Summer Fools

 

If I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate sense of the potential, for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible. Pleasure disappoints, possibility never.

 - Soren Kierkegaard, Either/Or: A Fragment of Life (1843)

 

One of my favorite songs is an obscure classic from the funk-jazz saxophonist Ronnie Laws entitled “Summer Fool.” It wasn’t a big hit in its day, but it’s always been special to me. Can’t say I associate it with a specific, particularly meaningful memory, but I’ve always been entranced and uplifted by its pumpin’, contrapuntal beat, the soulful sax, synthesizer and other solos and its lyrics, which, in Mr. Laws’ interpretation, have always spoken to me in a way that I just can’t explain fully rationally but can feel to the depth of my soul:

 

Songbird sing, sweet melody

Reminds me of the way it should be

Sing the song I wanna hear

Lets me know summer’s here

Sun is bright, feels so nice

Let’s have some, everything is alright

 

All day long, love’s in the air

Nature’s mood, make it so clear

Got to go, can’t wait to cruise

Tells me I’m a summer fool

 

The song has always made me feel alive and free, in tune with the effervescence of life and the universe’s endless possibilities.

So, perhaps it’s a bit surprising and/or paradoxical that it’s so on my mind at this moment, as autumn dawns along with its chill for which I’m not yet quite ready and amidst the insanity of our lives at the moment, constrained in association and imperiled by a continually spreading global pandemic and dismayed by the steady flow of eruptions from the seeming underbelly of our society that’re serially on display of late.

Seriously, how did it come to this, a place that feels the antithesis of Summer Fool?

I take no joy in the announcement that 45 and so many members of his entourage have contracted the coronavirus. I can’t get past the 7 million of us who’ve been infected and the almost 210,000 who’re now former fellow citizens as a result. These people, who abdicated their leadership responsibility to – and to protect – the rest of us, perhaps due to Karma, are now ensnared in a trap of their own craven making. Which isn’t a good thing for them or us, especially given the mendacity of those afflicted but still maintaining their grip on the levers of governmental and societal power. It’s perfectly ironically reflective of our time that we even have to wonder if this latest announcement is itself true/real, as so little of what they’ve shared to this point has been….

But I’m also angry, because it’s all so unnecessary: truly, it didn’t have to be….

Perhaps that’s why Summer Fool is so on my mind of late: I need the funky-fantastic feeling of joy and uplift that it always brings, as well as the sense of possibility to help me overcome this largely dark time.

And perhaps I also need something more from it: the dual reminder that summer is figurative and that the world is always full of possibility whether or not we choose to perceive it at any given moment. We can make summer – literally will it into being – if we so choose. So let’s do so.

Thinking of our aching and pained polity, it’s clear that we need to redefine our life in the public square, which invariably reflects the collective outward projection of a reassessment and revision of our interior world. We need to go retro: I’m convinced that our salvation is directly related to our ability to return to that southern sensibility with which I was inculcated in my youth: we treat each other well – each and every one of us – because we’re all God’s children (even, if, truth be told, at that time I was steeped in it, it was largely practiced on an intragroup basis).

Among other things, this requires a certain civility and restraint on all of our parts, which reflects a willingness to dialogue and hear each other out even – and perhaps especially – on the hard topics, ones that we’ve mostly spoken around or even largely failed to acknowledge over the years.

For example, we must admit that structural racism exists and work together to eradicate it. And we must admit that its class complement is also all too real and remediate this as well. And we have to deal with the sexism in our society – truth be told, our behavior reveals that we only respect women to a point – and begin to treat the slightly more than half the population as the fully and artfully human beings they truly are. Same goes with eliminating the heterosexism in our society, especially that driven by religions that exclude hatefully rather than invite lovingly; love is love, even if yours is different than someone else’s and certainly can never be the cause of its antithesis, hate. Speaking of religion, we must insist that its adherents’ behavior match their godly pretense; this will eliminate one of the most tragically ironic of our current realities, that so much evil is perpetrated in the name of the Divine. And….

When we can all feel the universe as one of endless possibility, then our individual and collective vibes will be far more affirming than they are today in our grossly and unsustainably inequitable society. When we can be free to be who we truly are and experience being celebrated for this glorious idiosyncrasy, then ours will clearly be a better world than this one in which we’ve celebrated our lesser angels and found this to lead us ever deeper into darkness and despair. To see and feel the light, we’ll have to choose to be it … especially when it’s hardest (to want) to do so, like, say, at this very moment in our collective history.

For if we don’t choose to seize this potential inflection point in our shared journey, what’s likely to become of us?

Very few among us can look ahead, project where we are into the reasonably near future and see a better world. No, what lies ahead of us is more needless pain and disunity, just like the needless suffering and death that the failure of national leadership has produced from COVID-19.

By contrast, as difficult as it may be – likely requiring almost superhuman forbearance as we learn to Dialogue Across Difference – envisioning a future in which we accept and embrace each other’s humanity offers the possibility for affirmation and fulfillment for us all. No, it won’t be easy to achieve – we’re human (and quite consistently fallible) after all – but it will be worth it: imagine when everyone can feel a sense of endless possibility in life, secure in the knowledge that he/she/they can become and be a Summer Fool or whatever else they want in life….

  

I’m concerned about a better world. I’m concerned about justice; I’m concerned about brotherhood and sisterhood; I’m concerned about truth. And when one is concerned about that, he can never advocate violence. For through violence you may murder a murderer, but you can’t murder murder. Through violence you may murder a liar, but you can’t establish truth. Through violence you may murder a hater, but you can’t murder hate through violence. Darkness cannot put out darkness; only light can do that.

 

And I say to you, I have also decided to stick with love, for I know that love is ultimately the only answer to humankind’s problems. And I’m going to talk about it everywhere I go. I know it isn’t popular to talk about it in some circles today. And I’m not talking about emotional bosh when I talk about love; I’m talking about a strong, demanding love. For I have seen too much hate. [...] and I say to myself that hate is too great a burden to bear. I have decided to love. If you are seeking the highest good, I think you can find it through love. And the beautiful thing is that we aren’t moving wrong when we do it, because John was right, God is love. He who hates does not know God, but he who loves has the key that unlocks the door to the meaning of ultimate reality.

 - The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., “Where Do We Go From Here?”