It’s hard to think of two groups of people less likely to sit in a circle and share with one another their deepest feelings than teenage boys and homeless men suffering from addictions.  Yet I was recently privileged to be a part of both such types of groups in one memorable weekend. 

My weekend began at Walsh Jesuit High School outside Akron, Ohio.  A group of fifty-odd students were finishing a four-day “Kairos” retreat, an intense period of prayer, sharing and self-discovery, with the goal of developing a closer personal relationship with God.  I did not take part in the retreat itself, but did attend the closing prayer service, at which each student said a few words about their experience.  Many students used the phrase “Kai high” to describe the state of exhilaration they felt on leaving the retreat, and that high was in full evidence at the closing service.  Many students were in tears describing how close they’d felt to God, and to their peers, with whom they’d connected on a deep level of mutual vulnerability and openness. 

At my own public high school (many years ago), I had certainly encountered nothing like this, and I was amazed to see teenage boys address their peers with unabashed, sincere, love.  I surely could have benefited from a similar experience in my own teenage years, I thought, though I most likely would have sneered at the possibility, even had it been offered.

Similar dynamics were at play as, the next morning, I began my first Ignatian Spirituality Project retreat.  A dozen homeless retreatants, in recovery from drug and alcohol addiction, were joined by myself and four other facilitators, some of whom were themselves in recovery.  We facilitators didn’t stand apart from the group, delivering programming to the retreatants; rather we led exercises in which all of us shared with one another our fears, our vulnerabilities, our hopes, our desire to live better, to grow closer to God.  In a remarkably short time a real community bond developed.  Some shared with the group things from their past that they never had before.  The Holy Spirit was present and moved among us in an unmistakable way.  If I’d been surprised and moved to see teenage boys openly crying in front of their peers, I was all the more so to see men in their fifties in tears, saying that they’d learned for the first time that they were worthy of being loved.  I felt called myself to a deeper openness and honesty with this new community.

In discussing the parallels between Ignatian spirituality and the twelve steps, one retreatant told me how surprised he was that people who hadn’t been laid low by addiction would turn in such a radical way towards God.  Why bother turnimg your life over to a higher power if things are ticking along just fine?  I wanted to respond that I couldn’t believe how many churchgoing people think themselves in better spiritual condition than these addicts, but in fact have never turned to God with the openness I saw in these men, perhaps never having recognized the depth of their own need for healing.  But I couldn’t find a way of saying this without sounding condescending, so I kept my mouth shut instead.

The retreat came to a close after only a day and a half, and we all prayed that the graces we’d received would stay with us, that we would let them have a real impact on our lives.  It can be all too easy once you leave that unique environment for the whole experience to vanish into the haze, like a half-remembered dream.  A few days later, though, I was fortunate to have the chance to see those graces still at work, albeit among a different group of retreatants.  I attended a follow-up meeting of men who had been on an ISP retreat a month earlier.  One in particular was still flying high from the experience, saying numerous times that he would remember it for the rest of his life, and that no drug can get you as high as that encounter with God. 

It’s one thing to hear about the “Kai high” from a Catholic high school student who (we hope!) hasn’t tried anything much stronger than Coca-Cola, or at least not often.  The words carried a bit more weight coming from this guy, who was speaking from a lifetime of experience with all the drugs that would come close.  With the bond of the shared retreat experience, even in this short two-hour reunion, the sharing quickly returned to a deep, personal level.  Here was hope that this fire, once kindled, could indeed keep burning.

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The Ignatian Spirituality Project offers retreats to homeless men and women in recovery from addiction in over twenty cities around the US and now Canada.  ISP recently offered its first Canadian retreats in Victoria, BC, and hopes to continue to expand to new cities in Canada.  For more information, please visit http://www.ignatianspiritualityproject.org/  If you would be interested in getting involved with ISP, please contact Ted at ted@ispretreats.org.