in the open space: God & culture

“…because without a story to guide the culture of the West, we are unlikely to coalesce as a people in order to save our communities and lands.” ~Jeffrey A. Lockwood, “ The Cowboy Myth ” Recently, my husband and I started watching all the original Star Trek episodes with our kids. While I started out simply wanting to share with them a series we both enjoyed in our own childhood, it took but a few episodes for me to realize I was sharing with them a foundational story or modern myth of our age. Like Star Wars , Westerns or comic books , Star Trek is the kind of story that infuses into the culture around us and becomes part of our shared experience. In some ways, these modern shared stories are like the ones our ancestors told around the campfires—and like other good stories , they reveal who we are and how the world works. And, as Jeffrey A. Lockwood says above, stories like that help to guide us. And that probably goes a long way in explaining why I have such affection for c...

After I wrote up my post on the Lost finale , I started to look around to see how others responded, and here are a few links to articles and musings I’ve found insightful, informative and/or entertaining concerning series and its finale: Beth Rambo and Ken Brown are big reasons this post is shorter than it could have been. On The Painful Nowning Process (one of the more cleverly named blogs I’ve run across) Beth (who’s a PhD in lit plus a Buffy universe guru) pulls together a solid collection of links to various musings about the finale along with some reflections of her own . At C. Orthodoxy , Ken (who’s soon leaving for Germany to get his own PhD) gives us Lost links to reflections on the redemption themes and reviews by a couple of television critics. Jason’s post at NonModern — Lost in the Wrong Motivations or: The Beginning and The End, or the Mystery in the Middle —contains a collection of answers the series provides—and it’s a good list. And for all those questions left u...

Where do you begin with the end of a good story six years in the telling? And Lost really was a good story —you know, the kind that explores what it means to be human and tell us something about ourselves, the world we live in, the people around us. In fact, the best stories are true—not that they actually happened but in that they reflect human nature and the way the world works in reality. Lost was like this. And, over the years, one of the things I most deeply appreciated about the series was that all that exploration took for granted that there is a larger context in which we live. As Doc Jensen puts it : … Lost clearly believes that our lives play out in a fundamentally spiritual reality. Lost is asking ''what if?'' What if our actions on this planet counted against some eternal reckoning? How does that possibility change things for you? If that possibility does inspire you to live a better life, then... how? And even before then, what is a ''better li...

Sideways Locke: What makes you think letting go is so easy? Sideways Jack: It's not. I don't really know how to do it myself. Which is why was kind of hoping you could go fist. I loved that exchange. I like the implication that these two flawed, fallen men could join forces and labor together to complete their respective redemption projects. This is what we religious people call ''church.'' -- Doc Jensen in his recap and musings on “The Candidate” episode of Lost . Leave it to Doc to say the things I wish I could have said. I love this image of "church" being an action—after all, church isn’t a place we go but a people we are. The church (or "called out ones") is God’s covenant community, as Dallas Willard puts it in The Divine Conspiracy , “in which he is tangibly manifest to everyone on earth who wants to find him.” And Doc’s description of the relationship between redemption and community fits right in with others I’ve resonated with...

During a rushed and hushed pow-wow while Fake Locke/Smoke Monster/Man in Black is off talking with Jack, Sawyer fills Hurley in on his plans to escape Fake Locke and get off the island. Hurley asks if they’re going to tell Sun about those plans, and Sawyer indicates Kate is already taking care of that. Hurley: What about Sayid? Sawyer looks over at Sayid, who’s sitting by himself, his eyes blank and, well, souless. Sawyer: Sayid ain’t invited. He’s gone over the Dark Side. Hurley: Yeah, but you can always bring people back from the Dark Side. I mean, Anakin— Sawyer looks at Hurley likes he’s crazy. Sawyer: Who the hell’s Anakin? This scene is from “The Last Recruit,” one of the final episodes left in the story that is Lost . It was a rapidly paced episode that reminded me of a chessboard approaching endgame , when after eons of strategic preparation pieces are now flying around and off the board in preparation for the inevitable showdown. Among other things, we continue to watch b...

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been asked by more than one person what it is about Lost that attracts me and so many others. Why, they ask, are you so enthralled by a series about a bunch of people who crash land on a mysterious island besot by smoke monsters, polar bears, electromagnetic fields and many other forms of weirdness? I’ve thought awhile about it, and while there are many aspects of the six-season-long series that are critically noteworthy (from its character development and the actors who portray them to the themes it explores and the skill of its storytellers) I’m becoming more and more convinced that a huge draw of the series lies in the power of story—in particular, the fact that Lost tells a larger or grander story in which individual stories take place. Story plays a powerful role in our lives. In our real-life relationships with each other, so much of who we are is communicated in our personal and individual stories—both those we share together as well as those we...

In “ The Package ,” Sun is working in the garden she planted earlier on the island, alone. She is frustrated because she has come back to the island to find her husband Jin, but remains separated from him. Then the Smoke creature in the form of Locke comes out of the jungle and Sun faces him suspiciously. Sun: What are you doing here? FakeLocke: I found your husband. Sun is stunned. Sun: What? FakeLocke: I promised you that I would reunite you two—took me a little longer than I thought it would—but he’s with my people back at my camp across the island. Sun stares at him. Then he reaches out his hand to her as he takes a few steps towards her. FakeLocke: I can take you to him right now. Sun takes a step backward. Sun: I don’t believe you. FakeLocke drops his hand. Sun: You killed those people at the temple. FakeLocke: Those people were confused. They were lied to. I didn’t want to hurt them. Any one of them could have chosen to come with me. He takes a few more steps towards he...

In the Dr. Linus episode of Lost , Illana has chained Ben to a tree and forced him to dig his own grave because he killed Jacob—who was like a father to her. After the Smoke Monster (who now looks like Locke) sets him free, she chases him into the jungle, where Ben finds the gun Fake Locke told him would be there. He grabs it, turns around and points it at her. She puts her gun down, raises her hands up, then after a pause, drops them. Illana: What are you waiting for? Ben pauses, anguish written all over his face. Ben: I want to explain. Illana ( exasperated ): Explain what? Ben: I want to explain that I know what you’re feeling. Illana: No, you have no idea what I’m feeling. Ben: I watched my daughter Alex die in front of me. And it was my fault. I had a chance to save her. But I chose the island— He pauses, the pain of the memory on his face— Ben: —over her . All in the name of “Jacob.” I sacrificed everything for him. Ben lowers his gun. Ben: And he didn’t even care. Illana...

Jack is here because he has to do something. He can't be told what that is. He's gotta find it himself. Sometimes you can just hop in the back of someone's cab and tell them what they're supposed to do. Other times you have to let him look out at the ocean for awhile. --Jacob to Hurley (in whose cab Jacob did hop once upon a time) at the end of The Lighthouse episode of Lost As I watched this scene, I couldn't help but reflect that the contrast between how Hurley and Jack communicate with Jacob (who appears to be something other than human with powers beyond human capability) bears some resemblence to how we humans experience our relationship with God. Sometimes it feels like God speaks simply and clearly--be it through his Word, other people, his Spirit within us or our prayers. Sometimes, God seems silent. And sometimes, like Jack, it takes us awhile to get ourselves into a place where we can hear his voice and direction. (Image: Hulu )

In the jungle, Sayid has gone to meet and kill the MiB by Dogen ’s instruction. When he stabs MiB (in Locke’s form), Smokey pulls the knife from his chest and chides Sayid for being duped by Dogen . When Sayid asks what MiB wants from him, he tells him he wants Sayid to deliver a message. MiB : Sayid , if you do this for me— He pauses. MiB : What if I told you that you could have anything that you wanted? What if I said you could have anything in the entire world? Sayid : I would tell you that the only thing I ever wanted died in my arms, and I’ll never see it again. MiB moves closer to Sayid and looks down at him. MiB : But what if you could? Sayid goes back to the temple to “deliver the message,” and seeks out Dogen , who confesses to him about a dark time in his past. He’d just received a promotion at work, and went out to celebrate—but he had too much to drink. As he was driving his 12-year-old son home, he got in a car accident and his son was fatally injured. Dogen :...

Maybe . Maybe not . lostctgy

(Warning: Big spoilers ahead) Locke (whom we’ve just discovered is still actually very dead and this person who looks like Locke is actually something else—and likely pretty evil—masquerading as him) tells a deeply unsettled Ben, to do what he was asked to do: kill Jacob. Jacob calmly looks at Ben and walks towards him. Jacob: Benjamin, whatever he’s told you, I want you to understand one thing: You have a choice. Ben: What choice? Jacob: You can do what he asks, or you can go— Jacob looks over at AntiLocke and then back at Ben. Jacob: —leave us to discuss our . . . issues. Ben is incredulous. Ben: Oh, so now after all this time you’ve decided to stop ignoring me. Thirty-five years I lived on this island and all I ever heard was your name over and over. Richard would bring me your instructions, all those slips of paper, all those lists. And I never questioned anything. I did as I was told. But when I dared to ask to see you myself, I was told, “You have to wait. You have to be pa...

Jack and Kate have been captured and are sitting in Eloise’s tent, where Kate asks Jack about a comment he made earlier about Daniel Faraday’s idea to blow up the island in order to prevent Flight 815 from crashing (and Charlotte from dying) in the future. Kate: You know, before we were caught you said that we needed to put things back the way they were supposed to be. She pauses. Kate: What did you mean by that? Jack: If we can do what Faraday said, our plane never crashes. Flight 815 lands in Los Angeles, and everyone that we’ve lost since we’ve got here— Jack sighs and smiles. Jack: —they’d all be alive. Kate: And what about us? We just go on living our life because we’ve never met? Jack: All the misery that we’ve been through, it would just wipe it clean. Never happenend. Kate leans forward, looking at Jack intently. Kate: But it was not all misery. Jack stares at her, and sighs. Jack: Enough of it was. Kate looks back at him, tears in her eyes. After watching last week...

Physicist Daniel Faraday is explaining to Jack and Kate how the entire chain of events that brought them to the island is beginning that very afternoon, with an explosion that will take place on the island that will eventually bring down the plane they were on in the future. Daniel: But we can change that. I’ve studied relativistic physics my entire life, and one thing you learn over and over: you can’t change the past. Whatever happened, happened, right? Then I finally realized. I’ve been spending so much time focused on the constant , I forgot about the variables . He holds up his notebook. Daniel: Do you know what the variables in these equations are, Jack? Jack: No Daniel: Us. We’re the variables. People. We think. We reason. We make choices. We have free will. We can change our destiny. I loved this part of “ The Variable ” episode in last night’s Lost because it gets at some things with which I resonate: that we have a choice on what path we walk—and those choices affect th...