Mouths of Babes II

I don’t recall where we were going but the four of us, the whole family, were in the car on a sunny day, the boys in the back seat reading, me in the driver’s seat, and their mom in the passenger seat.

Music was playing and I was explaining to the boys’ mother the meaning of a song she didn’t understand: 

I was a highwayman, along the coach roads I did ride, sword and pistol by my side…

This deeply spiritual tune featuring Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson, and Johnny Cash is one of my all-time favorites.  Four distinctly different voices tell something about their lives, the first three also sharing the manner of their deaths.

And when the ‘yards broke off they said that I got killed, but I am livin’ still…

Each noting that despite having “died,” they still exist.

I had quickly translated and explained the first three verses, but came upon a challenge with the fourth.  The distinct penetrating voice of Johnny Cash begins with:

I fly a starship, across the universe divide…

He discusses what he might do when he finds a place to rest his spirit and then wonders,

Perhaps I may become a highwayman again…

At this moment, I explain that from this we can discern that all four voices are different incarnations of the same being.

To which this ostensibly Buddist woman replied loudly and a bit snidely, “That’s impossible!”

Just then my seven-year-old Erik, barely looking up from his book, pipes in from the back seat in the (con)descending wow-are-you-dumb tone parents of small children know so well:

“Mommy!  You can kill the body but the spirit never dies.”

And he went back to reading his book without further remark.

Matter-of-fact wisdom of the ages from a seven-year-old boy.

Thanks for reading.

Warm regards,

Carl

If you’d like to see a video of the song being performed, here’s The Highwayman Live in Long Island.

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