Marco Iazzolino

The news is that the days that saw the numbers of the Covid 19 outbreak in China fall marked another unexpected record in the media – the divorce boom.

Mr. Lu, head of the Dazhou District Marriage Bureau, said that the day after the city’s quarantine was closed, as many as 300 couples had filed for divorce. According to the official of Sichuan Province, most of the pair stated that the cause was to be found in the weeks of forced cohabitation. For those who work in the field of disasters, this is certainly nothing new. On the contrary, it is a recurring feature. The disaster and the consequently forced coexistence creates a sort of “lens” that multiplies the relational efforts.

The hashtag “iorestoacasa,” beyond the shared health indications, represents an essential complexity in relational and social terms. It is not only about organizing things to do (from tasks to space management) in a defined space, but about living relationships as a whole (and not only in sum) at the same time-space. What can I do to avoid breaking relationships? Nothing or rather the thing to work on is not doing but being. Simple? No, but the way is clear: promoting awareness. Taking care of oneself is the only key that goes beyond the actions to be done. The forgiveness that today’s gospel tells us about is 70 times 7. Do not waste time in multiplication. Jesus tells us that the answer is: the more we practice awareness (counting to infinity), the more we can create the condition for an authentic relationship (being for) that “heals” instead of weighing life down. Courage!