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Another priory friend, George Young, a dance teacher with Experiment in International Living, a student-exchange program, taught the monks to dance about ten years ago. Doing dances of folk origin was first a bad-weather recreation, then a way to make visitors feel at home. On days of celebration, the monks might incorporate a Yemeni desert dance or a Serbian wedding step into their Mass. Brother John, Weston's prior since 1964, explains how recreation entered the liturgy: "For us, dance is a prophetic community sign, a way to express our hopes, our fears, our faith. It is a sign that contradicts the cynicism and despair that are celebrated today in consumerism and the arms race."
Last month, at a disarmament rally in New York City, the brothers prayed for peace while dancing around a newly planted Japanese dogwood tree in Central Park. Their trip had included two other stops, one in New Haven, where they joined in a prayer service in support of a man facing criminal charges in connection with a protest against Trident submarines, the other in Washington, D.C., where they participated in an evening of prayer and music for Salvadoran refugees. "Radical peacemaking," the monks believe, is a natural outgrowth of the Gospel.
Ever since monks went out into the desert in the 4th century, they have challenged Christians to live up to the example of Jesus of Nazareth. On their quiet Vermont hilltop, and in forays out into the world, the brothers of Weston are trying to fashion a thoroughly modern community of faith. Their faithfulness to one another is the prime expression of their faithfulness to God. In an age when infidelity is the norm, theirs is an eminently contemporary witness. —BySusanne Washburn