The quality of suffering

Well, I turn around to look at you — you're nowhere to be found/I search the place for your lost face — guess I'll have another round

Tom Waits, I Hope That I Don't Fall in Love with You

Singer-songwriter Tom Waits once said, "The world is a hellish place, and bad writing is destroying the quality of suffering."

The "quality of suffering" reaches a high level in the fine Tom Waits song I Hope That I Don't Fall in Love with You, one of his best-known. A man at a bar sees a beautiful woman sitting there with a man. Because she is taken, he struggles not to fall in love with her. Yet when her date leaves and he and the woman make eye contact, he holds back, and then she disappears while his head is turned.

When we hear the song, the man is not the only one who suffers. We all do. And the woman suffers as well. That's a lot of suffering in one brief song, yet it becomes quality suffering because of the quality of the lyrics.

Through the ages, good writing has raised the quality of suffering. This is why poetry is so often read at funerals. The 23rd Psalm is commonly heard. Beautiful hymns are sung. Many of us, at other times, read sad novels, listen to sad songs and watch tear-jerker movies.

Good writing doesn't  eliminate the suffering. It may sometimes, in fact, make the suffering worse. Yet it can somehow transform that suffering into something almost beautiful, almost uplifting, almost spiritual.