothing ever happens. There is nothing to look forward to.

You make friends in the prison. You become one in a “clique,” whose purpose is nothing. Nobody is richer or poorer than the other. The only way wealth is measured is by the amount of tobacco a man has, or “Duffy’s Hay” as tobacco is called.

All of you have had the same things snuffed out of your lives. Every thing it seems that makes a man a man. A woman, money, a family, a job, the open road, the city, the country, ambition, power, success, failure – a million things.

Outside your cellblock is a wall. Outside that wall is another wall. It’s twenty feet high, and its granite blocks go down another eight feet in the ground. You know you’re here to stay, and for some reason you’d like to stay alive--and not rot.

So for the fourth time I have done so in California, I brought my show to Folsom. Prisoners are the greatest audience that an entertainer can perform for. We bring them a ray of sunshine in their dungeon and they’re not ashamed to respond, and show their appreciation. And after six years of talking I finally found the man who would listen at Columbia Records. Bob Johnston believed me when I told him that a prison would be the place to record an album live.

Here’s the proof. Listen closely to this album and you hear in the background the clanging of the doors, the shrill of the whistle, the shout of the men…even laughter from men who had forgotten how to laugh.

But mostly you’ll feel the electricity, and hear the single pulsation of two thousand heartbeats in men who have had their hearts torn out, as well as their minds, their nervous systems, and their souls.

Hear the sounds of the men, the convicts all brothers of mine with the Folsom Prison Blues.

--Johnny Cash

In the afterglow of the success of At Folsom Prison Cash followed up in 1969 with a second live prison concert album At San Quentin. At San Quentin was also a success and is mainly known for its breakout single "A Boy Named Sue."

But in keeping with our focus on the theme of solidarity I'd like to draw your attention to the song "San Quentin" from the album.

If you look at the track listing of At San Quentin you'll note that the song "San Quentin" appears twice. And the reason this song appears twice is a wonderful example of Cash's ability to speak for the men in prison, to give voice to their sorrow, anger and hopelessness.

Cash wrote the song "San Quentin" in the days before the concert. He'd never preformed it before a live audience. Before singing it Cash looked out over the men in the prison and told them about the origin of the song:

“I was thinking about you guys here yesterday. I’ve been here three times before and...I think I understand a little bit about how you feel about some things. It’s none of my business about how you feel about some other things. And I don’t give a damn about how you feel about some other things. But anyway, I tried to put myself in your place, and I believe this is how I would feel about San Quentin.”

And then the song starts. The lyrics:

San Quentin, you've been livin' hell to me.
You've hosted me since nineteen sixty three.
I've seen 'em come and go and I've seen them die.
And long ago I stopped askin' why.

San Quentin, I hate every inch of you.
You've cut me and have scarred me thru an' thru.
And I'll walk out a wiser weaker man;
Mister Congressman why can't you understand?

San Quentin, what good do you think you do?
Do you think I'll be different when you're through?
You bent my heart and mind and you warped my soul,
And your stone walls turn my blood a little cold.

San Quentin, may you rot and burn in hell.
May your walls fall and may I live to tell.
May all the world forget you ever stood.
And may all the world regret you did no good.

San Quentin, you've been livin' hell to me.

The prisoners of San Quentin went wild. So wild they demanded Cash sing the song again. Immediately. So Cash does. And that's why the song "San Quentin" appears twice, back to back, on the album.

Cash had, once again, found a way to speak for those on the margins. He had found the words that expressed the lament of the inmates of San Quentin.

San Quentin, you've been livin' hell to me.

When you listen to the album you can hear the men cheer and cheer.

Part 6: I Will Let You Down, I Will Make You Hurt

Recently, the following search terms brought someone to the blog:

jesus crucified over adam's grave

Were you aware that Jesus was crucified over Adam's grave?

In 2008 I got really interested in Orthodox iconography. Which eventually drew me into Orthodox theology, some of which ended up in my recent book The Slavery of Death. 

Flowing out of this interest, in 2008 a wrote a bit about the iconography of the crucifixion.

To start, some fairly obvious features found in these icons.

First, we tend to see Mary and the women to the left of the cross. Mary is sometimes distinguished as the only woman with a halo around her head. On the other side of the cross is John, also with a halo, and the Centurion who confesses that “Surely this was the Son of God.”

In the background we see the city walls and gates of Jerusalem. This depicts Jesus being crucified “outside the gate,” a reference to the scapegoat ritual during the Day of Atonement where the scapegoat carries the sins of the people “outside the camp.”

In some icons we also see the sun and moon. The sun is generally darkened. The moon is colored red. These symbols echo the passage in Scripture:

Revelation 6.12-13
I watched as he opened the sixth seal. There was a great earthquake. The sun turned black like sackcloth made of goat hair, the whole moon turned blood red, and the stars in the sky fell to earth, as late figs drop from a fig tree when shaken by a strong wind.

This passage in Revelation is believed to refer to the earthquake associated with the death of Jesus:

Matthew 27.50-51
And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit. At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook and the rocks split.

This brings us to the more interesting and subtle features of the crucifixion icons, the subject of our search terms.

Specifically, if you look at the base of the cross in some icons you'll see a skull and perhaps even some bones.

The gospels report that Jesus was crucified at a place called Golgotha, the place of the skull. And according to church tradition the place of the skull was the burial site of Adam. Symbolically, then, Jesus is being crucified directly over Adam’s grave. In the icons we can see Adam's grave being cracked open exposing Adam’s skull and bones.

This image symbolizes a couple of different things.

First, there is in this the symbolism that Jesus is now replacing Adam as the New Adam. A new humanity is being established over the death of the old.

Second, we see in Adam’s skull the Orthodox notion that what was defeated at the cross was death. This is the same emphasis that has the Orthodox to focusing on the Harrowing of Hell at Easter.

Finally, beyond victory over death, victory over sin is symbolized as the blood of Jesus runs down off of the cross to cover and purify the skull and bones of Adam, representing all of sinful humanity. This particular motif is best seen in the last icon which is bloodier and, thus, clearly shows the blood of Jesus flowing down and over the skull.

Forget the well-known songs on Greatest Hits compilations, some of the best music of Johnny Cash is found on his concept albums. The first concept album, and considered one of Cash's best, was Ride This Train (1960). A few years later in 1964 Cash followed up with another concept album Bitter Tears: Ballads of the American Indian.

When we talk about Cash's music standing in solidarity with oppressed or marginalized groups I think the best place to start is with Bitter Tears and the tragedy of Native Americans in the United States.

Cash was troubled by the experience of the Native American. So he recorded Bitter Tears to give voice to this tragedy and to throw a light on how our history books have conveniently swept the genocide of Native Americans under the rug.

Given the content of the album Bitter Tears wasn't going to set any sales records. Cash struggled to get anyone to play the songs on the radio. Cash attributed the lack of airplay to moral cowardice and racism.

The album does contain strong stuff. Bitter Tears sounds like it came straight out of Howard Zinn's A People's History of the Untied States. On the album Cash revisits American history, only this time reading history from the perspective of the Native American rather than that of the White man.

For example, Bitter Tears starts off with the song "As Long as the Grass Shall Grow." The song recounts the loss of Seneca nation land in Pennsylvania due to the construction of the Kinzua Dam in the early 1960s. The song begins with the treaty and promises made by the US government giving that land to the Seneca nation. The treaty signed by George Washington gave the land to the Seneca nation forever: "for as long as the grass shall grow and the moon shall rise." But forever really wasn't forever. The treaty was broken, like so many of the treaties signed by the US government with the various Native American nations.

The most shocking song on Bitter Tears is "Custer," a Native American recounting of the death of General Custer at Little Bighorn. The refrain of the song delights in the death of Custer by gloating "the General he don't ride well anymore." The song speaks to how the victors are the ones write the history books: "It's not called an Indian victory but a bloody massacre." And the song ends by taking delight in how Custer's flowing blond hair got scalped:

General George A. Custer, oh his yellow hair had lustre
But the General he don't ride well anymore
For now the General's silent, he got barbered violent
And the General he don't ride well anymore

And you'll have to listen to the song to hear how Cash chortles with delight when singing about Custer getting scalped. In this song is Cash giving voice to Native American rage. "Custer" is an imprecatory psalm, like Psalm 137:

By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept
when we remembered Zion.

How can we sing the songs of the Lord
while in a foreign land?

Daughter Babylon, doomed to destruction,
happy is the one who repays you
according to what you have done to us.

Happy is the one who seizes your infants
and dashes them against the rocks.

The lament and rage continue in the song "Apache Tears," a song recounting the horrors of the US government forcibly removing Native Americans from their land and marching them to reservations. Thousands died on these "trails of tears." One verse from "Apache Tears" recounts an Indian woman raped to death by drunken soldiers:

Dead grass, dry roots, hunger crying in the night
Ghost of broken hearts and laws are here
And who saw the young squaw, they judged by their whiskey law
Tortured till she died of pain and fear
Where the soldiers lay her back, are the black Apache tears

I bet you are starting to see why Bitter Tears didn't get much radio airplay.

The most famous song of Bitter Tears is "The Ballad of Ira Hayes." Ira Hayes, a Native American, was one of the five Marines who raised the American flag at Iwo Jima, captured in the iconic photograph. But like so many Native American men, Ira Hayes succumbed to alcoholism upon his return to the States. Ira Hayes, veteran and American hero, died lying in a ditch from exposure and alcohol poisoning.

Finally, the song "White Girl" tells an intimate story about how racism is tied up with sex, romance and marriage. A "white girl" toys around with a Native American man, treating him like an exotic plaything and showpiece. But he really falls in love and proposes marriage. She rejects him on racial grounds. It was fun while it lasted, but it never was in the cards. What was he thinking? A "white girl" would never marry an Indian:

She took me to her parties
She carried me around
And I was a proud one
The tallest man in town
...

Well, when she came to leave me
She took me by the arm
And she said, she loved me
And would not do me harm

But she would not marry
Not an Indian she said
She thanked me for my offer
And I wished that I was dead

Such are the songs on Bitter Tears, one of Johnny Cash's most courageous albums. Bitter Tears was never going to sell a lot of records, but it stands out for its conviction and conscience. Bitter Tears is an album that speaks about tragedy, suffering and injustice across the spectrum of the Native American experience. This was Johnny Cash trying to give voice to that suffering and prick the conscience of his nation.

Through these songs Johnny Cash tried to draw our hearts and minds toward the bitter tears we had caused, ignored and forgotten.

Part 5: San Quentin You've Been Living Hell to Me

Beyond how Johnny Cash's music speaks to both saints and sinners--more specifically to the saint and the sinner in each of us--the other prominent theme in Johnny Cash's music is that of solidarity.

Cash's music always tried to speak with and for the marginalized, forgotten, oppressed, broken and criminal. Cash's music often came from the margins. Cash tried to speak for people who had no voice.

And as a sign of this solidarity with those on the margins in the early '70s Cash took to wearing all black clothing during his concerts, in sharp contrast to the flashy fringes and rhinestones of his Nashville contemporaries. Johnny Cash dressed like he was going to a funeral. Dressing in black was a sign of grief and mourning, especially during Vietnam as the war wore on and the death toll ticked up.

Cash summarized the symbolism of his clothing in his famous song "The Man in Black":

Well, you wonder why I always dress in black,
Why you never see bright colors on my back,
And why does my appearance seem to have a somber tone.
Well, there's a reason for the things that I have on.

I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down,
Livin' in the hopeless, hungry side of town,
I wear it for the prisoner who has long paid for his crime,
But is there because he's a victim of the times.

I wear the black for those who never read,
Or listened to the words that Jesus said,
About the road to happiness through love and charity,
Why, you'd think He's talking straight to you and me.

Well, we're doin' mighty fine, I do suppose,
In our streak of lightnin' cars and fancy clothes,
But just so we're reminded of the ones who are held back,
Up front there ought 'a be a Man In Black.

I wear it for the sick and lonely old,
For the reckless ones whose bad trip left them cold,
I wear the black in mournin' for the lives that could have been,
Each week we lose a hundred fine young men.

And, I wear it for the thousands who have died,
Believen' that the Lord was on their side,
I wear it for another hundred thousand who have died,
Believen' that we all were on their side.

Well, there's things that never will be right I know,
And things need changin' everywhere you go,
But 'til we start to make a move to make a few things right,
You'll never see me wear a suit of white.

Ah, I'd love to wear a rainbow every day,
And tell the world that everything's OK,
But I'll try to carry off a little darkness on my back,
'Till things are brighter, I'm the Man In Black. 

Personally, "The Man in Black" isn't my favorite song that expresses Cash's solidary with the downtrodden. I love the theology of the song. I don't like the rhyme or music all that much.

My personal favorite song expressing this theme is a song Cash wrote for his album Orange Blossom Special entitled "All God's People Ain't Free." When you hear "All God's People Ain't Free" you'd think it was a traditional Negro Spiritual. But it was a Johnny Cash original:

I'd sing more about more of this land
But all God's children ain't free
I'd open up every door I can
'Cause all God's children ain't free

I met a beaten broken man
He shovels dirt but got no land
And he held out his hand to me
All God's children ain't free

I'd sing along to a silly song
But all God's children ain't free
I'm gonna sing a blues for the men they done wrong
'Cause all God's children ain't free

Mister, how about the man you condemn to die
By taking everything that he's livin' by?
And reject him from society
All God's children ain't free
No, reject him from society
All God's children ain't free

I'd be happy walking any street
But all God's children ain't free
I'd have a smile for all I meet
But all God's children ain't free

I'd whistle down the road but I wouldn't feel right
I'd hear somebody cryin' out at night
From a sharecropper's shack or penitentiary
All God's children ain't free

From a sharecropper's shack or penitentiary
All God's children ain't free

Now that's a freedom song.

This theme of solidarity--grieving alongside and for the hungry, the addicted, the criminal, the poor, the old, the beaten down, the dead--is the other great theological theme in Cash's music. And there's not much more to add, theologically, beyond Cash's own lyrics in "The Man in Black."

So rather than simply repeat the theme what I'd like to do is illustrate the theme in the next four posts by looking closely at four specific populations and how Cash expressed solidarity with each. How Cash tried to be "the man in black" for each.

We'll start in the next post with the Native American Indians.

Part 4: Bitter Tears

My good friend Mark Love, who is the Director of the Resource Center for Missional Leadership at Rochester College and who directs the only graduate program I teach in, reminded me about some of his theological reflections regarding the saint and sinner themes in the music and life of Johnny Cash.

In my post on this subject today my observations were mainly descriptive, simply noting the stark moral juxtapositions in the music of Johnny Cash and in the man himself. Johnny Cash was both sinner and saint. And his music reflected that.

Mark's reflections go deeper. Specifically, Mark notes that in light of our dual nature--that we are, in Martin Luther's formulation, simultaneously both sinner and saint--it's often hard to forge a coherent identity. For Johnny Cash the task was how to reconcile his outlaw image with the saint.

In Mark's view, Cash achieved this reconciliation when his outlaw image was replaced with suffering, best exemplified in Cash's late recordings with Rick Rubin. As Mark argues it, Cash eventually found a coherent identity when he shifted away from outlaw/saint to sufferer/saint. And in this trajectory Mark sees the shape of the gospel.

You can read Mark's reflections here: Johnny Cash, Outlaw, Sufferer and the Gospel.

Martin Luther's famous formulation was simul justus et peccator. We are simultaneously both sinner and saint. We are sinners but we are also righteous in that we are saved by grace.

And while I might be stretching the idea beyond what Luther intended, I think simul justus et peccator is a great summary of the theology of Johnny Cash.

In 2000 Cash put out a 3-album compilation of hand-picked songs looking back over his career. The compilation was entitled Love God Murder. (A fourth album Life as added later.)

Few recording artists could have produced such stark juxtapositions looking back over their career.

For the Love album Cash picked love songs like his big hits "I Walk the Line" and "Ring of Fire."  But I want to focus on the other two albums, God and Murder.

From the beginning Johnny Cash recorded gospel songs. The first one was "Belshazzar" recorded in 1957 with Sun Records, the only gospel song Sam Phillips allowed Cash to record. Once Cash left Sun to join Columbia Records he had more liberty to record gospels songs and albums. He quickly exercised that artistic freedom in 1959 to record an entire album of gospel music Hymns By Johnny Cash. For the rest of his career Cash included gospels songs on his albums as well as recording many more gospel albums. Noteworthy among these is The Gospel Road (1973), the soundtrack to the movie The Gospel Road. The Gospel Road was a musical documentary of the life of Jesus that was produced and narrated by Cash and shot on location in Israel.

All that to say, Cash's body of work features a great deal of gospel material, even a movie, all of which is very devout and earnest. The God album of Love God Murder features many of these songs.

And the Murder album features, well, all the songs Cash sang about murder.

As with Cash's gospel songs, this dark impulse was there from the very beginning. The second big hit recorded by Cash with Sun Records (the first was "Hey, Porter") in 1955 was "Folsom Prison Blues." The second verse of the song contains the chilling, sociopathic lines:

When I was just a baby my mama told me. Son,
Always be a good boy, don't ever play with guns.
But I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.  

I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die. When they recorded the song in 1955 Cash and Sam Phillips weren't sure if radio stations would play the song because of that line. But the song did get played and became one of Cash's biggest hits.

Such are the songs on the Murder album. Songs like the traditional murder ballad "Delia's Gone," a song Cash originally recorded in 1962 but one he revisited late in his career in 1994 on the first album he did with Rick Rubin, American Recordings. "Delia's Gone" tells the story of a man shooting his girlfriend and later being haunted by her ghost in prison:

Delia, oh, Delia Delia all my life
If I hadn't have shot poor
Delia I'd have had her for my wife
Delia's gone, one more round Delia's gone

I went up to Memphis
And I met Delia there Found her in her parlor
And I tied to her chair
Delia's gone, one more round Delia's gone

She was low down and trifling
And she was cold and mean
Kind of evil make me want to Grab my sub machine
Delia's gone, one more round Delia's gone

First time I shot her I shot her in the side
Hard to watch her suffer
But with the second shot she died
Delia's gone, one more round Delia's gone

But jailer, oh, jailer Jailer,
I can't sleep 'Cause all around my bedside
I hear the patter of Delia's feet
Delia's gone, one more round Delia's gone

So if you woman's devilish
You can let her run
Or you can bring her down and do her
Like Delia got done
Delia's gone, one more round Delia's gone

That's a dark, dark song.

All told, these are the sorts of songs on the God and Murder albums, and they help illustrate a juxtaposition that I'd like the draw out about Cash's music. This is the startling moral juxtaposition of God and Murder, the juxtaposition of all those dark, sociopathic songs with all those gospel songs.

Saints and sinners held simultaneously in the same artistic vision. And embodied by the artist himself.

Consider, for example, the moral contrast found in Cash's concert performances. Listen to At San Quentin, the live concert album recorded in San Quentin prison. (I'll talk more about this album and the epic At Folsom Prison album later in this series.)

Early in the San Quentin concert Cash is cussing and joking about his own stints in jail and his own drug use. This is the "bass ass" Johnny Cash. This is the concert where Cash gave the finger to a photographer and was captured in an iconic photo.

This is Johnny Cash the sinner.

But halfway through the concert (if you listen to the 2000 release of the full concert) Cash changes and shifts into gospel mode. In the second half of the concert Cash sings three gospel songs "There Will Be Peace in the Valley," "He Turned Water Into Wine," and "The Old Account Was Settled Long Ago." Before singing "He Turned Water Into Wine" Cash shares with the inmates about how he composed the song in the town of Cana while he was in Israel preparing for The Gospel Road album and movie.

This is Johnny Cash the saint.

Which brings us back to Martin Luther's simul justus et peccator.

I think one of the most interesting things about the music and life of Johnny Cash, something very unique about him, is this mixture of light and darkness. There's a lot of dark, murderous music out there. And there's a lot of devout, earnest Christian music out there. And most artists sing one sort of music or the other.

But Johnny Cash sang both.

Johnny would sing about sociopathic killers and Jesus in almost the same breath. And Cash himself exhibited this mixture of light and darkness. Cash was a devout Christian who read his bible daily. Even in the midst of deep drug addiction.

Saint and sinner.

And this is, I think, a huge part of the appeal of Johnny Cash, his life and his music. Cash's music and his life, very much like the Psalms, speak to both the light and the darkness in each of us in equal measure.

Simul justus et peccator. 

We are, simultaneously, both sinner and saint.

Part 3: The Man In Black