In today’s World with the current Covid pandemic, the Russian War with Ukraine and the dramatic climatic events, Hope is an essential ‘element’ of life today, or so I believe.
Hope it is best defined by its opposite – despair. We all understand Hope but cannot explain it. Hope is more than a belief, though it is often defined as such – a belief that the situation will get better. It is more a combination of a judgement, an optimistic outlook and an ‘inner knowledge’ that everything comes to pass and all will be well.
Hope is not dependent on some future event - this is a wish. It is a present experience dependent on nothing but itself. Furthermore Hope never comes suddenly but always results, from a gradual, and almost certainly unconscious, reappraisal of the current (and generally calamitous) situation and based on this a judgement is made – either hope or despair. It has in it an element almost of faith, which is defined most elegantly in the King James Bible (Heb 11:1) – “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” - but Hope is certainly more than faith.
Destroying Hope is a ruthless tool used by autocratic, dictatorial and oppressive regimes wherever they are found.
Most of us have heard the term ‘Pandora’s Box’ (or more correctly it should be a jar) – but may not know the story behind the term. It is a story worth repeating.
In the ancient Greek legend about the beginning of mankind and how the travails that beset human beings came into being, Pandora (meaning ‘the all gifted’) was the first woman sent by Zeus to earth. Typical of all Greek legends it is complex and multi-layered, with many possible meanings (this myth came to prominence in a poem by Hesiod about 850 BCE).
In the beginning (according to the legend) when the world was new and man (as in male) had just been created by Zeus, Prometheus stole fire from heaven for the benefit and comfort of man. Zeus was extremely angry at this and took revenge by presenting Pandora, a beautiful woman (created from earth and water), to man. As part of her outfit, Pandora had a jar (sometimes described as a box) which she was told never to open under any circumstance. Driven by her natural curiosity, Pandora opened the container and all the evils and travails that now beset mankind escaped and spread over the earth. In shock she quickly closed the jar (or dropped the lid of the box), but the whole contents of the container had escaped, except for one thing, Hope.
Definitely misogynistic – carried forward to the Bible story about Adam and Eve!
Despair is dark whereas Hope is light and as moths to a candle humans are attracted by the light of Hope and repelled by the darkness of Despair. It is the proverbial “light at the end of the tunnel.”
In the darkest hours and when confronted by the most severe calamities of life, never give up Hope. Remember everything comes to pass and there will be the light of a new dawn.
