LOST And Found
Note: This article
contains spoilers.
I’m sitting
here in my office reflecting on the end of one of the best television shows
I’ve ever watched. LOST was for its viewers more than just another piece of
entertainment, it was like literature on film: a story that dealt with issues
of faith and reason, life and death and afterlife. You could not just watch an
episode here and there: the writers built a beautiful tapestry that was at once
terrible and wonderful, and if you were going to be involved you had to be
involved all the way.
Despite the
deep, mysterious, evocative, and sometimes confusing nature of the Island that was the setting for the stories, and although
it was the mystery and confusion that was the mark of the show for many outsiders,
for true fans the show was more about the characters’ separate search for
something deeper in life. I, for one, was profoundly moved by this hour a week
episodic adventure, it was thought provoking and spiritually uplifting. If you
are not yet familiar with the show or never gave it a chance, I suggest you
look at the DVD boxed sets.
In the end,
it is Jack Shepherd’s search for faith that moved me the most. Jack was a man
of science, a doubting Thomas who was in a perpetual struggle sometimes with, sometimes
against, those forces that tried to get him to see himself as called to an
actual destiny. Over against images of sometimes fanatical blind faith (in the
forms of Ben Linus and sometimes John Locke) or a kind of monastic detachment
preoccupied with a better life on the other side (Desmond Hume) Jack’s journey
was one of hard fought, this-worldly meaningfulness. In a pivotal moment
Desmond tries to convince Jack that his struggle to save the Island
and his friends don’t matter because of the existence of a better world
somewhere else, while Jack insists his struggle in this world matters, and
matters ultimately. In the end it is Jack’s vision, and not Desmond’s that wins
out. Between Jack’s early skepticism and John Locke’s absolute trust, there emerges
an image somewhere between the two, of a life lived in mystery and unknowing,
in horror and wonder, but in a general trust that there is something good and
meaningful behind it all.
Now, what
the heck does any of this have to do with youth ministry? Well, for starters, it is possible that in the
future we may do a LOST study in youth group. I wrote one a couple of years
back for our junior high mission trip and it went splendidly, and when I did
that I also wrote one for the senior high group. Unfortunately this only
touches on the first season of the show, because if you really wanted to do it
right a study of religious ideas using this TV show would take years to
complete, and that’s just not feasible.
More
importantly, I think the image of faith that comes out as the noblest and
truest is the one that predominates in this group. Inquisitive, questioning,
hard fought; the idea of the ultimate goodness of the universe and of eternal
life always hangs in the background, but in the foreground is the conviction
that life in this world, gritty, difficult, beautiful, and tragic as it is,
matters and that we engage in our struggles together, as a family, and in
concert with God. That kind of faith is the faith lost commends to us, and it
is the kind of faith I see in this youth group every day. I’ll miss the story,
miss the show, but really in another way it’s always with me, because I live
that adventure every day.
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