March is a season of hope. Where I live, tulips are blooming and trees are budding. Hopeful signs of life are everywhere in nature. In American politics hope is a frequent theme and a leading candidate for president has written a book entitled, The Audacity of Hope. More importantly this is also the season of Easter which to persons of faith symbolizes the greatest sort of hope of all--- Resurrection and eternal life!!
So what does Pandora’s Box have to do with hope? Although the legend has been variously understood over the centuries, its roots are in Greek mythology, When Pandora, the Greek goddess opened what became known as Pandora’s Jar, all the evils of the world were released. Only Elpis (Greek word for “hope”) the personification of hope, remained in the jar. In the 16th Century, Erasmus mistakenly translated “jar” into the Latin,“box.” The word has stuck and ever since then we have all been afraid to open Pandora’s Boxes.
Hope is a belief in a positive outcome related to events and circumstances. It is one of the three greatest virtues according to the Bible. It is what has kept many a prisoner of war alive in the most horrible of circumstances. Here are some ways others have expressed their ideas about hope:
In all things it is better to hope than to despair. - Goethe
Hope is the dream of a soul awake. - French proverb
Hope never abandons you, you abandon it.
We can live 40 days without food, 3 days without water, 8 minutes without air but only 1 second without hope.
Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings without words and never stops at all. - Emily Dickenson
Hope is knowing that people, like kites, are made to be lifted up.
Hope is faith holding out its hand in the dark.
Hope is the feeling that the feeling isn’t permanent. - Jean Kerr
He who has health has hope. And he who has hope has everything.
If we do not have hope beyond this life, we are of all men most miserable. - The Bible
The resurrection of Christ provides us with a living hope. - The Bible.
As I work with people in coaching it has become very obvious to me how critical hope is to living a contented life, yes, even living at all. I am troubled when a person gives up hope all together. Such a person has begun to die. We need things to look forward to. We must believe that somehow, someday things will be better; whether this be in the case of a prisoner of war in some filthy cell or someone who has just lost his job or source of income, or if it is a student whose course work seems to be never ending, or if it is about a wayward son or daughter making poor life choices, or whether it is someone whose health is failing. It is one reason why a terminally ill person will go anywhere, try any cure, pay any sum of money, to find healing and relief. Once we lose hope all together, we begin to die.
As I am a person from the faith community. I happen to believe that ultimately hope must transcend the human condition. Ultimately it is not enough to simply have hope in this life. The reason is that for each of us there comes a time when the ravages of disease, the elimination or outsourcing of jobs, the relentless march of time on our bodies, and so on, take their toll. The optimism and eagerness of youth is replaced with the stark reality that some things cannot be changed. We may be able to slow the process down but to date, that proverbial fountain of youth has not really been discovered. It is what Ecclesiastes calls the vanity of life. All is vanity and emptiness on the purely human level.
What are your thoughts about hope? Are you hopeful that your life, your work, and your marriage or family, will get better someday, somehow? Do you have plans to make your hope come alive by taking responsibility for your life? Or are you a person near the end of this life seriously pondering about what might lie ahead of you? Back to that Pandora's Box story for a moment - Students of Greek Mythology offer various suggestions about what the story was really meant to teach. One suggestion is that hope is the one positive in a world of evils. I like that interpretations. This world can be tough at times. When we find that there is too much "month at the end of the money," our optimistic hope can begin to flicker. We can easily conclude that life will only get worse. Maybe you feel that way right now. You can let most anything escape your Pandora's Box, but please do not allow hope to escape!
I would love to chat with you about your own thoughts on hope. If you are a person for whom life has become burdensome and discouraging, there surely must be reasons for hope. A life coach like myself can help you talk about your situation and come alongside you as you try to sort it all out. Even more importantly, if you have concerns and thoughts about a hope that transcends this life, I would be delighted to chat with you about that as well. You can reach me at rick@icarecoaching.com or use the contact portion of my website www.icarecoaching.com.
Rick Penner
Copyright, 2007
