Tom Waits, that strange, poetic, cookie-monster and Heath-Ledger-Joker inspiring minstrel, says this:

"I like beautiful melodies telling me terrible things."

(You can get this on a t-shirt now.)

It reminds me of a quote from Soren Kierkegaard:

‘What is a poet? An unhappy man who hides deep anguish in his heart, but whose lips are so formed that when the sigh and cry pass through them, it sounds like lovely music… And people flock around the poet and say: “Sing again soon” – that is, “May new sufferings torment your soul but your lips be fashioned as before, for the cry would frighten us, but the music, that is blissful.”’

Or the famous Hemingway quote:

“There's nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein.”

This all sounds very morose and depressing. Should we not speak and write and sing of life? To be sure, we should. Yet there is a process to this. Look at the Psalms. There is more lament in the Psalms than praise. They are, at times, unrelenting and overwhelming, if we cease to read them through our happy-clappy spiritual lenses. 

It is not until the final six Psalms that we reach a place of unreserved praise. It is almost as if we have to walk through the full gamut of pain and sorrow before we reach a place where we can celebrate without hesitation.

It is almost as if a crucifixion has to precede a resurrection. 

So we should learn to admit terrible things, to sigh our personal and collective anguish, to open veins, allowing space in our lives and communities for others to do so as well. Doing this as honestly and as beautifully as we can allows people to join their terror and anguish and bleeding to ours.

Again from Tom Waits: "The world is a hellish place, and bad writing is destroying the quality of our suffering." (also available on a t-shirt, apparently)

So let us say and write and sing terrible things - the death of Jesus is a terrible, terrible thing - with all the skill and wonder we can muster. But let us always remember, and remind, that after the night of sorrow, joy comes in the morning. The Psalms, after all, end with the words, "Praise the Lord!"