The first time I sang “Down There by the Train” in public was not in a bar or on a stage, but in the chapel of the K–8 school I lead in southwest Philadelphia. It was a Friday morning. I started quietly, almost speaking, and the room changed. It wasn’t because I can sing. It was because the song carried something profound and holy.

Tom Waits reminds us that there will be a place at the wedding feast for some unlikely characters.