The Church of St Johnny

Timing is everything.  Two weeks before Christmas 2003, I told E I was leaving.  We hobbled through the holidays with our secret weighing us down, our children unaware that all was about to change forever. 

We waited until our fir tree was less than evergreen, shedding its sticky needles onto the living room rug, and on the worst day of our lives, we told them it was over.  I will leave the details of that terrible evening in the sanctuaries of my daughters' and their parents' collective memory.  Despite their acceptance of our divorce as "the best thing", the pain which it caused my daughters is something I will regret forever.

I moved out a day or two before New Year's Eve.  My friend Steve came over and helped me strap a bed onto the roof of my old Mercedes wagon.  We brought it, along with my trusty Lowden guitar and a small TV, to the apartment.  Steve helped me set up the bed, and then left. 

I sat on the bare mattress and wept.

I wept for my children.  I wept with the same uncertainty I knew they were feeling.  What was to become of us?  What lay ahead of us?  I wept, my soul knowing more than I was conscious of, knowing that I was about to unearth feelings that I had shoved into the furthest corners of my worn down heart.  I wept, hoping God Almighty would have mercy on me, and receive my tears as a bitter, salty, early Passover offering, while wondering if he might forget me.

That evening, I went to a party at the Capitol Grille, hosted by my friends John and Natasha.  Originally, I had planned on bringing E, but now all had changed, so I brought my old friend Dennis instead.  We sat among John's coworkers, dining on Kobe steaks and drinking copious amounts of Cabernet.  Exuberantly happy, I finally went back to my little apartment and wrapped myself in the swaddling purple sheets of my single man's queen-sized bed.

I'm don't often remember my dreams, although when accompanied by a few glasses of red wine, they seem more insistent on being recognized.  Shamans, prophets, seers, and soothsayers all place stock in the nocturnal playground of the subconscious.  With all the noise that accompanies consciousness, perhaps there's something to the idea of the Spirit finding a wider berth in the vessel of our dreams.

Dehydrated, I woke at Three AM.  My thirst had interrupted a dream which was fresh and vivid.  My mind had taken me on a row boat ride with the ghost of Johnny Cash sitting in the stern and dispensing homespun wisdom to me as I rowed across a choppy sea. 

Knowing there was something in the phrase "The ghost of Johnny Cash", I immediately rose, found my laptop, and began writing a lyric.  Four verses later, I sent the pieces to my friend Chuck, a fellow songwriter, and we began sending verses back and forth until we had a finished lyric a few months later.

"The Ghost of Johnny Cash"
Chuck Cannon & Phil Madeira

woke up in a cold sweat
from a dream at 3 a.m.
driftin on the sea of shadows
the rain was whippin in the wind
i saw a man dressed all in black
reach out and take the helm
and he charted us a course
into the spirit realm

i can taste the salt
and feel the blisters on my hands
as i'm pullin at the oars
rowin on to glory land
sittin in the stern
singing hymns and talkin trash
is my broken guardian angel
the ghost of Johnny Cash

johnny's quotin from the Bible
i'm tryin to steer this leaky craft
his familiar voice reminds me
i'm a man who's cut in half
his tarnished halo slips and shines
as ragin billows crash
i'm riding out the deluge
with the ghost of Johnny Cash

you gotta stand for something
cause when you're gone you're gone
the devil lost a lot of souls
when johnny put that black suit on
he's still flippin off the pharisees
and laughin at ole Scratch
and he haunts the halls of heaven
the ghost of Johnny Cash

SOME SINNERS NEED THEIR SAINTS TO BE
SURVIVORS OF THE FALL
CAUSE WHEN YOU'RE DOWN HERE ON YOUR KNEES
MOST ANGELS LOOK TOO TALL
SO I'LL JUST LIVE THIS LIFE OUT
DUST TO DUST AND ASH TO ASH
WITH MY GUIDE FROM THE OTHER SIDE
THE GHOST OF JOHNNY CASH

I'LL JUST LIVE THIS LIFE OUT
DUST TO DUST AND ASH TO ASH
TIL I'M RAISIN HELL IN HEAVEN
WITH THE GHOST OF JOHNNY CASH
©2004

I was a man who was cut in half, broken but believing, and somehow newly set free, although being set adrift was the true feeling of what looked to some like freedom.  In my marriage, I felt no embrace clinging to me in love, and now I felt none either, but I hoped that the arms of God  Almighty were wrapping around me as I descended into the abyss.

I needed that vision of Johnny on that old January night. 

Johnny was someone I could relate to, a broken screw-up who had no pretensions.  There were no skeletons in his closet; they were out in the open, lounging about his Tennessee home like old rivals and lovers at a reunion, awkwardness be damned.  Of all the ghosts I could've dreamt of, thank God it was Johnny.

Johnny sat in the low end of my little boat, where the water splashes easily over the sides and into the hull, and where the bilge settles if you don't bail.  My hands were raw, and my feet were getting cold and wet, but with Johnny singing hymns and cursing the wind, I knew I wasn't alone on my perilous journey.

Sometimes, I find myself in ancient places of worship, with statues of saints staring through me as if I'm not there.  Stained glass windows hold images of the holy in heavy solder borders, immovable and motionless, unreachable, although many people whisper prayers to them.  Some of these saints lived their lives in near perfect holiness, sacrificially carving out the Name of an Incarnate God into the heart of the church.  Yet, I've never been inclined to whisper a petition to one of these images, no matter how beautiful and perfect it might be.   I'm too busy trying to carve my name into the heart of God.

If I were to build a cathedral to the glory of God Almighty, the saints in residence would be like The Man in Black.  The sun would shine through cracked glass images that I could brush my fingers against with a sense recognition, as if looking at photographs of my ancestors.   Statues wouldn't stand in holy poses, but would bend under the weight of burdens and failures, looking parishioners dead in the eye, smiling a crooked grin.

In my heart's cathedral, there is a floating stained glass window, where St Johnny sits in the stern of a rowboat as the sea rages around him.  He's ailing and wild-eyed like John the Baptist in the Old West.  His halo tilts like a ragged pork pie hat, and his feet are covered with salt water.  He knows where he's been, does he ever, and his eyes are on the horizon.

Johnny is all the saint I need to get to where I'm going.