Johnny Cash–What is Truth

The word I found from the post that I shared on Wednesday was “humility.” It is the act of getting down on our knees and admitting that we are not creators; that some other power has been around forever, helping everything and everyone find a place in this universe. It brings the proud man down and lifts the broken woman up. It provides the “light” that Hank Williams wrote about, but it does not relieve us of our responsibility or do our work for us.

Thus, Hank may have seen the light, but he did not have the moral courage to give up the bottle or the drugs. It was easier to drown the pain and seek oblivion. Roy Acuff once told Hank that he had “a million dollar voice and a ten-cent brain.”

The same thing can be said about George Jones. He could sing you right out of your shoes; but he could not escape his demons.

Contrast these two men with the stories of Merle Haggard and Johnny Cash. Merle was in San Quentin when he heard Cash sing in the prison cafeteria. Rebellious and aiming to escape rather than serve his sentence, Haggard had a guardian angel, another prisoner who told Haggard not to join an escape plan but serve his time. Haggard thought it over and realized that he had a choice. He could continue to rebel and spend the rest of his life either in jail or running from the law; or he could serve his time and find a purpose in life. In his one epiphany, he saved himself and gave the world a treasure of music.

With Cash, the San Quentin concert marked his return from addiction. He had lost his first wife; and the love of his life, June Carter, refused to marry him unless he got help. The Carter family and a doctor intervened, with Cash’s blessing; and Cash got clean, got married and got a whole new life.

In this process, he also got wisdom. His music preached peace and not war; yet he never spoke out against his government in a political way. He went on USO tours to entertain the troops but never endorsed the war. He didn’t equivocate; he did what we do now. We debate; but we learned not to undermine the troops by publicly siding with the enemy that we are fighting. When invited to the White House by President Nixon, he went but sang his song, “What Is Truth?”