Summer is coming...

For any of you that have read George R.R. Martin's ongoing series (or watched the TV spin off), the title of today's post might have made you chuckle. "Winter is coming" is the motto of the Starks, one of the families Martin's series follows, and the idea of the oncoming Winter as both metaphor and very harsh reality is practically omnipresent in the books. Without wanting to give too much away about the series' sweeping and complex plot, in the world in which these books take place, seasons do not last for a set amount of time.  One never knows ahead of time how long a Winter or Summer (or Fall or Spring for that matter) will last--and the Winter holds a cruel promise of deprivation, want, desperation, madness, and the threat of violence of an even worse sort. Martin's world is grim, and only becomes grimmer as the Winter comes closer. "Winter is coming" becomes then a phrase to remind those who hear it that the worst is yet to come, that those who are ill-prepared won't stand a chance, and that many who are well prepared might not make it, but had better try anyway.

Yet I write "Summer is coming". Indeed, in one sense Summer is already here, and has been for several days. Children are ending their school year and the long weekend that marks Summer's opening for many people is just ahead of us. Of course I am not speaking only of our calendar Summer when I chose to bring it up here. Rather, I am speaking of Summer as a time of plenty, of blossoming, of freedom and relaxation and playfulness; a time of growth and bonding. I am using Summer here as a metaphor for social flourishing and a just world.

By now you may be thinking, "Allyson, you must be delusional! Look at the world around you; it seems on the brink of chaos. There's injustice everywhere, and environmental disasters, and civil wars, and governments cracking down on their own citizens, and possible economic collapse--how can you possibly think Summer is coming? If ever the Stark motto fit, now would be the time!" The funny thing is, a large part of me would agree with you, if that is what you're thinking. We do seem to be heading into leaner and rougher times. But that's precisely why I say, "Summer is coming."  I am a cyclical thinker, and the truth is that if Summer is coming, so is Winter. In fact, if Summer is "coming", it's likely that we're standing in Winter right now. And, just like in Martin's novels, we don't know how long this Winter is likely to be.


I raise this point because in the many necessary preparations for all the harsh facts of our present and projected future social, political, and environmental climate, I sometimes wonder if preparing for the possibility of "better days" is necessary too. I am hardly advocating we all put on rose-coloured glasses and ignore our present crises. Swift and wise action is needed to combat the environmental damage we have already done and continue to do. The level of suffering, poverty and violence around the globe needs to be lowered (eradicated would be even better, but that would take a transformation I at least can't forsee.) Our metaphorical Winter in all its harshness must be lived in and responded to, lest the life-and-soul draining forces of Winter run roughshod over us due to our own lack of preparation, and even our own actions in bringing the Winter here. But while we do this, should we not also be trying to think in terms of preparing structures that call forth flourishing--to think about justice and prepare for justice not just as a negative (fighting against injustices) way, but also in terms of a positive this is what justice and social flourishing might look like for these issues or contexts. In one of the comments on last week's post, Jared said we need to be "giving back to the creation what it needs to flourish once again". I think this is good insight, insofar as it is possible for us to do so. In at least some very significant ways, we, humans, are responsible for having called this harsh "Winter" into reality. If we were to be able to give back to creation what it needs to flourish again, could we not do the inverse and begin to call a "Summer" full of life and health into reality?


Of course, such a seasonal change is not going to happen overnight--if it happens at all. I admit in fact that I myself tend more toward the "Winter is coming" mentality, and that proclaiming or calling for the coming of Summer is for me more an act of spiritual discipline than it is a present understanding. But as a spiritual discipline it is something I believe may constitute a "calling" proper: a practice that is at the same time a vocation--and once which perhaps we are all called to, in different ways. In order to try to bring that Summer into reality, I try to balance the work I undertake against injustice with work that positively envisions and works for justice as the normal state of being. The question is then, what can we do (along with fighting the environmental, social and political injustices already here) to structure justice into our lives and actions? Is it a matter of writing better policy? Of putting new laws in place? Of changing the hearts and minds of individuals or changing the practices of corporations? Or do we perhaps need better theory behind our actions? Do we need to define what a right is, and whether (for example) the earth itself has "rights"? How can we decide this, on a global scale--who do we need to get talking to each other? How can we bring different groups together to the proverbial "table" and help them listen and learn from each other, working together for justice?


The seasons of Spring and Fall, metaphorically speaking, have always seemed to me to be times of people going their separate ways and being more focused on their own small groups, such as families. The proverbial crops need to be planted in Spring and harvested in the Fall, and those are times when one tends to one's own business, so to speak. Summer and Winter have a different metaphorical feel. In a harsh Winter, people pull together for warmth and to share scarce resources to ensure mutual survival. Desperate circumstances can make partners out of unlikely groups. Likewise in Summer people come together, but now to celebrate and bond. Festivities can also bring out unlikely partnerships, as people and groups find they had more in common than they thought and are more oriented toward a spirit of hope or joy. Given that we appear to be standing facing a long hard Winter, and given our (hopeful) orientation toward working for the coming of Summer, how can we pull together, and what particular issues should we be working on for creating positive accounts of what justice looks like? My plan in posing this question is to get a sense of what people believe are the pressing issues to be addressed, and then open a series of posts on some of those particular issues, with a view for discussing positive constructions of justice within them. I've thrown out the question of "environmental/earth rights" for discussion here. What say you?