Worth the Price of Admission

When my mother waxed eloquent about
Walk the Line, I rented the video -- and greatly enjoyed it.

The opening, at Folsom Prison during a break in Johnny Cash's famous live concert, draws one immediately into the darkness of a painful life. Clearly there are demons here. Once alerting us to the direction to be explored, the film fades into flashback to begin the story.

If one's image of Cash is only the late-in-life Cash touring with Billy Graham, one would not be prepared for the Folsom Prison concert. But after taking the journey, we return to the scene at Folsom, near the end of the film, now prepared for what will happen next, and we are one with the prison audience. It's powerful, exciting, and moving.

But this is icing on the cake. The price of admission was earned in the immediately preceding scene. While Cash is reinventing himself, following his disasterous and painful plunge into the prodigal's pigsty, he identifies with prisoners -- those who ruined their lives through stupid decisions. He has compassion for them, for he sees himself in them. And he approaches his producers with the idea for a concert at Folsom, and recording the concert live.

His producers are aghast.

One argues that he would lose his audience:

Producer:

"Your fans are church folks, Johnny.
Christians.

They don't want to hear you singing to
a bunch of murderers and rapists...
trying to cheer them up."

Johnny Cash:

"Well, they're not Christians then."

I'm not sure it ever struck me as clearly as that before. This strange, odd God, who would rather cheer up murderers and rapists than to enforce karma. Righteousness and Justice in the Kingdom of God is certainly not what we ever dreamed or expected it be.

But it sure is what we need it to be.

The Lord be with you,