THE SENSE OF ABANDONMENT, CONSOLATION AND TRUST

Abstract

The text analyzes trust through the phenomenology of its absence, of its failure, as it emerges in great Western literature (Beckett, Camus, Steinbeck and Shakespeare), in some texts by great contemporary intellectuals (O. Ranke, Peter Sloterdijk, D. Winnicott), and finally in the Bible and in particular in the book of Isaiah. The theme of abandonment and attachment – which have always possessed great significance in pedagogical reflection – is entwined with the sapiential category of consolation, which is always the result of a human process of moving back and forth, of absence and presence, of fear and courage, which enables us to enter or re-enter into the game, in life and in faith. In this way, trust is transformed, as in the relationship between mother and child, into the gift of a conquest.