A true sign that you have crossed the line from avid fan to obsessed fan is when you wake up at 5:45am thinking about the show you watched the night before. So it was with me this morning. I tossed and turned throughout the short night with thoughts of the LOST series finale running through my mind. Questions still remain unanswered. Theories are still percolating among the die hards. The first word out of my mouth as the ending credits rolled, "What?" Nothing much has changed since the first episode of the series. So, as I sit here this morning, veering away from my typical post style, I feel compelled to share my final thoughts on the finale of LOST. Sit back, scrutinize, and then feel free to add your own comment at the end. The Losties (as we have come to know them) were a group of lost souls. Flying together on Oceanic 815, there was not a free soul among them. Each led a broken life...inhabiting a body of flesh and bones, but lost deep inside. The one thing they sought out from this life was the one thing that seemed to elude them: redemption.
And then the crash.
What seemed to be the worst thing in the world that could have happened to them was the one thing that brought healing to their lives. An answer to their unspoken prayers. Alone in the real world, drawn together, bound together, strong together in the Lost world. As the island spoke to each one individually, and specifically, we observed inner transformation. Slow, painful, and sometimes deadly, the work of the island was not so much to discover what it was, but to discover who they were.
In the end, throughout their alternate lives, as they reawakened so to speak, we saw freedom and joy, not terror and fear. On the island, there was a great deal of horror, yet the memories they reflect upon are the joys of what they island gave to them.
Sun and Jin - redemption in their relationship...and a baby.
Sawyer - freedom from the past and freedom to love.
Hurley - anointed to lead.
Sayid - atonement for his past, a chance to start anew.
Charlie and Claire - souls destined to be together.
Desmond - the constant that drew them all together both on the island and off the island.
Ben - forgiveness...but still incomplete (he has so much to reckon with).
Locke - freedom from the constraints that bound him. I love what he said to Jack post-surgery and after his reawakening: "I hope someone does for you what you have done for me." Redemption.
Kate - the burden of a life set against her, lifted as she learned to love sacrificially and selflessly.
Jack - redemption. His entire life was spent saving everyone around him, longing to be set free from himself. And so it was, in the very last scene, that he could let go. He found what he spent his whole life looking for...freedom and redemption.
A part of me wishes that more of my questions could be answered. What happened to Richard Alpert? What was the Dharma Initiative all about? What about Ellie and Miles and Daniel and Charlotte and Walt and the polar bears and Room 23??? Perhaps these issues were not addressed because they were only peripheral characters and symbols set around the more significant part of the story- that being the characters themselves. Their hope for freedom from the distorted lives they were living, and their search for redemption.
They were lost before they crashed on the island. The island found them...and they finally found themselves.
Not to over-spiritualize LOST, but isn't it the hard, painful, and almost deadly seasons of our lives that bring us full circle into the grace and redemption of God? The Losties had to strive for over half the duration of the series to get off the island, but it was the island that actually healed them. We fight our island circumstances because they are painful, dark, and overwhelming. But it is through them that God sets us free, redeems us, and allows us to let go.
Hmmm...just a few thoughts. What do you think?