Männerwerkstatt

Posted On 2022-12-11 In Projects

“Slow, mature, surrender, let go”

GERMANY, Pedro M. Dillinger • 

Our lives are accompanied by people who are models for us, who inspire, impress and influence us with their charisma, their irradiation. This is what the three monthly virtual meetings of the “Men’s Workshop” were about. — 

The same thing happened on the second Sunday of Advent. Men from Germany, Australia, Spain and Brazil met at 8 p.m. by the end of the year to discuss and round off the theme “Charism of a fellow man who has influenced my life”.

Which contents of the two previous meetings have left their mark on us?

An impulse opened the door. We were invited to inquire: Which contents of the last two meetings have left their mark on us?

Messengers, saviors, companions

In the first meeting we remembered the people on our path who became for us messengers, saviors and companions.

As a symbol: a chair, an invitation, “I stay”, gratitude.

Persistence

The feast of All Saints inspired this trilogy. On the Sunday following the feast of St. Martin, we sang the nursery rhyme related to this feast: “I walk with my lantern… Up there the stars (the saints) shine, down there we shine!”. The second meeting was about one who stays.

Symbolic of this: emails, a not letting go, advocacy, “I participate”, in everything.

Another children’s song, this time for Advent: “…first one, then two, then three and four, then Baby Jesus is at the door!”.

“I don’t have to do it all alone!”

Klaus opened his door to us and invited us to sit down. As the oldest of seven siblings, he felt the responsibility to take charge, to be a role model… and at the same time he experienced, “I can’t do what we and they expect of me.” Borderline experiences that stay with him again and again until today.

The encounter with a living God and with Mary in the Schoenstatt Boys’ Youth camps and meetings had a liberating effect.

“I don’t have to do everything alone, there is someone who goes with me, helps me, accompanies me. I can let go. I have helpers by my side.” – It relaxed me and gave me freedom.

In the Boys’ Youth he got to know several adult companions; he expressed his experience as follows: “They are people who were able to get me back on my feet when I became unbalanced”.

A little anecdote in a beer garden in Bamberg. Klaus recounted an encounter with a fellow student. Worries and doubts were tormenting him at the time. A beer or two loosened tongues and opened hearts, God took advantage of the open door, and he made up his mind: “I’m going to continue my studies!

With his open and honest manner, Klaus made a deep impression.

It took some time.

Some of the participants shared their experiences as firstborns, the process of letting go in their lives.

Grateful and richly gifted, Klaus concluded with four thoughtfully formulated words, “Slow, mature, surrender, let go.” Words that were lit as candles by different people along the way… until today.

Männerwerkstatt

Men’s Workshop | Photo: Pedro M. Dillinger

 

Original: Spanish 2022-12-09. Translated by María Aragón, Monterrey, México

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