For many reasons, people question whether there is any hope for the world at this time. Yet, it is the nature of hope to become lost before being found again at another level of life. In the old myth of Pandora's Box, hope only appears after all possible troubles, pains and agonies have been unleashed upon the world. At critical times, life can seem hopeless before a deeper level of hope can be found again in the depths of the human heart and soul.

The great opportunity in times of radical change does not lie in the literal sense of either going forward through evolutionary steps or going back to a theoretically better time. The bygone days have really gone by and many aspects of the supposed “good old days” would not be good in the current context of the world. While political campaigns must employ hope primarily on the linear, horizontal level, a more radical sense of hope involves inspiration and imagination that can arise from the depths of the individual human soul.

The common idea that progress on the collective level is required to alter, change and improve life on the individual level has it backwards. When seen with its vertical as well as its horizontal aspects, meaningful change and genuine transformation begin in the depths of the human soul before it can help change collective life. It is not simply that we have to find ways to hope again, but rather that we have to find connections to the transcendent aspects and vertical dimensions that can be accessed through hope.

The situation seems most hopeless when viewed from within the narrow logic of a collapsing worldview. It is when we see through the lens of vertical hope and deep imagination that the next phase of life can be envisioned as truly different from the history that preceded it. This deeper level of hope includes a greater vision of the world, as well as a sharper insight into one's own being, and thus the individual soul becomes the ground of all invention, becomes the root of all genuine imagination that can, in truth, alter the course of life and become the source of renewed hope for the world.

Despite the fact that we can feel small in comparison to the global problems we face, anyone can become a recipient of inspiration and imagination trying to enter the world. It can happen to someone campaigning for cultural change or working at environmental healing. It can happen to anyone answering the call of spirit and awakening to a genuine life purpose. For this deeper sense of hope depends upon the unique power of the human soul to imagine and therefore create, to innovate and help renew life. When life becomes full of uncertainty and subject to radical changes and continuous shocks, what we need is a radical sense of hope that connects us to the vertical imagination that can, in truth, alter the course of life.