You can run on for a long time, Run on for a long time
Run on for a long time...
Sooner or later God'll cut you down

Driving home from work last week, I couldn't find anything tolerable on the radio until I landed on Seattle's alleged "alternative" station 107.7 The End. Here I stumbled, quite surprisingly, on the familiar cadence of a dead man reminding listeners of God's inevitable justice. This new song caught my attention for two distinct reasons: one, the singer/songwriter Johnny Cash has been dead since 2003. Two, it strikes me as ironic that so many people in our city would be tapping their feet and resonating with a song that is simultaneously indicting them.

Go tell that long tongue liar
Go and tell that midnight rider
Tell the rambler, The gambler, The back biter
Tell 'em that God's gonna cut 'em down

Following in the steps of Tupac Shakur, Johnny Cash has put out a posthumous album but, unlike the dead rapper, this turn of events has essentially made the Man in Black a psalmist preaching from beyond the grave in his new album, American V: A Hundred Highways, which alternately expresses our need for God and the inevitable penalty for sin. Perhaps the Catholic Church should consider this a posthumous miracle and consider the Man in Black for sainthood. He paraphrases a verse from 1 Corinthians 4 and other passages in this verse from the song "God's Gonna Cut you Down":

Well you may throw your rock, hide your hand,
Workin' in the dark against your fellow man.
But as sure as God made black an' white,
What's done in the dark will be brought to the light.

The rock-a-billy country singer, known as the "Man in Black" long before Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones tried to steal the moniker, is beloved by many who don't even like country music. Cash wrestled with drugs, alcohol, and his own fame, ruining his first marriage and at one point nearly ending his life. However, in his later years a strong love and devotion was evinced not only for his second wife June, but for his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. (The story of Johnny and June recently went Hollywood with the film Walk the Line.) When June passed away in May 2003, Cash worked like a dog. In a New York Times article Producer Rick Rubin noted "I spoke to him when he was in the hospital when June passed away, and he said: `I'm not going to do all the things that people normally do when they lose their partner. I'm not going to go out and spend money or chase girls. I'm just going to work every day.' "

The first song on American V, "Help me" by Larry Gatlin is an earnest plea to God and the third song, "On the 309" is a railroad metaphor for his own imminent passing and the last song he wrote and recorded. However, Cash's worshipful and reflective nature emerged well before June's passing; he produced two amazing tracks on American IV. His cover of "Hurt", a song written by Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails in the early-1990s, became an award-winning video nominated in seven categories at the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards and won the award for Best Cinematography. Instead of the 30-something Reznor whining about his life, Cash's heartfelt rendition of a man truly looking back at his "empire of dirt" evoked Solomon's Ecclesiastical lament. His original track "When the Man Comes around" provided a look at Christ's return and Armageddon which is either glorious or frightening, depending on which team you're on.

"I wear the black for those who never read, or listened to the words that Jesus said..."

I hope people don't bob their heads to the plucky guitar strings of American V and only hear nostalgia. It's my fervent hope that Cash's technological ghost might prick some ears and be a tool the Holy Spirit uses to open some eyes, while Saint Johnny rests with Jesus and is finally the Man in White. I can only imagine that when he opened his new eyes to hear "Well done, good and faithful servant" his autonomic and sheepish response was "Hello. I'm Johnny Cash."

"How well I have learned that there is no fence to sit on between heaven and hell. There is a deep, wide gulf, a chasm, and in that chasm is no place for any man."
- Johnny Cash