Gentleness – A Review

A psychiatrist and prolific author, Eugenio Borgna turns his attention in Gentleness to one of humanity's most misunderstood and forgotten experiences. He does so by weaving together the voices that have shaped his life—Antonia Pozzi, Carlo Maria Martini, Giorgio La Pira, Mario Tobino—with the countless hours of listening he has undertaken as a seasoned psychiatrist. "Gentleness is fragile," he writes, "like a butterfly, like a lamb, and yet it transforms the very texture of life itself." Wounded by harsh words, by aggression and superficiality, gentleness is the acceptance of who we are—our fragility, our lack, our limits. And that acceptance teaches us to receive the same fragility, lack, and limits in others. For gentleness, when we learn to listen to it, is moved by a single purpose: "to create human relationships open to listening and welcome, to collaboration and reciprocity."