Sing The Songs

"He sang the ancient hymns of his forefathers' faith. While he sang he wept -

- Gene Edwards. A Tale Of Three Kings

Astonished He Could Sob So

"He recalled out loud his wife's tears, hold years of tears: some due to love notes she had found in his trousers, some to some woman's underpants in his overcoat pocket, stuff there hurriedly in his automobile and forgotten. And when he was thus torn by burning self-pity, his armor of evil energy fell away, and before us was a ruined and clearly a good person. I was astonished that he could sob so."

- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. The Gulag Archipelago. VOL 1. 

Neithet Dance Nor Crying

We tend to stay away from mourning and dancing. Too afraid to cry, too shy to dance...we become narrow-minded complainers, avoiding pain and also true human joy...While we live in a world subject to the evil one, we belong to God. Let us mourn, and let us dance.

- Henri Nouwen

Jesus Wept

"The Religion-Free Bible paraphrase of the shortest verse of the Bible, “Jesus wept,” captures this: “Anguish climbed from the bottom of his gut up through his chest and throat, and into his eyes with a power that even he could not contain. A lone tear quietly dropped from his eyelash and as it inched down his face, he was now inseparably a part. In the length of his face, the heartache of humankind washed through him like rain. Jesus knew full well the human experience and how it sometimes felt like your heart was being ripped right out of your chest. Life is beautiful. But life was also agonizing. That was the deal, and there was nothing Jesus could ever do to change that. Gravity had its way with this solitary tear and as it fell from his chin to the ground, Jesus was undone with sadness and compassion that seemed to stretch across every wound and scar that had ever been suffered. No divinity could save him now from his own human heart. Jesus wept.”

(Jim Palmer. Notes From Over The Edge)