Johnny Cash was the real ‘Man in Black.’
He knew that moral courage and virtue and true compassion covered a multitude of human frailties.He chose the good, the true, and the beautiful.
He chose life.
Our lives are very much the richer and more beautiful and poignant for his loving us.
I wonder if Johnny Cash knew that the warts-and-all portrayal of the Jewish patriarchs and prophets was his own experience too.
He made no claims to perfection.
It was his consciousness of his poverty before the absoluteness and inescapability of the Good, that redeemed his soul from the grave.
The one who knows he has erred much will be forgiven much.
Perhaps Johnny Cash would have been the last to set himself up as a model.
But then, as the wise and noble Aslan told the four children, it is precisely those who consider themselves unfit to rule in the kingdom of virtue, who are most prepared to break down the walls of iron and of bronze, that the power and the compassion and the beauty of the new life shall have its resting place.
Remember us, Johnny.
For our part, we shall remember you.
