Truthfully, I don’t know where to start, or where to end, or what to put in the middle. This might just be a series of muddled thoughts, with no coherence, some potentially obscure thoughts, a dusting of enlightenment. I think I’m still a bit flabbergasted, how can any commentary describe how AWESOME that last two and a half-hours of television.
If you want to hear how I break down some of the spiritual issues, I’ve had that conversation with Scott and Chris in this podcast. I don’t know that I want to muddle up this last post with my personal-faith muddying already murky waters. But this wouldn’t be veil-raising without a bit of faith tossed in.
To begin the series, Damon tweeted the word apocalypse, which was the foundation of these series of posts, an apocalypse has come to mean a cataclysmic event that brings on the end of the world. In the original language, apokalypis is the lifting of the veil, a revelation. I’d state that the final 108 minutes of LOST illuminated both definitions fairly well.
Narthex, Nave and Aspe
In the podcast, we had a discussion about what the sideways world was, and what it was not. We were all in agreement, that the sideways world was not heaven, but more of a holding place. The term purgatory has been bandied about, but purgatory has some pretty heavy, and usually misunderstood, theological weight. Catholics include purgatory in their theology, but not as a physical place. Protestants often out-right call purgatory heretical, and Luther used the buying of indulgences (or payments against one’s or one’s families time in purgatory) as papal malpractice. So I’m hesitant to use that word as a term for sideways.
We bandided about the term narthex, which might have gone over non-church people’s heads, so let’s nail some things down. All churches have three things, the traditional names are narthex, nave and aspe. The narthex is the point just outside the nave, where people enter the sanctuary proper, a greeting place where people mill about and meet their friends, or family before going into the santuary. The nave is the aisle that leads to the front (or aspe) raised section where the clergy and choir are presented. Some churches have multiple naves, as they have spokes leading to the aspe. The aspe (usually facing east in classic cathedrals) is where the attention is focused and the worship is performed.
Another definition of a nave, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary is the hub of a wheel. Which is interesting, as many of the symbols of lost, use this imagery. The Dharma logo, the donkey wheel, the pool where the cork of doom rested, the pearl station. Coincidence? Fate?
So I kinda like the imagery of the sideways being the narthex, the point where we meet those people that are important to us, and move into the center of our after-life experience next, moving down the nave into the aspe. Now, here’s another thought. Jack had to enter from the back, he didn’t walk through the narthex, his friends all met and moved into the aspe, where Christian Shephard (srsly?) escorted Jack from the back of the church. They all greeted and met in the middle and made their connections, then sat down. The final scenes in sideways, was Christian moving back down the nave, opening the doors at the narthex, and walking into a bright light of the whatever after. Leading Jack and his collection of freinds, his community, and moving on.
Unplug it, then plug it back in, the candy drops right down
How great was the beginning connection to the end, the last words of Juliet in LA_X were among the first words between her and Sawyer. In fact, her last words, spoken via Miles after James and he buried her, we’re “It worked.” As she spoke those words in the sideways, her fingers touched Sawyer, and their re-connection began. I think 'I’ll use re-connection, instead of enlightenment, because it works with that saying. Perhaps, as we die, we unplug from our corporeal existence, and all our connections to real people are unplugged as well. Then as our ‘waiting room’ experience begins (and I think it’s important that this was Jack’s waiting room) we’ll have a chance to re-connect with those persons, souls for lack of a better word, that made up the important connections in our lives. This plugging in is a permanent reconnection, without regret for wrongs committed, but acknowledgement of lessons learned. We can finally embrace that connection and enjoy the fruits of our relationships without the selfishness and hostility that sometimes surrounds our relationships in this fallen world. The fruits of those re-connections are sure to be sweet, as we reconnect with our great cloud of witnesses that are waiting for us to finish our race.
The real island world was also able to experience a re-booting. Jacob was never able to take the final step of killing his brother, terminating his existence. He was always holding out, I think that his brother could let go of his hate, his hostility, his distaste for the island and go across the sea. As long as the island was around though, his brother could never go along to the other side. He was trapped along with Michael and the other ‘ghosts whispers’ because of the things they had done. But I think Jacob’s patience was that he never thought they were beyond redemption, they we’re just making slower progress. Jacob’s death was an indication that sometimes, evil has gone past the point of no return. Sadly, evil exists, and evil corrupts, and evil destroys. This darkness, malevolence, had so hardened MiB’s heart, he’d destroy everything in his path to get off the island. The only way to free him, was to kill him. The only way to kill him was to unplug the island.
Unplugging the island came with a consequence, unplugging the island also destroys the island, destroys the cork, unleashes the darkness. That safety net needed to be maintained, the cork had to be replaced, that cork required a sacrifice. Desmond’s uncorking of the plug, meant that MiB became mortal again, as we saw when Jack’s punch brought a burst of blood. It also unleashed Richard, I think, his hair started greying, he could continue his existence in the real world, find his soul mate, Bruna, and live happily ever after. But Smokey had to die, his malicious character couldn’t leave, he was no longer trapped in a semi-corporeal body, and that brought on the epic fight between him and Jack. The sacrifice started there, the slice in the abdomen, the prick on the neck, we’re harbingers of doom to our hero, but thanks to Kate always saving a bullet, the final body breaking drop of the Lockian form of darkness lay shattered at the bottom of the cliffs of insanity.
Unplugged, the darkness came and was destroyed, time to plug it back in. That required Jack’s sacrifice, he was mortally wounded, and with his last efforts, he plugged back in the cork of doom. The water of life flowed again, the light of life contained the darkness, the island’s heart began to beat again. Jack’s sacrifice allowed his friends to live, the unlikely but beneficial partnership of Hurley and Ben could begin. The friends could escape craphole island, and put back together their lives, and keep their own connections. Kate told Jack that she’d missed him for such a long time. Hurley and Ben celebrated their tenure as island #1 and #2. Lives continued after the island, it was life on this fallen world, but that was the candy that came down after the island was plugged back in.
All we need is LOVE
If one word can sum up the key to living, it’s love. Paul writes in the bible: Now these three remain: faith, hope and love – and the greatest of these is love. I think if there was the broader message is that the story of LOST wasn’t polar bears, donkey wheels, tattooed sharks, hydronuclear bombs, scientific stations … these things will all decay and rust and be destroyed. But faith, hope and love remain. Those parts of our character gets us through today, lets us think on tomorrow, understand that goodbye never means farewell, and that loving people truly is eternal. The imagined tension and irreconcilable battle between man of science and man of faith has been resolved, the man of science, in the end became a man of faith. Love won out of empiricism. Love beat back the cynicism of unfruitful plans and manipulations. Love is. If you take anything away from the last 108 minutes of LOST, please take away that it was an epic LOVE story.
Namaste
