LOST was never about the island...

So Jill and I got Season 6 of LOST for Christmas.  Tonight we just finished watching the bonus features.  I am always fascinated to get a look behind the curtain at the thinking processes of the writers and creators of the show.  As someone obsessed with the process of reading, interpreting, and telling stories, I hung on their every word.  After listening for a bit, and reflecting back over the arc of the story, I realized a few things about the kind of story that LOST is (was). 

They were never going to tell us what the island actually is.  Why not?  At least two reasons - first, the show was never about the island.  The island was just the physical and metaphysical backdrop for the challenges, the trials, and the mystery that nudged the characters on the path of change and development.  The island was the plot device that forced Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Hurley, and all the others to examine themselves, to face their demons, and then, to change, either for the better (Sawyer stands out), or the worse (Michael, sadly).  Sure, the writers gave us just enough information about the island and Jacob and smoke monsters to keep us (and the characters, too) curious, and wanting more, but let's be honest - we kept watching the show for the characters.  How they would respond to various situations, would they ever overcome their obstacles, would they ever get together?  This was a show about whether or not flawed people have hope of changing, of finding love, of choosing to do what they thought was right...or not.  Can we be optimistic about the future of humanity?  LOST creators Cuse and Lindeloff hesitate, but I think they end up saying "yes."  They know the depths to which humanity can descend, but they have hope that we can be more than what we often choose to be.

The second reason they didn't tell us about the island is that they don't know.  They really don't.  Many of us felt cheated by the ending because we thought they knew the answers but just didn't want to tell us - but I don't think that's the case.  I'm pretty sure that they literally don't know themselves what the island is all about, who is really controlling it, what it really wants.  Why not?  Simple - because that's the postmodern worldview in a nutshell.  We know there is something bigger than us, we feel caught up in the whirlpool of fate, of "destiny", of powers greater and more mysterious than we can imagine - but we have no idea what it really is.  It's shrouded in mystery, and we'll never really know why it's happening, or who is behind the details of our lives.  The best thing we can do is love the people around us as best we can, make choices based on what we believe to be the best thing, and hope that it all turns out okay in the end.  The creators of LOST are hopeful, I think, that whatever forces are behind the twists and turns of this life are benevolent, and are going to lead us somewhere better, but it's impossible to really know.  The great irony is that the show sold itself as being a great mind-bending puzzle to be solved, but in the end it came back around to the fact that the puzzle is secondary to the relationships that are formed in the process of solving the puzzle. 

The show is about redemption, and in the end, restoration - but what saddens me as I reflect on it is that there is no sense of what we are redeemed FOR or WHO we are restored to.  The major difference between the biblical narrative and the LOST narrative is that the Bible connects our redemption and our restoration to the character and nature and love of God.  We were created for oneness with God; we have lost that oneness; He fights to reach us until that oneness is healed and restored; our new oneness will be unbroken for eternity. 

I feel a special kinship with Jack - and I watched his face in the final moments of the finale.  Here's a guy who struggles so much to just accept that it's all going to be okay, but in the end he does.  He is redeemed, he is restored, he is moving on...but to what?  He doesn't know, and he can't know.  For whom?  For Kate?  For his father?  Just for himself?  Who knows if the next level of existence will even include the people in that room around him.  He's not who he was, he has changed, he is better, but ultimately for what?  Or for whom? 

I wanted to run into that "church" and tell Jack that all the brokenness he has experienced, all the pain, all the disappointment, all the fears, will vanish in the arms of Jesus on the other side.  That in His embrace we will not only find healing and restoration, but we'll be one with Him who loves us best forever. 

But I couldn't do that.  I had to just sit back and watch as Jack 2.0 moves on to some nebulous future - improved, perhaps, but still uncertain about what awaits him.  And why couldn't I do that?  (Besides the fact that he is fictional and I'm a dork, that is...)  Because Cuse and Lindeloff's worldview cannot permit that kind of certainty. 

And that is the great tragedy of postmodernism (at least as I understand it).  While it has lost the arrogance of the experts in white lab coats who make pronouncements about the nature of reality that they can't really prove anyway, it has made a virtue out of uncertainty and mystery.  It is offended at the suggestion that the great mystery behind the universe (and all the complex webs of relationships contained within it) would walk up to you, reach out a hand, and say, "Hi - my name is Jesus.  I would really like for you to genuinely know me."

One of the hallmarks of LOST was the way it presented love and sacrifice with such elegant beauty.  You watch these characters care about each other, give themselves for each other, and you couldn't help but be moved by it.  But what it was not able to do (at least in a satisfactory way for me) was establish the basis for that love and that sacrifice.  Okay, so they love each other - so they're sacrificing themselves - but for what?  For example, why would Jack take it upon himself to be the protector of the island?  What's the big deal about the black smoke guy getting off the island?  Sure they said, "the world would end," but who knows if that's what will REALLY happen?  At some point you see Jack just resign himself to the fact that this is what he was meant to do, but what irritated me is this question:  WHY, Jack?  Why is this what you were meant to do?  Why do you care about the survival of this island?  What's the big picture?  What's the point?  What's worth enduring all this pain and suffering and heartbreak in order to protect?

The creators of LOST can't tell us because they don't know.  They know that we should be good, we should love each other, we should sacrifice ourselves, we should believe...but they don't really know why - or even if it's really worth it to do so.  It's obvious they hope so, but they don't know for sure.  And they don't believe that they can. 

The biblical narrative stands apart in this regard - it depicts the beauty of love and sacrifice of humans no less than LOST, but it adds the element of WHY.  It tells us the great undergirding story, the point of it - the "it's worth it" clause.  Why do we fight to resist evil and protect our friends?  Because a world is coming where evil will be banished in the kingdom of God.  The "faith" chapter (Heb. 11) doesn't just depict how heroic people were for having "faith" and then acting on it - it connects their decision to what they KNEW was coming for them (see vs. 13-16).  They had a sense of WHO I'm doing this for (to please God - vs. 6), and WHY I'm taking this leap of faith (God has prepared a city for us - vs. 16). 

I know it's just a show - but it's a show that reflects the thinking of the storytellers of our time (and the storytellers in large part shape the belief systems of everyone else).  How many people are increasingly aware of a superior power out there, a mystery that intrigues and leads them to make beautiful choices to love, to change, to forgive, to do good deeds, but have no sense who that might be or what to do to be restored to that Power?  The sad truth is that they are still orphans.  They still don't know what is actually going on.

They are still lost.