Know What I Mean?

The following lyrics for 'Hurt' come with all of the hurt, pain, and crying-out-loud honesty of an Old Testament psalm. Sung and publicized by Johnny Cash shortly before his death, these words hurt in the singing, in the reading and in the remembering. The hope of keeping oneself and finding another way if given more time, another chance - is gone. O, if only to have another shot at getting life right.

All the many ways we hurt ourselves and others (reality check !! - all the many ways I hurt myself - and others), till there comes a time, an age when we are past feeling even our hurts.

Though Johnny Cash was a Christian - after many years of wandering and wondering and trying to find love (often, as do we all, in all the wrong places) the deep feelings and memories of past failures haunt him, as maybe they do us, too. 

Better a living dog than a dead lion, says the proverb and one who is alive may yet hope again but only, only through Him who is Hope and Life himself.

Here's the song - Jesus in the Hope, the Healer.

I hurt myself today

To see if I still feel

I focus on the pain

The only thing that’s real

The needle tears a hole

The old familiar sting

Try to kill it all away

But I remember everything

What have I become?

My sweetest friend

Everyone I know

Goes away in the end

You could have it all

My empire of dirt

I will let you down

I will make you hurt

I wear this crown of thorns 

Upon my liar’s chair

Full of broken thoughts

I cannot repair

Beneath the stains of time

The feelings disappear

You are someone else

I am still right here

What have I become?

My sweetest friend

Everyone I know

Goes away in the end

You could have it all

My empire of dirt

I will let you down

I will make you hurt

If I could start again

A million miles away

I would keep myself

I would find a way

- written by Trent Reznor, Nine Inch Nails