"AMERICANA ON TWO LEGS"

Ralph Emery defines Johnny Cash pretty well in those four words. Is there anyone more red, white, and blue...than the man in black? Yet there was so much more to Johnny.

You may or may not like the cavernous baritone voice, but Johnny Cash songs touch raw emotion in audiences. His ballads connect as poetry set to rhythm. Since 1959, the man has sold over 53 million albums, and he had at least two hit singles a year on the Country music chart for 33 years running. Pretty impressive talent to come out of a dirt farm in Dyess, Arkansas.

Look at this precious face. How did he end up wearing black clothing? Most people would agree that the wardrobe schtick fits his maverick swim against the mainstream. J. R. Cash had a father-wound that left him an angry man in his early years. His life was full of contradictions:

a Bible scholar/an outlaw...

an unfaithful marriage partner/a faithful marriage partner...

a man full of pills and booze/a man clean and sober...

a writer of music that appealed to life outside authority/ a writer of music that appealed to life submitted to the ultimate Authority...

So who was the real Johnny Cash?

He was every man. One of his songs spoke of "the beast within me" to describe the internal battles that made his life hard. His earliest battle was with guilt when his brother Jack (left) died at age 14. Twelve-year-old John adored Jack and thought God took the wrong boy because Jack was "the good one".

In that battle and future addiction battles, all his wealth was of no use, except to enable. Surely there were times he desperately wished for the clock to be rolled back because of the people he had disappointed and hurt. He was a role model that needed a big "do-over". He knew to do right, but in the first half of his life he seemed powerless to live right. Ironically, his experiences birthed lyrics that gave others strength. He spoke up for the underdog and the overlooked. People loved the way he put words to what they felt.

Was he a contradiction? Yep. Johnny Cash was like sausage...a peppery blend.

This picture is Johnny with his first wife Vivian. She was 17 when they met. They dated 3 weeks before the Air Force sent him to Germany for 3 years. John returned and married Vivian a month later. Together they had four little girls.

John's son, John Carter Cash, was a co-producer for "Walk the Line", the movie that told his father's story. John Carter Cash says that his father began to really get serious about his faith about the time the movie's storyline ended. That would have been the late 60's...when Johnny gives June credit for helping him turn away from drugs and turn toward the Lord. They married in 1968.

So is this post-1968 Johnny Cash the real Johnny Cash? Was there a demonstrative change in his behavior? Do a fruit-check. He and June had a good marriage for 35 years. They ministered together, made millions, and gave away tons of money to the cause of Christ and to other projects near to Johnny's heart. They helped at Billy Graham crusades and John recorded CD's of gospel songs. He recorded a reading of the New Testament. He found peace with his father. In l986 he wrote a book about the apostle Paul entitled "The Man in White". He still struggled with drugs, but by all outward signs, Johnny Cash WAS the title of that book. But I would be a poor judge of another man's heart; the Lord is the only Righteous Judge.

It still is reasonable to think we could pull up a chair toward the end of Mr. Cash's life and listen as he sings of what he has learned. In the first of two videos (below), Johnny sings a song he did not write called "Hurt". See if you think it seems to fit Johnny Cash's life experience perfectly. (It helps to fit because that video has his life pictures behind the song.) The "Hurt" lyrics speak of his fame and trinkets as an "empire of dirt". The second link is to an audio written by Johnny Cash. Both videos were made just before his death, and they are heavy and real...a legacy to anyone who wants to avoid the Cash potholes.

When I first heard Johnny

sing "my sweetest friend" in

this first video, my first

thought was of June. But

on second thought, is that

who you think he is speaking

of?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o22eIJDtKho

And, this link is to what

I call Johnny's Easter song.

It is pure Johnny, pure faith.

http://www.youtube.com/watc

h?v=25EYTbrmgM8

God bless you, Johnny Cash.

"Compassion is our only hope, the compassion of you, the Master, our God, since in our rebellion we've forfeited our rights" Daniel 9.9 TM

"Jesus said...'I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live even if he dies'." John 11.25 NET

AWAKENING

The sun sent a long-distance text to the earth yesterday. "Wake up!"

Mike and I were out in the yard, talking about landscaping projects and loving the warmth on our backs.

If you were outside yesterday, you might have sensed the text message, too.

We could smell the ground again.

Yellowjackets were slowly moving around and the wrens were singing for joy.

What looked like dead sticks on the bushes began to swell and make buds.

I began to feel that uncontrollable urge to stroll through a plant nursery.

Soon there will be vibrant colors everywhere.

The crabapple...

Japonica...

Forsythia...

And the poor old trees in Fayetteville that broke off during the ice storm of 2008...will cover their brokenness with lush green leaves.

Unpredictable spring weather will be part of the package, too. Mark Twain says in the spring he

has counted 136 different kinds of weather inside

"four and twenty" hours. That wildness seems like pushback against the transition.

The Almighty is faithful to bring the earth back to life every year. Spring is a picture book for us. It is His kind reminder of life's most important lesson...there is life after death.

Thank you, Lord, for Spring.

"And the one sitting on the throne said, 'Look, I am making all things new!' And then he said to me, 'Write this down, for what I tell you is trustworthy and true.'" Revelation 21.5 NLT

POWER OF HUMOR

You can see our son Brad is coping well with his case of MPB (Male Pattern Baldness). Any psychological scarring seems to have been swept away by his dry wit. Brad has a fine-tuned funny bone. I love his humor!

On the 13th of this month, Brad will celebrate a birthday and his odometer rolls over to 34. This man's little red wagon is pretty full. He and Laura are expecting number three in July. I don't know any stats, but I'm guessing that the majority of households in Manhattan have less than five folks. Brad and Laura live in 750 square feet (on two levels), but that might have to change...

Laura was laughing about her husband the other day and told a story on him. See if you can picture this:

By day, Brad is a dentist in two hospitals, St. Luke and Roosevelt. Daily he walks nineteen blocks TO...and then nineteen blocks FROM work. This fall New York City had the heavy rains that we experienced down South. One morning when he got ready to leave for work AND IT WAS RAINING AGAIN...Dr. Cruse made a decision to walk to work in flip flops, a t-shirt, bathing trunks, and an umbrella. What a hoot.

Once at work he changes into scrubs anyway, but THAT day Brad was either intensely practical or totally innovative. Whichever, that's a picture that I choose to hold in my heart when I think of our son in fashionable New York City.

Minus eye contact, there may not have been five people who noticed.

"How beautiful...are the flip flops of those who bring good news of peace and salvation, the news that the God of Israel reigns!" Isaiah 52.7 NLT (amended)

GOT 'ER COVERED

In 1975, Mike flew out to hunt sheep at Muncho Lake, British Columbia. That was back in the day before cell phones, but Mike assured me that there was nothing to worry about. "But what about bears?" I asked. He explained that a bear would not bother the hunter with the rare exception of getting between a sow and her cub, or a bear and his kill.

It was the latter.

On the last day of the hunt, Mike and his guide Billy rounded a curve on a trail and their horses reared. Sure enough, about 75 yards ahead they could see a grizzly on a kill. Mike pulled out his handy-dandy-National-Geographic-capture-the-moment camera and began snapping. Just then Ole Griz picked up their scent (bears have notoriously bad eyes and a really good smeller); the bear dropped to all fours and began crashing through the thigh-high buck brush toward them. Billy was not armed and was at the mercy of his guest's marksmanship. My husband is a very good shot, but the guide couldn't have known that for sure. Mike heard his instructions loud and clear...(expletive deleted) "get your gun, man!"

The bear was close enough that when Mike put the scope to his eye, all he could see was brown hair. He adjusted, shot, and the bear fell dead at 12 steps. Although Mike has never smoked, that day he smoked a cigarette.

Why mention this story? We have been talking at our church about forgiveness. No, the grizzly did not forgive Mike. The bear was just doing what bears do. Apparently an unsuspecting billy goat had been on the trail, rounded the same curve, and the bear landed lunch. The grizzly would have eaten his fill of the "roadkill", taken his long claws and thrown dirt up over the carcass, gone a short distance away for a nice nap, and then returned for the second course. That's life in the bear world.

But the parallel I might offer from the people world is that when we have a dead thing in our lives (like a sin that is also festering and stinky), our first inclination is also to throw something over it and cover it up. The truly self-righteous can even wrap their sin creatively in bright shiny faux righteousness. I speak with some experience here...

Back in the 80's, Mike and I ended up in counseling to "fine tune" our marriage. That meant someone FRESH needed to step in and have a look at things because we couldn't get past our fusses. I very distinctly remember when the counselor turned to me and told me I was acting as my husband's Holy Spirit. Furthermore, the counselor said I should step back from that role because there was One who could do the job much better.

That was a wet-sock-in-the-face moment, but my heart knew immediately that the counselor was right. I had usurped Mike's leadership role. And all along I covered it under the guise of "helping". But God's admonition to me...what the Scripture calls a wife to do...is to "respect your husband". If I had respected Mike and his role, I would not have assumed his position. For the first time, I saw my actions as the Lord saw them. I asked Him...and then Mike...to forgive me.

Forgiveness is costly. It involves a "letting go" of the vigilante urge. It calls for a trust in God that you CAN take Him at His Word...because naturally speaking, forgiveness seems like the polar opposite of what would feel so good to do. Mike made a grace-ful decision that day in response to my plea. It feels really good to be forgiven. And that is true coverage.

"Happy is he who has forgiveness for his wrongdoing, and whose sin is covered." Psalm 32.1 BBE

CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?

My dear husband bought another hearing aid last month; now he has one in both ears. Those years of competitive shooting under a tin roof have caught up with him. People who have trouble hearing have to work so hard. They miss a lot, but it's not immediately evident. How could you possibly know what you haven't heard?

There are other ways to have a hearing loss. We have friends that we enjoy, but we would run into one another if the conversation got deeper than the weather. (Well, the weather is even politicized these days, so scratch that analogy.) These friends get their news from different sources than we do and it's no small wonder that they have different thoughts. The mainstream media (a variety of different channels) send out one message...and then you have another source for news over at Fox. Our friends have been told that Fox is not "real news" and what passes as news is just opinion by blowhards. I wouldn't be so motivated to watch, either...if I thought that was true.

May I offer a subjective and an objective example of change in the way mainstream news is reported?

Subjectively, when the Iraq War began (March of 2003), Mike and I were on a trip in south Arkansas in the Pooch Coach. We were only able to get one alphabet channel until Day 3 of the war. By that time, I was confused. We heard "shock and awe"...but at the same time, discouragement was the tone of the reporting. It didn't seem like the war effort was going well at all. Finally arriving in a camp site with cable access, we turned quickly to Fox News. It didn't seem like the same war! After that, we'd listen to Fox and then listen to another channel. In instance after instance, there was negativity and stories not deemed important enough for reporting. That slant created a far different picture.

But let's consider some hard, objective facts. The TV ratings report by Nielsen's (Friday, February 12, 2010) might be a clear example of what is happening in prime time. On that night, Fox had 2,323,000 viewers. All the rest TOGETHER had 1,637,000. Like it or not, there is topsy turvey going on in the news business. People no longer trust the networks for their news. http://publicpolicypolling.blogspot.com/2010/01/fox-leads-for-trust.html. Record numbers of Americans told the Pew Survey that they find news reporting to be inaccurate, biased, and shaped by private interests http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/14/business/media/14survey.html

If it is your opinion that Fox is an ultra-wacko channel, may I offer a challenge? Do a little comparin'. Watch the news on Fox (in addition to your favorite source) for a week. Compare what you hear...see for yourself...is there a difference? My favorite newscast is on during the 5-6:00 (CT) slot and is called "Special Report with Brett Baier". Brett finishes with a panel discussion that includes both sides of the issue. There are different panel members, but I find Charles Krauthammer very well-reasoned and thought provoking.

What's that AlkaSeltzer sez? "Try it, you'll like it." Well...at the very least it would be open-minded...

"Come, let us reason together..." Isaiah 1.18

A SWEET SPOT

My husband loved his grandparents.

Oscar and Bertha Robinson were weight-bearing walls of the New Antioch Baptist Church, which was just across the road from their farm. You can see the church in the background behind Little Mikie. Granddad started the woodstove in the mornings and sang in the choir; Grandmother played the piano every Sunday. Mr. Robinson was on the church board for 50 years, and they took the collection home after church to count the money. Together, they helped make church happen.

Mike's beginnings gave him a heart for smaller churches. Saints like his grandparents sit in the pews of such churches every Sunday. They are faithful, in spite of the lack of the "bells and whistles" that larger churches enjoy.

After Mike retired for the second time, he felt called to do what would turn out to be a ten-year stint at our church in Little Rock. He served Fellowship Bible Church as "project manager"...and was privileged to be aboard during a lot of different building projects and work alongside church planners from across the country.

Just before we moved to Fayetteville, Mike found himself working on the mother-of-all-projects. He helped with a 51 million dollar relocation of Fellowship. We realized one time as we flew into Little Rock that the new FBC does actually show up from the air. It looks sorta like a mall (see left).

Cue the moving trucks. When we headed north to Fayetteville, we just assumed that because we loved our church in Little Rock, we would just segway into Fellowship NW AR. That is where our kids go. It is a church of 6,000 and is working alive with young people and kiddos.

But God led in a different direction.

These are our new friends, Ron and Becky Wey. After we moved here, they kept saying..."you should come see our little church...Black Oak has such sweet people...it's a special place."

We did visit, and Black Oak Baptist Church has become our new church home. What a precious place! It is south of town and takes us about 30 minutes to drive there. BOBC has a great pastor who makes God's Word easily applicable. And not surprisingly, it reaches a tender place in my husband's heart for the body of Christ.

A week ago Sunday, we called church off because of our 6-8" snow. So by the time yesterday rolled around, we were really looking forward to getting back together and seeing everyone again. Unfortunately, we found out the central heat in the sanctuary was out and it registered 42 degrees inside. No one wanted to cancel, so we all crammed into the other "big" room which did have heat. Mike brought our two space heaters and the children's space was toasty for the two or three little ones. There is a pioneer spirit in the Lord's

smaller churches that causes people to "pitch in".

Yesterday a couple in their eighties came in late. Everyone clapped because they had been out sick for several weeks, trading a bronchial virus back and forth. I watched the man's face as we sang that old hymn "Heaven Came Down and Glory Filled My Soul". It was sung accapella (the piano didn't want to switch rooms) and there are some beautiful voices there who have sung parts for years. Jack had the most contented look on his face. He didn't want to start coughing, so he didn't dare sing. He just shut his eyes and the song bathed his soul.

Surely the Lord enjoyed the worship from our little spot yesterday. It was sweet. But then...that's what Ron and Becky told us.

"Come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord our Maker. For He is our God, and we are the people of His pasture, and the sheep of His hand." Psalm 95.6,7

HERE'S YOUR HAT, WHAT'S YOUR HURRY?

Sunday the Cruses were rushing to get out the door for church. We had 17 neighbors coming over for a potluck lunch, and Mike and I were both furiously slinging dishes and food. I jerked the baked apples out of the oven, turned the temp down for the meat, put in a packed Magnalite roaster full of pork loin covered in veggies...and got busy congratulating myself. Although we were 20 minutes late for church, "Martha" was getting it all done. We roared out of the driveway and return home later to discover I hadn't pushed the "start" button on the oven. Mike went to the Colonel's.

The moral of this story is "slow your roll". Of course, it turned out to be fine because after we all had chicken and played charades, the pork loin was tender and we all made to-go plates. But being in a hurry doesn't always turn out so fine.

Voters came out of the 08 polling places telling exit-pollsters about the issues that concerned them. Can you guess what was top of the list? It wasn't healthcare, it was the economy. Was healthcare second? Nope...terrorism, followed by the Iraq War. Straggling down toward the lower part of the list was healthcare.

Yet our leadership in Washington tried to convince us that the people's interest in healthcare was primo. The White House may be singing the "jobs" song NOW, but they led their charge with another card. We were led to believe that it would be a crisis if we didn't pass healthcare RIGHT AWAY.

And I'm remembering something else monumental during this past year stamped rush. It was something that the leadership said would result in widespread catastrophe if it didn't pass "yesterday". Remember the $787 billion stimulus? Quick, sign it! And the TARP at $700 billion? Too big to fail!

Reasonable people might be in agreement that government had a role in resolving these problems. They just wouldn't agree with the sweeping precedent for government's role as Spigot-in-Chief . Other options were not considered. Not enough time.

But IF in the future...something comes at us in the tyranny of the urgent (say, perhaps "Stimulus the Sequel")...could we please REMEMBER THE PORK LOIN and consider all the options before lurching? The first stimulus is only half spent, and it's trying to swerve into a slush fund for unauthorized projects.

"Careful planning puts you ahead in the long run; hurry and scurry puts you further behind." Proverbs 21.5 TM