Emily Esfahani Smith remembers Johnny Cash’s spirituality:

“I don’t compromise my religion,” Cash once declared. “If I’m with someone who doesn’t want to talk about it, I don’t talk about it. I don’t impose myself on anybody in any way, including religion. When you’re imposing you’re offending, I feel. Although I am evangelical, and I’ll give the message to anyone that wants to hear it, or anybody that is willing to listen. But if they let me know that they don’t want to hear it, they ain’t never going to hear it from me. If I think they don’t want to hear it, then I will not bring it up. “

In short, “telling others is part of our faith all right, but the way we live it speaks louder than we can say it,” Cash said. “The gospel of Christ must always be an open door with a welcome sign for all. “

“There’s nothing hypocritical about it,” Cash told Rolling Stone scribe Anthony DeCurtis. “There is a spiritual side to me that goes real deep, but I confess right up front that I’m the biggest sinner of them all.” To Cash, even his near deadly bout with drug addiction contained a crucial spiritual element. “I used drugs to escape, and they worked pretty well when I was younger. But they devastated me physically and emotionally—and spiritually … [they put me] in such a low state that I couldn’t communicate with God. There’s no lonelier place to be. I was separated from God, and I wasn’t even trying to call on Him. I knew that there was no line of communication. But He came back. And I came back.”

And while his body suffered under the strain wrought by years of abuse, Cash’s mind stayed strong … and his spirit stayed stronger.

“Being a Christian isn’t for sissies,” Cash said once. “It takes a real man to live for God–a lot more man than to live for the devil, you know? If you really want to live right these days, you gotta be tough.” What’s more, he’s intimately aware of the hard truths about living God’s way: “If you’re going to be a Christian, you’re going to change. You’re going to lose some old friends, not because you want to, but because you need to.”

“Being a Christian isn’t for sissies.” Can you imagine a pop star saying that today in our metrosexual culture? Which brings me to another point: just as Cash’s spirituality is starkly present in his songs, so is his smoldering manliness–two qualities that could stand to make a comeback among our popular singers and songwriters today.