God is expressive. Trappists have a reputation of being—well . . . not very expressive. We are the silent monks who live austerely, have only one outfit to wear, eat mostly bread, soup, and cheese, and live in spare rooms with almost no furniture. Well, that may be so, but we are made in the image of God, and, as God is expressive, so human beings are by our nature expressive. Monks are too, and it can be amusing to see how the instinct to express oneself finds its way out, sort of "seeps" through the cracks in the austere surface appearance of Trappist life. This instinct is incarnate in a special way in the monk I will call "Brother Singular". Every monastery has a Bro. Singular. This is the monk who shows up for high mass one morning wearing red socks. The next day, after a discreet word from the Prior, they are white again. But a month later, you pass him in the cloister and do a double-take. "I must be seeing things. Surely that is not a 'Budweiser' buckle he is wearing over his monastic scapular." The next time you pass him, it's gone. Then there are Trappist signs. The elaborate Trappist sign language was invented to curtail monks being overly expressive in the sacred precincts of the monastery. Even so, Trappists making signs, often become animated, and start murmuring in a low voice as they make signs to one another. And the ingenuity monks can show in the invention of new signs—it's unbelievable! A really old monk who loved Hollywood movies before he entered the monastery, showed me, once, the "Trappist sign" for: "Moon Over Miami". The community bulletin board is another arena for the unexpected bursts of singular behavior. It is the job of the monk who heads each of the three dish washing crews to place a notice on the community bulletin board when that crew's week begins. One day, a fantastically colored little "poster" appeared on the board featuring the smirking faces of about a dozen clowns and the text: "Dish Washing Crew #2". One of the oldest monks in the community came up beside me as I stood staring slack jawed at the spectacle. Feeling him tap me on the shoulder, I turned and saw him gesture toward the poster, smile, make a straight line in the air with his fist from right to left, rub his stomach with a circular motion, and then stroke his chin two times as though grooming an invisible beard: "All – good – brothers . . ." Yeah, I thought, and each one made in the image of God. Go figure.

Father Raphael