"Lost" and the Living Story: A Throwback
Introductory Note: I am presently residing on Writer's Block Island. The last couple of weeks have left me a bit emotionally and creatively spent. But I have been wanting publish something on this site for several days. Earlier I was going through an external hard drive that contains the soul of a since-deceased computer and found archives from my first years of blogging. And I noticed this one from 12 years ago today: September 21, 2005. I had not even been blogging for a month. So it is with great trepidation--and the reminder that this was 12 years ago--that I present this blog version of a #tbt. Please be kind.
I am sitting down to watch the season premiere of "Lost"--a recap of last season is currently on. I mentioned in an earlier post that this is my favorite show. Let me tell you a little about it:
An airline flight--Oceanic 815 from Sydney, Australia to Los Angeles--crashes somewhere in the Pacific. The plane was thrown 1000 miles off course after losing communication. Somehow, someway 46 people survive the crash. They now find themselves on this seemingly deserted island. But this is not just any deserted island. Somewhere in the jungle is a monster and it eats people at random times. We do not know what the monster is or why it's eating people. It may not even be a monster, but some sort of security system for the island. There's also this guy named John Locke who was a parapalegic before the plane crashed. Suddenly, after the plane crash, the guy can walk again. There's also this kid named Walt who may or may not be psychic and who may or may not be conjuring up polar bears that randomly attack people in the jungle. That's right, a polar bear in a jungle on an island in the Pacific. Then, there is this girl named Clair. She's pregnant. A psychic (another one, not the kid) tells her not to let anyone else raise the baby. Bad stuff will happen if she does. So we think her kid may be the Antichrist, but we're not sure. A strange, pseudo-super powered guy named Ethan kidnaps Clair, but she comes back with amnesia and Ethan is shot before we can find anything out. He's Canadian, so might be the source of his strength. There's this guy named Hurley who won the lottery back in the States. But after he won the lottery, bad things started happening. His grandfather died, his new house burned down, he got arrested, and on and on. He received his winning lottery numbers from this guy who is now in the mental institution. Long story short, he thinks the numbers are cursed. There is a crazy French lady (like there is any other kind of French lady...apologies to the French) who has been on the island for about 16 years. She keeps talking about "the Others" and "the Others" are coming and "the Others" are going to kill everyone. She generally freaks people out. Also, Locke--the ex-parapalegic, now Outback Jim boar hunter--finds a hatch in the middle of the island...this deserted island. We don't know what the hatch is or what's in the hatch (though we're allegedly going to find out before 10 tonight), but Locke develops a Moby Dick-like obsession. He thinks hope is in the hatch, which makes me think it's kind of like Pandora's Box. There's a huge Spanish galleon-style ship in the middle of the island where they find dynamite to blow up the hatch. Oh and by the way, Hurley's cursed lottery numbers, which were part of a signal that attracted the French lady and her crew to the island, are also etched on the side of the hatch. Plus several guys--Walt the possibly psychic kid, his dad, a con-man named Sawyer, and a Korean man named Jin--go out on a raft to see if they can get rescued and get help for the others. They get a signal, but the signal turns out to be these guys who just want to kidnap Walt. And they blow up the raft. We don't know what happens to the other three. All this time, Clair has a normal-looking child, Jack (the doctor and reluctant leader of the tribe) chases down the ghost of his father, and people die from various things like being eaten by a monster, drowning, being in a crashed Nigerian plane as it falls to the ground, being blown up by dynamite, and getting killed by this Ethan guy.
Whew.
That sounds like a pretty ridiculous show doesn't it? As I look over that previous paragraph, it seems like the weirdest cross between "Gilligan's Island", "X-Files", and "Looney Toons" ever conceived. But I love the show. Justin and I caught the season premiere in our apartment about this time last year. We'd seen some commercials, thought it looked interesting if a little unorthodox, and decided to give it a shot. And it has owned our lives ever since.
Justin and I decided that we had to tell people about this new show "Lost". We got some strange looks from people. You give a spiel like I just gave and people are going to be kind of reluctant to watch that kind of show (others are morbidly intrigued). The funny thing is when those same people, who thought we were nuts, sat down and watched the show they liked it. Most of them, a lot. In fact, this past week "Lost" won the Emmy for Best Drama, which I feel validates me a bit. But ultimately, the point is that these people were incredibly skeptical about the show, but came to like it when they sat down to watch it.
The Christian faith is the same way. I find myself getting frustrated at times because I can never adequately explain what God had done in my life. I'm sure many people have experienced that when you try to explain this:
God created the whole universe, but we rebelled and that separated us from God. Instead of wiping these humans out, God came to earth, lived among humanity, and they still killed the greatest thing to grace the earth. But somehow, someway that death makes it possible to patch things up with God. If we turn away from that junk called sin and commit ourselves to what God wants, we can make peace even though we don't deserve it. Oh yeah, and this God is three (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) in one. So even though we talk about God in three different ways, we're still monotheistic.
It makes sense to Christians (though I'll admit that it does not always make sense to me), but tell someone on the street that story and they may look at you like people looked at me when I told them about "Lost". Christians need to tell people about their faith, but they have to realize that people need to experience it. Just as the stories of "Lost" drew people into the show, the living story of someone's life can draw someone into Christianity. And they might find that they like it. A lot.
There is a song entitled "They Will Know We Are Christians By Our Love". And I believe that is true. Christians are to live lives of love: full of compassion for the oppressed, a desire to see God's healing in the lives of others, a life that is willing to sacrifice all for God and fellow human. People need to not just hear about Christianity, but to experience it. Word and deed must go hand in hand. God has done incredible things in the lives of people; they are living stories. Is everyone going to come running when they hear the story? No, of course not. But if they truly experience what Christianity is about, then they just might like it. Kind of like "Lost".
So watch this TV show tonight. It's pretty good. And, if you're in to the rest of what I wrote, pray that I will back up my words.
