What wisdom the ancients must have had to design a “myth”
that matches our lives so perfectly. For
which one of us has not hung his or her head in shame or sorrow or utter defeat
when the full burden of life falls upon our shoulders? It is only hope that does not fly away from
the jar. Perhaps your jar has been
frozen again this winter? Open it
quickly in this thaw, then, and you will find hope residing within. But you already knew that.
It is not a trick.
It is real. The ability to dare
to hope for something better, something more solid, something more loving is, I
think, what is best in mankind. It is
that ability to stare into the face of the abyss with not even the tiniest of
candles to light the way and to say, “I will keep going. I will keep trying. There has
to be something better out there for me.” Faith is the substance of things not yet seen.
And woe to him who never opens the jar to search for hope
or, even worse, has foolishly left the jar open and unattended and hope has
slipped away forever. There are also some—perhaps
you know one?—who cannot access Pandora’s Jar at all or who cannot even fathom
its existence. Their number is legion,
and even now, they seethe with jealousy over the alabaster jar. It is one thing to not know of the jar’s
existence, and that is bad enough, but it is quite another thing to know of it,
to know it cannot be accessed, and to want to stop anyone who can access the jar from being able to do
so.
Yes, their number is legion. You can hear their howls in the night.
What is hope? It
is that tiny spark that cannot be doused, that tiny ray of sunshine shrouded in
the soul. It is the January thaw, the
reminder that things were better and can be better again. Come, you Angels of Hope. We know what has been taken from us, but we
also know that the Adversary can take as much as he likes and it does not
matter. He can take it all, but he will
not hold it for long. He can only lust
after the sacred flame, but he cannot touch it because it will burn him to
cinders. No matter how or where he tries
to imprison it or douse it, it will always come back to Pandora’s jar.
Hope springs eternal.
