Educare alla vita spirituale – Esperienza di un laboratorio riflessivo
Alessia Camerella
The importance of educational discourse about spiritual life arises from women and men’s need and their wish for spiritual nourishment, for shaping and flavouring their existence in a unique and singular, human and intentional, inner and relational way. This necessity concerns the whole humanity, from childhood to adulthood and it answers the question about soul caring, making life worth experiencing. Improving their own spiritual life helps man and woman to be complete and responsible people in relation to themselves, the others and the place where they live, developing community and planetary responsibility and solidarity. If education is conceived as practice of caring oneself through the search for the truth of existence, then, researching and improving the ways of oneself caring is crucial for the sake of human being. Nowadays two ideas of spirituality coexist: the first one understands spirituality as a specific faith, the second one conceives spirituality as a proper dimension of human being, as research of identity, meaning, values and purposes of life. The two articulations are not the same, but they share a common precious space. The pedagogical and educational component is fundamental in spirituality, because childhood and youth education and instruction should not remain theoretic and abstract, but they should consider the spiritual world in which individuals live (house, school and other important environments…) as a fundamental dimension of human being (Mortari, 2006).
Keywords
Spirituality, Education, Care, Reflecting practice