The garden of forking paths, this is the image that, as evoked by a story by Jorge Luis Borges, comes to mind thinking about many of our formative paths.
Undoubtedly very rich and also luxuriant gardens in which, however, the paths of theology and those of the human sciences often touch only without a real encounter.
This is why the publication of the book by Raffaela Barbon – psychologist-psychotherapist, professor at IFREP in Mestre as well as at the Pastoral Couseling of Bologna and former member of the National School for formators in evangelization and catechesis in Siusi – should be happily greeted.
«After all – as Brother Enzo Biemmi points out in the afterword – this is what the path proposed by the author aims at: accompanying us to a progressive recovery… From what? From any form of schizophrenia, of separation between the head and emotions, between matter and spirit, between body and soul ».
In fact, the path depicted on the cover (significantly in the shape of a human profile), contrary to Borges’ story, is “one” and – as the title suggests – invites us to cross the great garden of formation and also “of life” , “with sure-footedness“. And it is precisely within this unifying dimension that the words with which the title “plays” must be read.
First, its assonance with compass – tool that manages to trace a precise circle only if its tip remains fixed in the center – refers to the need for paths that are centered on the deepest and most true realities of people.
On the other hand, if the word step indicates the dynamism of the formative process, the prefix with cannot fail to recall the richness of its relational aspect which, in the intention of the author, is not exhausted by the need to meet and of encounterbut also – thanks to her twenty-year experience as a formator at the Seminary of the Friars Minor Conventuals in Padua – to the urgent need to integrate the psychological aspect with Christian spirituality, just as the subtitle recalls: be formed in the relational and spiritual life.
Hence a path marked by four stages which, if, on the one hand, are conceived within a progressive path, on the other, according to the specific educational needs of the reader, they can also be approached separately.
The first section, aware, aims at building a secure base on which to rest one’s steps, while the second, emotional men and women, refers to the need to remain connected to one’s emotions. Self relational intends to deepen the interpersonal dimension of human existence, the concluding section, adultswants to offer stimuli and reflections on the two dimensions that characterize adulthood: generativity and reflexivity-narrating.
The path is enriched both by the numerous theoretical and spiritual ideas that the author disseminates in the eleven chapters of the book, and by operational exercises inserted at the end of each of the four parts. In this way the reader is encouraged to draw on it with creativity in order to propose workshops aimed at activating Circular experiences so that – quoting De Gregori – formation is more and more a going through life “at a walking pace”.
Raffaella Barbon, With sure-footedness. Forming oneself in the relational and spiritual life, Foreword by Antonio Ramina, Afterword by Enzo Biemmi and Rinaldo Paganelli, series “Vie formative”, Messaggero, Padua 2022, pp. 288, € 28.00.
