St. Augustine said, “Learn to dance.  Otherwise, the angels in heaven won’t know what to do with you.”  Strange advice from one of the dusty old church fathers.  But there’s more merit to it than may meet the eye.  Let me explain what I mean.

March 29, 1975 was a Saturday.  That night, I was in a pub in Boston with a guy we’ll call Sgt. Hart.  He had changed his mind about being a career soldier and decided not to re-up when his reenlistment date rolled around.  We were both being irresponsibly over-served of Irish spirits and he was being unnecessarily vocal about a list of American politicians who, in his view, needed to be shot or otherwise roughly handled--to put it delicately.

No doubt he was in violation of a multitude of federal and state laws (not to mention Boston city ordinances) in the way he expressed his recommended methods for the reworking of our form of government.  All day long, the media carried heart-breaking footage of desperate people fighting to get out of DaNang before the communists finally slammed the door.  It slammed that night.  It was clear the Vietnam war was lost for good.  In a few days, Saigon would be rolled up and the North Vietnamese, the Russians, the Chinese and communists all over the world would declare victory.  Sgt. Hart was in the pub that night trying to adjust to the fact that he and thousands of other American fighting men had done everything their country had asked of them and it hadn’t been enough.

During the Paris peace talks, a representative of the American Armed Forces pointed out to a North Vietnamese counterpart that the American soldier had been victorious in every major test of arms in that war.  The NVA soldier agreed that was true, but  pointed out that it was also irrelevant.

So that Saturday night in 1975, Sgt. Hart was undertaking one of the most difficult tasks a manly man ever has to face.  He was having to learn how to let it go.

We all know there’s a right way and a wrong way to cope with profound disappointment.  Nicolas Chauvin, who gives us the word “Chauvinism,” is an object of derision because he could never acknowledge that France had ultimately lost the Napoleonic wars.  Denial of the facts is not a way to cope.

Ask William Miller.  He was the American Baptist preacher who predicted, based on his reading of Bible prophesy, that the world would end by March 21, 1844.  (Do I need to point out that was 165 years ago?).  Well, the world survived that prediction, so he recalculated.  Turns out he was wrong and the new date was set for Oct. 22, 1844.  When the world was still open for business on Oct. 23, Miller’s weeping disciples experienced what history calls “The Great Disappointment.”  But Miller kept prophesying that the end was just around the corner up to the day he died on Dec. 20, 1849.  Here’s a guy that just couldn’t face the facts even though reality kept proving him wrong time and again.

So what’s this got to do with St. Augustine?  Well, that night in the Boston pub, I asked Sgt. Hart what he planned to do now the war was over and we lost?  “Well, Hink,” he said.  “Tonight I’m going to get roaring drunk and vent off a world of frustration steam.  Tomorrow’s Sunday, so I’m going to church and repent of all the disloyal things I’ve said or will say tonight.  Monday, I’m going to find me a recruiter and reenlist.  Just because I hate the politicians don’t mean I don’t love America, win, lose or draw.  In the meantime, I don’t know about you, but I’m going to find myself a pretty girl and dance my blues away.”  And he did.

Now I’m not sure what St. Augustine meant, but it seems to me if a man can find a way to dance when his heart’s broken, the angels would approve.  Speaking for myself, no matter how bad things get, a few minutes cheek-to-cheek with Mary brightens the horizon.

Oh, by the way, today (March 26) is the twelfth anniversary of the day almost forty members of the Heaven’s Gate cult committed suicide in California so they could get aboard the Hale-Bopp comet and be gone before the earth gets recycled.  You may not believe this, but I’m--well--just speechless. 

I’m Hink and I’ll see ya.

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