Fascination and preservation before the sacredness of life: waking up to holistic spirituality

• Autor(a) principal: Ferreira Silva, Mauro Luiz
• Data de Publicação: 2014
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Protestantismo em Revista
• Texto Completo: http://periodicos.est.edu.br/index.php/nepp/article/view/1051
• topic: Theology; Nature; Flood; Preservation; Sacrament; Holistic Religiosity; Teologia; Natureza; Dilúvio; Preservação; Sacramento; Religiosidade Holística

The article discusses the relevance of the fascination before the mystery of life and the preservationist attitude toward nature, as the means and evidence, respectively, of experiencing the sacred. In light of ancient global flood stories, such as the Mesopotamian epic of Gilgamesh, the Greek myth of Deucalion and Poseidon and the biblical account of Noah, describers of some vast flood in which a small group of humans and numerous animal species are kept alive, see among them as common elements the divine initiative of preservation and some kind of sacred pact with nature. In both eras, the prehistoric, when humans might even have received animals in a large barge, and contemporary, when several individual actions and organizational "green" policies unfold worldwide, the preservation attitudes seem to reveal the vivacity of minds capable of fascination before the mystery and sacredness of life, and a consequent self-accountability for the continuation of this. Under this bias, life as a sacrament, full religiosity emerges. Based on literature, this communication therefore aims to contribute to the debate about holistic spirituality, one that, faced with the creation, is fascinated and takes responsibility.