Never as before

Warnings are coming from many quarters not to archive the critical months we have experienced due to the health emergency and its surroundings too quickly.

Because it seems difficult to relate to the surrounding reality that often surprises us, while things change and pursue. There are always those who struggle to keep their feet on the ground, imagining that they are pursuing their dreams or projects or tastes, without taking into account risks, critical issues, counter-indications. And to say that the complicated and heavy season of Covid has taught us to be more careful on many fronts. Almost all of a sudden we found ourselves unable to do the same things as always, on the contrary having to rethink working life all over again, managing limitations and prohibitions. On the contrary, a whole series of stops, precautions, reminders fell upon us that upset us a bit everything. Now that the situation grappling with the virus is taking on more livable dimensions, while we are looking for the much-desired "normality", here we need to reflect on what this journey (not completely finished) has taught us within the possible contagions. and avoidable.
In the meantime, we have experienced our fragility smeared on a suffering, frightened, troubled humanity.

Between us we felt the tears for the deaths that have occurred as a result of Covid. We found ourselves face to face with what is essential, decisive, resistant to a disease that could and can take away existence. As believers we have clung to prayer, to the Word of God, to shared faith, to concrete fraternity and steeped in arduous hope.
And then the dedication of many who took charge, within the rigid protocols, of those who needed, who thought about, giving a hand, not leaving them alone Then, providentially, the vaccine arrived that is making us safe.
It is surprising that not everyone chooses it, because it really gives a secure hold to our days no longer hanging by a thread but protected by effective antibodies. It would be a true gesture of love, as Pope Francis says, for oneself and for others. And not to do it, this gesture seems to be one of the unexpectedly missed lessons that unfortunately can creep in, not recognizing that we are in the same boat and together we must and can save.

But there is an aspect that perhaps you are unable to metabolize at best. A friend who is involved in the delicate world of disability explained it to me: «But you know that we have not yet fully understood that we will not be back on par as before Covid! We have to reorient ourselves on many fronts. Nothing will be like when the coronavirus was not known to be! " And it is on this junction that we must reposition ourselves. The lockdown has changed the cards on the table but it has also changed ourselves to some extent. We need to realize this, calmly but with determination. And let us not deceive the GDP which jumped surprisingly to + 5%. The recovery has its contradictions and precariousness, along with good doses of encouragement. But it is urgent to stop to re-understand our lives, without unnecessary and harmful misdirections.

Corrado Avagnina
NP November 2021