Were You lost in "Lost"?

If you are like me and millions of other Americans, you've been watching the ABC hit series "Lost." In fact, last week 13.5 million viewers tuned in to watch the American airing of the 2.5-hour Lost finale. Anyway, most of the time I felt like the characters in the plot with those bewildered looks on their faces. Did you feel that way too? When we first started watching it the first year, I was rather bored. I couldn't follow the plot that well and it seemed to ramble on and on (sort of like this blog).

How did it all get started? What is all the fuss about this program?

Lost opened with a group of passengers on Oceanic Airlines Flight 815 who were on a scheduled flight  from Sydney, Australia to Los Angeles, California when the plane crashed over the sea. Strange things started happening to the surviving passengers who were stranded on the island. For example, a paralyzed man named John Locke suddenly gained use of his legs and began walking around. 

What finally aroused my curiosity in the program though was something called the The DHARMA Initiative (Department of Heuristics And Research on Material Applications).  Supposedly this was a scientific research project that had a large presence on the island and started to flirt with "time travel" based on a magnetic force hidden deep in the earth. Most of the Lost plot went in different directions, to the 50s when an atomic bomb was discovered when an eccentric physics professor from present day tried to help them disarm it.  Anyway, the DHARMA "scientific" group came into conflict with another group known as the "Hostiles" who were island natives. They resented the scientific expeditions and accused DHARMA group of murder and mayhem through their many years as island inhabitants.

Hostiles frequently stayed on their side of the island and the DHARMA initiative erected complex electronic fences around their compounds. The two groups finally formed a "truce" in the 70s, but DHARMA occasionally violated the peace accord.

Survivors from Oceanic Flight 815 became even more confused by these two groups, each making what appeared to be valid accusations about the other people. Some survivors of the crashed airplane sided with the DHARMA group and some survivors took up the cause of the Hostiles. Did I forget to mention "Jacob" was a mysterious figure of authority of the Island who was "in charge" of the Island. Jacob would appear at various time points in history - sometimes dating back to the childhood of survivors of the "future" airline crash. The characters vaguely remembered him in their "flashbacks" in time, but this was also confusing. Who was Jacob? Who was his fraternal twin (the man in black) as he was portrayed as "evil" and why was Jacob going back in time to bring the survivors together on the island?  

What does all of this "taking sides" have to do with the "Lost" passengers aboard Oceanic Flight 815?

I guess this isn't easily answered in the short take I am doing here. It certainly wasn't always clear in the plot. I think sometimes both the actors and the audience began to feel "Lost." It was fun, I guess.

For the characters "Lost" was part delirium, part time travel and part confusion in discovering "truth." I was particularly amused at some biblical themes in the plot as the story aired. There was a resurrection (really, a dead person coming back to life), good and evil, a false prophet, lies, alcoholism, violence and murder, justification for doing wrong, struggles with guilt, and a sense of wanting to do something right given a second chance.

We were all entertained, watched faithfully (if you were hooked) and we ate our popcorn in front of the television. In essence, we were allowed to determine what the "door of light" at the end meant and could leave it to our own interpretation. This was designed to be a humanistic ending, encompassing all religious viewpoints and perhaps even embracing agnosticism.

What was the door of light to you? What is beyond our human experience; our lifetime of experiences? Do you ever feel lost like the characters on Oceanic Flight 815? Is life simply a "mindless wandering" through time?

The last thing I want to do here is get all religious here, but the film really took the "pot shot" at discussion spiritual things. What happens when you die? Will there be a reconciliation with long, lost friends? A reunion with a deceased father? A self-realization that you actually died? A casket in the back room?

If you are searching for answers, there are lots of places to begin from a religious perspective. For me, I found the answers in Christianity a long time ago. Some will say it was because I was born Caucasian, in Western culture and simply followed the direction my parents taught me. It isn't so, my embracing Christianity has everything to do with free will and making my own decisions.  I would love to share my own journey there, it had many curves in the plot just like the Lost film series. I also made many mistakes and hurt people in trying to get to that point in my life where Christ became a real person. Not a fantasy like John Locke, but a real person as revealed in the book of John. Better yet, find out what John has to say for yourself. Pick up a bible, just start reading John Chapter 1.   

Or, go back to eating popcorn. Really, it is all up to you....

Beer Can Parable

In the fall of 1973, anxious to leave home, I enlisted in the Air Force and was to report to active duty immediately after high school graduation. Confident that I was now economically secure, I went to Melvin's Ford in Hampton and ordered a Mustang with my new found freedom. The new car in 1973 came to $3329 (I have the invoice in front of me as I write this). I traded in a 1967 Pontiac for this car, so it helped a little bit. Just like the hit single by Everclear, we only listened to the "AM Radio" back in 1973. It was also during this time that gas prices went up. During my junior year, a gallon of gas was 32 cents, if you were lucky and could drive into Mason City you might get gas for 30 cents. Sometimes there would be a "gas war" and it might dip down to 28 or 29 cents and you thought you were lucky. It wasn't uncommon for us at all to pull up to a full-service station and say "put in 2 dollars worth" and you would easily have a half tank of gas!

With the oil embargo gas shot up to 39 cents a gallon in January of 1974. I didn't know how this was going to work out, and since the economy was "shot" new for sure that I wasn't going to college and the Air Force was the best option. My parents were not at all excited about my career plans, but on June 3 put me on the bus and off I went to Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas for basic training.

We got our heads shaved a day or so later. As we were in-processing, the "experienced" Airman called us "rainbows" as we still had our civilian clothes and hadn't been issued anything more than the haircut. We came from all walks of life. No sooner had we checked into the barracks, the same buildings my father stayed in during the Korean War (he was retired Air Force), that I discovered we had people without a high school diploma to guys that had been in college.

One guy in particular had been "simple minded" and there was always somebody like that in the Air Force. We were learning to march and the drill sergeant would yell "COLUMN-RIGHT" and this guy would turn left. He did it every time.

There would be a long pause as the platoon leader would yell "HALT." He went up to this guy, the sergeant stood maybe 2 inches from his nose" and said "YOUR OTHER RIGHT."

IT was really funny. We would march along again for an hour, this guy did the same thing. The platoon sergeant stops the entire squadron and spots a beer can along the side of the road. It was squashed from a car tire. He gets an idea and sends the young soldier over to pick it up.

Our drill instructor proceeded to yell at him and asked him to sniff it and let us all know if it smelled good.

"NO SIR," the young airman replied.

We chuckled. This was hilarious.  If you laughed out loud though, the sergeant would walk over to your face so one tended to keep it to a smirk he couldn't see.

"From this day forward, every time I see you, you are to carry that beer can around in your RIGHT HAND. I want you to polish it, wash it, and it is to smell like a rose every morning, DO YOU HEAR ME AIRMAN?"

"YES SIR," the shaking soldier responded.

For the next six weeks, this guy carried around the beer can in his right hand. He never left the barracks without it. It was always a joke among the rest of us, but I learned a life lesson out of it as I grew older and never forgot it.


That airman paid a price for his mistake, an embarrassing one. At times this guy was hated by all of us. He made our squadron look bad. Whenever an officer would walk by our platoon he would order us to halt, walk up to this guy and just shake his head. We became the laughing-stock on the whole base. Nobody felt sorry for this guy. The best thing we could do is "hide" him in the middle when we marched.

In the "chow line" we made this guy suffer. He would never be first when we were hungry and bumped him to last. When we hit the showers it was worse than gym class, this guy would walk into the stall with his beer can. When he went to the sink to shave, he had his beer can. We ridiculed him, naked and all. Didn't bother us.

Sometimes I think back to that hot summer day and remember that beer can. How often I should know right from wrong, the right from the left. But, I don't do it. I mess up, just like that Airman. There is a moral choice to be made, but I fail God and go the other direction. So, who gets stuck with the beer can?

I guess Jesus is sort of like that guy when we screw up.

Isaiah 53:2-5 says of Christ "We turned our backs on him and looked the other way when he went by. He was despised, and we did not care. Yet it was our weaknesses he carried; it was our sorrows that weighed him down. And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God for his own sins! But he was wounded and crushed for our sins. He was beaten that we might have peace. He was whipped, and we were healed!" (New Living Translation).

I know, you don't want to read bible verses, but if you made it to this sentence - congratulations! Most people don't think of a beer can when they look up at a "cross" in a church. That symbol just doesn't fit. But for me, I sometimes think of it that way.


Enough, ok? I won't push it. But, if you've never really saw the cross for what it was or the claim that Jesus Christ is there to pick up the pieces when you make a bad choice, would you consider that claim today?