All Roads Lead to Ausfahrt

A cursory look at road signs in Germany would suggest that Ausfahrt is a popular name for a town. The first time I saw a sign pointing towards Ausfahrt, I thought it was a bit of an unfortunate name for a town, depending of course on its pronunciation. As I romped along the autobahn, soon another sign proudly displayed the same name and reminded me that Ausfahrt was not far away. And then another. And yet another.

I started to wonder if I was on some sort of a ring road circling Ausfahrt, while I was meant to be heading in a straight line towards Luxembourg. When I came upon yet another Ausfahrt sign, I pulled over and googled the word. I thought surely even the Germans aren’t this unimaginative that they call every second town by the same name. It turns out that Ausfahrt means ‘exit’ in German. Ausfahrt is used for cars and Ausgang (another interesting word) for pedestrians, as in an exit from a building.

It seems I haven’t been the only tourist confused by the word, as a Canadian punk rock band NoMeansNo named one of its albums All Roads Lead to Ausfahrt. They were probably travelling around Germany thinking that while in Italy all roads lead to Rome, in Germany they all lead to Ausfahrt. Once I had solved the Ausfahrt mystery, I hopped back on the autobahn towards beautiful Luxembourg.

The autobahns are something else. Driving on the unrestricted sections, is like flying at a low altitude. I’m no chicken behind the wheel of a car, but 200 km/h+ is a bit too fast even for me. I chose to cruise at a far more respectable speed (somewhere between 120 km/h and 130 km/h), as my car kept swaying from the turbulence of the passing cars. Then I came upon ‘Autobahn Church,’ a Lutheran church near the motorway that invited tired travellers for a moment’s rest. One has to love a country that combines fast driving and the sacred!

The churches in Europe are of course a treat for someone like me. I’ve visited many in the past weeks and I plan to visit many more. They are restful places; places where there is always an absolute and unequivocal welcome of all people. What really grabs me about old churches and old buildings in general is the way that they simply are. Architecture is an invitation for people to become part of something much greater than themselves. Old buildings especially do this. Some new buildings compete for attention in their design through harshness and 'loudness'; I think this is a shortcoming in modern architecture.

The Church of St Bartholomeus, Frankfurt, goes back to the 14th Century. Its spire extends 95 meters. 

I’m fascinated by architecture and design and enjoy talking about it with our future daughter-in-law Taylor who is studying architecture at university (yes, this was a ‘not-so-subtle’ hint for our son Rafael). The genius behind architecture is that it invites us towards slowness and silence, because it is forever present without demands and it continues to be present with patience.

The world-renowned Finnish architect Juhani Pallasmaa once said that old buildings ‘warehouse and protect silence.’ He likened old churches to museums of silence. I like this! We don’t have enough silence in the world today. Old churches invoke in us a sense of awe and admiration that can only be experienced by simply observing and admiring – in silence.

Many old buildings in Europe have experienced the horrors of many wars. Many beautiful and irreplaceable buildings were destroyed beyond repair. Some have been recreated and others restored. Yet many buildings wear the scars of shelling, reminding people of the high price of human conflict. Buildings don’t fight. People do. Yet, buildings join people in telling the stories of past horrors by wearing the scars of past conflict almost as a silent, non-violent response to the violence of war.

The Romerberg Town Hall Square, Frankfurt, bombed during the Second World War

Tomorrow I’ll be driving past the fields of Passendale, Belgium, on my way to Brussels. The Tyne Cot cemetery is a Commonwealth War Graves Commission burial ground for almost 12,000 soldiers, including over 1,300 of Australia’s young diggers. The message on the headstone of Second Lieutenant Arthur Conway Young reads, ‘Sacrificed to the fallacy that war can end war.’

The idea of a unified Europe was brought to birth some years after the Second World War not far from the fields of Passendale. Jean Monnet, Robert Schuman and many other visionary leaders decided that they had had enough of war. They visioned a unified continent that would bring together the economies of diverse nations and hence conflict in Europe would end. Through many different phases the European Union was born. It has been a resounding success in reducing violence and conflict in Europe. It would be impossible to consider today that Germany and France for example would be in war with one another.

The answer in coming to terms with a difficult past is not forgetting what happened. The soldiers who are buried in Tyne Cot will never allow us to forget. The answer is not in forgetting, the answer is in forgiving. As Igor Stravinsky said, ‘Sin cannot be undone, only forgiven.’ Commenting on Stravinsky’s words, Benedictine Joan Chittister says, ‘What we do to ourselves or others stays in the soul like dust in the air. We cannot undo it. We can only begin again. For that reason, God has no memory.’

Travelling through Europe with its shelled buildings and the fields of Passendale, but yet now with its open boarders and unified economies, reminds all people that we cannot forget, but we can forgive. There is no other way. Joan Chittister continues: ‘The failure to forgive, the unyielding memory of the debt, is too great a burden to carry. It smothers the joy out of life. It blocks our own ability to move. It makes growth impossible. It traps us in the juices of the snake that bit us.

‘That is not the mercy of the forgiving God who wipes out the past and every day, makes all things new again. To forego the need for requital releases us as well as our debtor from further harm. We free the debtor from shame and ourselves from bitterness.’

Beautiful Luxembourg