Good morning heartache, you old gloomy sight
Good morning heartache, thought we said goodbye last night
I turned and tossed until it seemed you had gone
But here you are with the dawn.
-- From "Good Morning Heartache"
I have a picture in my mind of the scene as Billie Holiday sings this song: she wakes up and, wearing her bathrobe, walks into her kitchen, makes two cups of coffee and takes a seat.
She sets one coffee in front of herself and places the other in front of an empty chair. She looks at heartache and says, "Sit down."
In an intimate place -- her home -- she meets her agony. In a space even more intimate -- her kitchen -- she offers a seat. The kitchen: where she presses her hair, cooks her food, gets midnight snacks. Where family and friends gather.
As I have matured in my ministry as a hospital chaplain, I have grown to appreciate "
Good Morning Heartache."What intrigues me most is that Holiday invites the listeners to
listen to themselves, to make room for their feelings and to be fully
known. 
