Exercises on the street

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Father Christian Herwartz SJ during a retreat during the Catholic Day in Münster (2018)

As a retreat on the road or street retreats spiritual exercises are in the tradition of Ignatian retreats called, are not in a meeting, in a monastery or retreat house take place. Rather, the practitioners go into public space, often in social hot spots , in order to “look for God in a different, unusual and unfamiliar place”. In this way, the encounter with every neighbor as the image of God should and can be promoted. The street retreat movement goes back to the Jesuit Christian Herwartz , who conducted retreats on the street for the first time in the late 1990s. The movement is organized as a network and not institutionalized or funded by the church. The retreats usually last 10 days. There are offers for special groups as well as interreligious offers with Buddhists and Muslims.

history

The basis for the emergence of the street retreat was an open residential community in the former Jesuit station in Berlin-Kreuzberg , which offered help to people with social and religious questions. Christian Herwartz, who belongs to the group of worker siblings and worked as an industrial worker from 1975 to 2000, was the last Jesuit to live in this shared apartment until 2016, which currently (December 2019) still exists. This statio was founded by the north German province of the Jesuits as a spiritual experiment for the encounter with the lower class of society in the immediate vicinity of the Berlin Wall at the time and thus appeared predestined for this more special form of Ignatian spirituality. Together with the external retreat guide Alex Lefrank SJ, Christian Herwartz carried out street retreats from there in 1998 for the first time for a group of three participants from the Jesuit order in a warming room for the homeless in Berlin that was not needed in the summer. Further courses followed, in 2000 with a group of nuns for the first time as an open offer; In this course the term “retreat on the street” was formulated, while Herwartz still spoke of “retreat in urban hot spots”. In the same year Christian Herwartz became unemployed and then, as a pensioner, devoted himself increasingly to the activity of a retreat companion. In 2009 nine courses were held. Former participants from different Christian denominations are now offering retreats on the street themselves. Since then, courses have taken place in Germany, Belgium, France, Switzerland, Austria, Kosovo, the Netherlands, Texas, Canada and Taiwan.

Special offers are aimed at target groups such as students, couples, young people or prisoners. Courses for women only or men only were also held. From 2019, interfaith courses were also held as retreats on the streets together with Buddhists and Muslims .

The “street retreat movement” is organized like a network and has no fixed institutional framework, it does not have fixed church grants or full-time employees. The guides have been meeting annually since 2008 to systematically reflect on and develop the course design. According to the observation of the taz , the goal is “not to retire to a quiet monastery with full board in an idyllic landscape for a few days for these spiritual exercises. But to try exactly the opposite: to seek a meditation, a reflection, maybe even the experience of being close to God in the noise, in the dirt and misery of the big city ”.

procedure

The ten-day retreat usually begins on Friday evening and ends on Sunday afternoon. The days have a fixed rhythm:

  • Common morning prayer or morning impulse, designed by the participants.
  • After breakfast, the participants walk through the city individually and attentively on paths they choose. As a suggestion, the retreat leaders give a list of specific places where poverty, need or foreignness can be felt and which would otherwise often be avoided. Based on the biblical words about the sending of the disciples by Jesus ( Lk 10.1-4  EU ), the participants go out on the "street" as a pilgrim , for example, to social hot spots, drug addicts, the employment office or in, without the security they are used to a mosque. They expose themselves to the places and people they encounter in public space, for example at a monument, a memorial, on a river bank or elsewhere. Temporary retreat to a sheltered place, such as a church, is possible.
  • The group does not come together again until the evening for the celebration of the Eucharist or service, organized by the companions, then it is dinner.
  • Afterwards, there is a compulsory discussion in the small group with the retreat guide. The participants exchange ideas about what they have brought with them from the street, while the companions ensure that there is mutually supportive, non-judgmental feedback. The parties have agreed not to disclose what has been said.
    As concrete "visual aids", the companions provide a spiritual framework based on the terms commitment, sensitivity to justice, interreligious dialogue , life from the Holy Scriptures and Christian belief in the resurrection . This spiritual level distinguishes the group from a self-awareness group .
  • The practitioners pursue the experiences in which they felt personally addressed ( Lk 24 : 13–26 EU ), think about them during the course of the night and visit  such places again.
  • On Friday evening, the retreat begins in a special service with the rite of the washing of the feet ( John 13 : 1-5 EU and 13:  12-17 EU ), in which the participants follow the example of Jesus and Mary Magdalene ( John 12 , 3  EU ) silently wash and anoint each other's feet. The participants are "at the end of a long day in which they perceived the city with their feet, [...] confronted with this intense experience of closeness and shame."

Framework

  • 8 to 10 participants are accompanied by two men and two women.
  • The participants live together under simple conditions in a simple place, which they call a “pilgrim hostel”, any work that arises is done together.
  • Only the daily conversation in the evening is compulsory for the participants. Otherwise the participation is voluntary, the withdrawal of individuals is accepted and supported by the group.
  • The courses are offered free of charge; All those involved are volunteers, the costs for food are shared. The companions - who deliberately do not appear as "retreat leaders" or even "retreat masters" - receive no fee, at most travel expenses are reimbursed.
  • Shorter courses are possible, also as one-day courses or to try out for a few hours.
  • The retreats are advertised on the Internet.
  • A pre-selection of the participants will not be made, there are no exclusion criteria. When drug use is discouraged from participating, since then the practice of inner perception may be blocked.
  • It is not a silent retreat, but the respectful use of words promotes retreats and group life. The ability to remain silent or psychological stability are not required.
  • The retreats are neither therapy nor a form of vacation and not a social internship.
  • The responsible handling of mental illnesses in participants requires special attention. The boundary between retreats as spiritual accompaniment (with the aim of deepening the relationship between God and the person being accompanied) on the one hand and psychotherapy (with the aim of curing a mental illness) on the other hand must be recognized and adhered to. This is the topic of the exchange of experiences of the retreat attendants.

Anthropological, biblical and theological background

Disposition of the participants

In western industrialized countries, religion is increasingly lived in an individualized manner from a sociological point of view. According to Susanne Szemerédy, this leads to a “biographicalization of the religious”: The meaning of religious convictions and practices is primarily sought for one's own life and is expressed “in the search for extraordinary experiences”. The offer of retreats on the street as a special form of religious experience can correspond to this, “when the practitioners expose themselves to the paradoxes and abysses of human existence in order to stay on the track of the sacred , the transcendence , and God”. For participation it is important to have a religious desire in a broad sense, to relate to the “origin of creation ” (called “God” or otherwise) and one's own longing (the “mystery of life”, the “sacred in us”) come.

The basic attitude of the participants in the retreat and their companions is described as the “intention of non- intentionality ”: “an orientation towards leaving everything goal-oriented, from active action to a state of receptiveness”; “The participants should only look openly and without prejudice if possible. They should be aware of simple situations - walking across the street, sitting in a café, observing people, coming into contact with them, ”according to a description in the weekly newspaper Der Freitag . Christian Herwartz speaks of a "contemplative expectation".

Street

During the retreat, “street” is considered in its various meanings and functions, complementary as well as contradicting one another. It is an open space, has the character of a stage and can be used commercially, it connects and separates, it represents a connection from place to place, but is itself a "space" and a "non-place", an ambivalent place of danger, but also of adventure, a place of everyday life and a place for the poor, those “put on the street”. The street can be understood and experienced as the opposite of house, home and security; “Living on the street” is equated with housing or homelessness. For “street children”, the street is their center of life, which deviates from the norm, their place of learning and experience, while socially it is only seen as a transit space or “non-place”. The retreat guides Maria Jans-Wenstrup and Klaus Kleffner speak of the retreat as an opportunity to gain experience on the street as a “God-open place to be different”, because someone who goes out on the street also has to face unpleasant discoveries, including the “ Strangers in my own life ”.

As a model for the "search for the other in another place" - the stranger and the stranger in one's own personality - the biblical narrative of the experience of Moses is seen in the retreat, who unites as a shepherd in the desert in his everyday work noticed a burning, but not burning bush and had an experience of God as he approached when God spoke to him: “Take off your shoes; for the place where you stand is holy ground ”( Ex 3.1–15  EU ; Acts 7.30–35  EU ). The theologian Michael Schindler points out that Moses does not actively seek out a place defined as holy, but rather "discovers" an everyday place as a holy place. In this perspective, the street takes on a further dimension: Biblically speaking, it can be experienced as “holy ground”, which enables an experience of God.

Spiritual Traditions

Ignatius of Loyola

The basis for the spiritual anchoring of the retreat on the street is the leitmotif "Finding God in all things, in speaking, in walking, seeing, tasting, hearing, thinking and in general in everything", as the founder of the Jesuit order, Ignatius of Loyola , formulated in his exercise book as a maxim for the Ignatian exercise and the search for God. Schindler sees the retreat on the street as a “return to the urban origins of the retreat”, which Ignatius, a “man of the city”, was initially located in an urban environment before it became customary in a “closed form” in a house . According to Schindler, retreats on the street combine "the two possibilities that Ignatius saw, namely to detach oneself from one's everyday life with the associated relationships and places and at the same time to remain in an everyday area in the middle of the world". Schindler also sees other essential elements of the Ignatian retreat tradition fulfilled and updated in a contemporary way: the participants are taken seriously as subjects with an independent path of faith towards God - for Christian Herwartz, retreats are “top priority, that is, the personal exchange of each individual with life itself”; the motif of the way and the pilgrim searching his way is important for Ignatius.

The Jesus relationship , which is of great importance in the Ignatian retreat, is regularly expressed in the retreats on the street in central biblical texts, for example in the motif of Jesus sending out the disciples "like sheep among wolves", without a purse, storage bag or Shoes ( Lk 10,3f  EU ), and in the story of the disciples of Emmaus who recognize the common walking and eating with a stranger Jesus and share in his life get ( Lk 24.13 to 35  EU ). The word of Jesus “I am the way and the truth and the life; nobody comes to the Father except through me ”( Jn 14.6  EU ) interprets Christian Herwartz as“ Jesus is the road ”, on which an experience of God can be made on the way.

Benedictine and Franciscan Spirituality

Susanne Szemerédy also sees elements of a Benedictine tradition and spirituality in the retreat , namely in the “mystagogical concept of hospitality”. The Founder St. Benedict advises in his monastic rule to meet the guest and the stranger at the welcome and at parting with great humility, as will added to the guest in truth Jesus Christ. Finally, Szemerédy refers to the Franciscan Compassio-Spirituality (compassion for the poor and outcasts) - the conversion of the founder of the order Francis of Assisi was triggered by an encounter with lepers - and speaks with Stefan Wyss of a "basic aesthetic event, the change of affect in the Turning to the repulsive thing, animal or person ”and the experience of Francis that in excluded, poor other people an encounter with the crucified Jesus can be experienced.

Cross-border cooperation

Languages and milieus

According to the doctrinal story often used in the retreat, in which Moses went across the steppe into the desert ( Ex 3  EU ) and there heard the order to liberate his people from a burning, but not burning bush, the retreats on the Street in different countries and social contexts, i.e. across borders. The practitioners come from different religious traditions, often with a Christian or Jewish background. In 2011 a course with five homeless people from the Reeperbahn and English-speaking participants took place in Hamburg .

Buddhism

The American Zen master Bernie Glassman practiced openness together with people of many religions - especially at places of social pain such as the arrival track in the former Auschwitz concentration camp or on the streets of New York among the homeless. With one of his students, the Zen master Heinz-Jürgen Metzger from Solingen , and Christian Herwartz, the first jointly organized retreat took place in Berlin from May 10th to 19th, 2019 . The positive experiences of encountering reality on the street, with others and with oneself, with empty hands, encourage new encounters between these spiritual paths.

Islam

After individual Muslim participants took part in retreats on the street with their rich spiritual experience, there was an invitation to a three-day street retreat in Berlin-Neukölln with a Muslim theologian and theological professor Christine Funk (Berlin) in 2019 .

See also

literature

  • Christian Herwartz: Exercises in urban hot spots. In: Geist und Leben 74 (2001), pp. 269-302.
  • Christian Herwartz: On bare feet . (= Ignatian impulses 18). 2nd edition, Echter Verlag , Würzburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-429-02839-8 .
  • Christian Herwartz: Burning present. Exercises on the street. (= Ignatian impulses 51) Echter Verlag, Würzburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-429-03428-3 .
  • Christian Herwartz: Meeting the risen one today. A determination of the location of a retreat on the street. In: Geist und Leben 87 (2014), pp. 252–260.
  • Christian Herwartz, Maria Jans-Wenstrup, Katharina Prinz, Elisabeth Tollkötter, Josef Freise (eds.): Looking for traces of God in everyday life on the street. Personal encounters in street retreats. Neukirchener Verlag , Neukirchen-Vluyn 2016, 2nd edition 2019, ISBN 3-7615-6270-5 .
  • Michael Johannes Schindler: God on the street. Studies of theological discoveries at street retreats. (= Tübingen Perspektiven on Pastoral Theology and Religious Education 54) LIT Verlag , Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-643-13295-6 (Dissertation, Tübingen 2015).
  • Michael Schindler: Looking for God on the street. Discoveries during the "street retreat". In: Una Sancta . Journal for Ecumenical Encounters 71 (2016), Issue 3, pp. 211–219.
  • Susanne Szemeredy: From the host to the hostage of the other. Religious experiences during retreats on the street. (= Munich studies for adult education 8) LIT Verlag, Münster 2013, 978-3-643-11681-9 (dissertation, Munich 2012).
  • Maria Jans-Wenstrup, Klaus Kleffner: Exercises at a different place: Street exercises as a spiritual experience through strange places . In: Lebendige Seelsorge 68 (2013), September issue 3, pp. 215–220.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Maria Jans-Wenstrup, Klaus Kleffner: Exercises at a different place: Street exercises as a spiritual experience through foreign places. In: Lebendige Seelsorge 68 (2013), September issue 3, pp. 215–220.
  2. ↑ Christian Herwartz with Sabine Wollowski: BRIDGE BEING From the worker priests to his brother . edition steinrich, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-942085-31-1 , p. 192 .
  3. ↑ A table ... as a symbol of community on the naunyn website . Life in an intercultural and interreligious Jesuit community in Kreuzberg (accessed on November 27, 2019).
  4. ↑ Christian Herwartz (ed.): Hospitality. 25 years of residential community Naunynstraße , self-published, Berlin-Kreuzberg 2004.
  5. ↑ Christian Herwartz: Exercises in urban hot spots. In: Geist und Leben 74 (2001), pp. 269–302, here p. 300, quoted by Michael Johannes Schindler: God on the street. Berlin 2016, p. 40.
  6. ↑ Susanne Szemerédy: From the host to the hostage of the other . Berlin 2012, chap. 4.1 The founder; Cape. 4.2 History of origin, p. 110-144.177 .
  7. ↑ Michael Johannes Schindler: God on the street . Berlin 2016, chap. 2 Origin of the street retreat, p. 33-45 .
  8. ↑ strassenexerzitien.de: Announcement of interreligious retreats on the streets, May 2019 , accessed on November 28, 2019.
  9. ↑ Michael Johannes Schindler: God on the street . Berlin 2016, p. 41 f .
  10. ↑ taz.de: The sacred on the street. Practiced charity in Berlin , April 16, 2016.
  11. ↑ Susanne Szemerédy: From the host to the hostage of the other . Berlin 2012, p. 151 ff., 162 f., 166 f., 172, quotation p. 163 .
  12. ↑ Michael Johannes Schindler: God on the street . Berlin 2016, p. 333 .
  13. ↑ Christian Herwartz: Burning presence. Exercises on the street. Würzburg 2011, p. 8.
  14. ↑ Susanne Szemerédy: From the host to the hostage of the other . Berlin 2012, p. 151 f.171.173 f . Delimitation of accompaniment / psychotherapy: p. 173f.
  15. ↑ Michael Johannes Schindler: God on the street . Berlin 2016, p. 43 f .
  16. ↑ www.straßenexerzitien.de: Frequently asked questions.
  17. ↑ Susanne Szemerédy: From the host to the hostage of the other . Berlin 2012, p. 45.109 (quote) .
  18. ↑ Susanne Szemerédy: From the host to the hostage of the other . Berlin 2012, p. 171 .
  19. ↑ Susanne Szemerédy: From the host to the hostage of the other . Berlin 2012, p. 179 .
  20. ↑ Luisa Hommerich: To hell in: Friday, July 7th, 2015.
  21. ↑ Christian Herwartz: Burning presence. Exercises on the street. Würzburg 2011, p. 16.
  22. ↑ Michael Johannes Schindler: God on the street . Berlin 2016, p. 222, 226 f .
  23. ↑ Susanne Szemerédy: From the host to the hostage of the other . Berlin 2012, p. 76-79, 108 .
  24. ↑ Maren Behnert: Defending the street as a living environment. Linguistic action strategies of young people whose main life is on the street in Germany and South Africa. (=  Social work and social space . Band 6 ). Verlag Barbara Budrich , Opladen – Berlin – Toronto 2018, ISBN 978-3-8474-1176-5 , pp. 29, 35 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  25. ^ Maria Jans-Wenstrup, Klaus Kleffner: Exercises at a different place: Street exercises as a spiritual experience through foreign places . In: Lebendige Seelsorge 68 (2013), September issue 3, pp. 215–220.
  26. ↑ Michael Johannes Schindler: God on the street. tape 54 . Berlin 2016, p. 299,464 .
  27. ↑ Michael Schindler: When the road becomes holy ground . In: feinschwarz.net, March 15, 2016; Michael Ebertz: Foreword. In: Hans-Jürgen Hohm (Ed.): Street and street culture. Interdisciplinary observations of a public social space in the advanced modern age. Universitäts-Verlag, Konstanz 1997, p. 7, quoted by Michael Schindler, feinschwarz.net, March 15, 2016, note 4.
  28. ↑ Quoted in: Josef Sudbrack : “Finding God in all things”. An Ignatian maxim and its metahistorical background. In: Geist und Leben 65 (1992), pp. 165–186, here p. 166.
  29. ↑ Michael Johannes Schindler: God on the street . Berlin 2016, p. 321 f.3-45 .
  30. ↑ Christian Herwartz: On bare feet . Würzburg 2006, p. 48 f .
  31. ↑ Michael Johannes Schindler: God on the street . Berlin 2016, p. 326-348; Quote p. 331 .
  32. ↑ Cf. Christian Herwartz: Brennende Gegenwart. Exercises on the street. Würzburg 2011, p. 12f. (Broadcast), p. 71 (Emmaus), p. 29ff. (Jesus is the road).
  33. ↑ Regula Benedicti 53,6f.
  34. ↑ Susanne Szemerédy: From the host to the hostage of the other . Berlin 2012, p. 12 (citation) . 129-150 . In it especially p. 130 on Ignatius, 140f. to Benedict and 146 to Francis.
  35. ^ Pastor St. Trinitatis Altona: Street retreat since 2003. Accessed November 30, 2019 (d).
  36. ↑ Bernie Glasmann: Bearing Witness: Buddhism as a Committed Life . Edition Steinrich, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-942085-27-4 .
  37. ^ Heinz-Jürgen Metzger: BuddhaWeg-Sangha. Retrieved November 14, 2019 .
  38. ^ Heinz-Jürgen Metzger: San Bo Dojo. Retrieved November 14, 2019 .
  39. ↑ Heinz-Jürgen Metzger: Do not try to become Buddha !: Kusen to Fukanzazengi by Eihei Dogen Zenji . Self-published, Solingen 2017, ISBN 978-3-7450-2157-8 , p. 128 .
  40. ↑ Christian Herwartz: Street retreats Buddhists / Christians. Street retreat in Berlin. In: Course offer. Street retreat group, May 10, 2019, accessed November 28, 2019 (d).
  41. ↑ Some keywords: a) An overview b) The practice of the five times of prayer ( Salāt ) c) The practice and writings of Rūmi d) The reflections of the theologian Mouhanad Khorchide
  42. ↑ The exercises on the street in the Galilee Church near Tempelhofer Feld were introduced , in which a large exhibition of Muslim calligraphers was hanging at that time, promoting mutual respect for different religious views and mutual searching.