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Inside this San Francisco church, you look up and see men and women, children, and
elders; Muslim, Jewish, Christian; some dead four hundred years, some only a decade or
two. The figures are in bright blues and reds and whites, with golden orbs around their
heads. All are connected in a spiral dance, arm in arm, circling the walls of Saint
Gregory’s, inviting the community of here and now to join them. What is it about that
invitation to the dance? And how does it work to enhance a community’s spiritual life?
Many religious traditions use the body and motion in prayer. Watch an Orthodox Jew,
wrapped in prayer shawl, as his body sways back and forth in prayer. See a room full of
Muslims as they prostrate themselves on the floor, heads touching the ground, facing
Mecca, in submission to the Divine. There is something amazingly beautiful as a whirling
dervish twirls around and around as music and prayer intensify. Our bodies help us both
draw inward toward the inner presence of the Divine and reach out to the transcendent
creator of the universe. At Saint Gregory’s, however, movement and dance go beyond
traditional use of the body in prayer.
If you walk into the church on a Sunday morning, there are some things you notice right
away. One is that there is both stillness and movement. You sit and listen to words and to
silence. And then you move. You move from one space to another, from the quiet, still
space to the wide and open rotunda where the altar sits, and you dance, around and
around the table. Just like the shared silence, movement is a community action.
Another thing you notice is that you are not alone at Saint Gregory’s. The spiritual
experience is a shared one; it is intertwined. There is something profound about being
invited to place your hand on the shoulder of the person in front of you and move into a
circle of prayer and communion. You go together, holding on to someone who is holding
on to you. You become an integral part of the movement, a link. And the icon saints who
dance in a circle above your head are not there for ornamentation; they are truly part of
that community. They raise you both figuratively and literally into the dance.