We hope you enjoy our fourth podcast episode, this one exploring hope.

Chris Smith and Dave Kopacz speak about Chris’ forthcoming book, Hope Opens Doors. As we open one door of hope after another, we discuss the words of Vaclav Havel, Thomas Merton, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Rebecca Solnit, and F. Scott Fizgerald.

We talk about hope as a door that opens into rooms of new experience as well as the risk of being “imprisoned” in a room without a door, or a room that refuse to leave and are stagnating in. Yet, there is also the risk of opening the door too much, or opening Pandora’s Box.

Chris tells the following story about hope:

Thomas Merton, the writer and Trappist monk, is sometimes credited with saying, “Peace is not something you must hope for in the future. Rather, it is a deepening of the present, and unless you look for it in the present you will never find it.” If this quote is accurate, it reflects an important insight about hope, too. That is, hope is a “deepening” in the present, if we can be and listen long enough. It’s there. When Pandora was presented with a box and told not to open it, she, of course, removed the lid, releasing suffering and misery throughout the world. When the lid was finally secured, all that remained was hope.

And Chris read a little bit from his book, Hope Opens Doors:

As I was reflecting on this, our grandson, Angelo, was at our home. In the afternoon, we decided to take a walk. Angelo saw a rabbit in a neighbor’s yard and chased it. We ran through shrubs, bushes, and parts of my neighbor’s yard I’d never seen. The rabbit remained out of reach. It was frustrating. As I reflected on this later in the day, a question emerged: why is it the things that matter most often seem out of reach—like a rabbit?  And, while it is true for rabbits, it seemed to apply to so many other things, too. For example, peace really matters and yet is out of reach.  Health really matters and I recently had my appendix removed.

Hope, then, is often out of reach.

However, this isn’t the final answer. It is partial. Can you guess what’s missing? Though Angelo and I weren’t successful at catching the rabbit, there was, at least, a rabbit. We saw it. This point is often missed. Though peace is often out of reach, there is peace. Though health is sometimes out of reach, health exists. Peace, health, and rabbits. They exist. Just because we can’t contain them when we want doesn’t mean they do not exist.

Hope, then, is often simultaneously out of reach and present. Further, pursuing hope, though we may never be able to hold it in our hands or completely realize it, can still lead to adventure and self-understanding. I would have never seen different parts of my neighbor’s yard if it weren’t for that rabbit and an energetic two-year-old. Angelo and I discovered we like the challenge of chasing something that captures our curiosity. We learned both of us love navigating obstacles like shrubs and bushes. We also learned the rabbit was far better equipped to outrun and escape our best efforts.

Chris spoke about how the inspiration and title for his book came from a dream where he heard the phrase “Hope opens doors.” We then explored how sudden inspirations (as Havel says that hope is “anchored somewhere beyond the horizons” and that it comes to us from “elsewhere,” [Havel, Disturbing the Peace, 181]). I share how this idea of inspiration in the creative process reminded me of Kermit the Frog! I’m working on a book chapter with the working title, “Greening Medicine: The Role of the Medical Humanities,” and I suddenly remembered the Kermit the Frog song, “Bein’ Green,” and its line, “It’s not easy being green.” This song then provided the template for the beginning and end of the book chapter.

We include a guided meditation inspired by Joseph Rael’s teaching that no matter what you do in life, or what is done to you, that Wah-Mah-Chi (the Tiwa word for God, which he translates as Breath-Matter-Movement) holds back a place of goodness in your heart – which is always there, even if you have lost touch with it.

Hope, Chris says, is an “orthogonal perspective,” that to understand hope, we need to look at it from multiple different perspectives. While I agree with Chris on this, I told him that I have always thought that hope was “ornithological!” As this excerpt from Emily Dickinson’s poem, “‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers”

“‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers–
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops–at all–”

We hope that you enjoy this podcast on hope, it went longer than we hoped it would, but maybe we are in a time where we all need a little more hope.

73 minutes