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Lost-Three ultimate endings: All is black. All is one. All is well.
May 24th, 2010
 
Jimmy Kimmel touted his three comedic alternate endings to Lost. The following may not be story arcs for a blockbuster cast reunion, but what about these slightly more realistic alternatives:

All is black Jack closes his eyes (or eye) and breathes his last. The chemical and electrical impulses in his brain fade and stop. Rigormortis sets in. His body decays there in the bamboo arbor. Dust to dust. It is the same end as the man in black. Same end as Ben. And Hurley, Kate, Sawyer and the rest. The choices they made in this life have no ultimate meaning beyond the experience of this life. The fellowship and community that means so much is lost forever. As is each individual. All is lost.

All is one Jack closes his eyes and breathes his last. Wakes up in the sideways reality. Oceanic flight 815 has landed safely. He reconciles with his son, heals Lock and, touching his Father’s coffin, recovers the memories of his life on the island. All the choices he made to lead and love and sacrifice flash before his eyes in scene after scene of heartache and joy. The richness of the person he became through loss and love flood back into his soul. He is so much the deeper for it. Transformed by suffering and good choices, his joy is so much greater than that of the smaller life he was living.

Ben is outside. His selfish choices have made him a poorer person. The broken trust in all his relationships separates him from the loving fellowship of the community. Forgiveness is offered, but what happened happened. How does a lifetime of choosing self over others finally dissolve into choosing a loving, sacrificial community? That’s just not the person Ben has become. He’s not ready to join the community yet. He is in limbo? Purgatory? How will he reconcile or work out the consequences of his choices made from both great wounds and self-centered choices? We don’t know.

After the grand reunion the door opens. Christian Shepherd, Jack’s Dad, steps into the light. Reminds me of the eastern leaning The Fountain with Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weiss. “Death is the beginning of awe.” But in that movie as well as all Eastern thought, death is also the end of individuality as each one finally transcends individual pain, selfishness, willfullness and desire to become one with the all.

What might happen in this sideways story line as each individual steps into the light? Perhaps, as in The Fountain, if the Source of all things is impersonal, then he or she ceases to exist as a person but is transported into an impersonal oneness with all others, with everything in the Universe. All the memories they have recovered of their individual lives are poured into the ocean of collective memory. Ultimately, all individuality is lost. There is no loving community of richly different individuals. Everything is connected and the unity eventually obliterates/subsumes the individuality. For to create is to choose. To choose is to have a will. How does creation or a collective will exist without the loss of individuality?

They step through the door and become one with the light and the water at the heart of the island. Golden and glowing and ??? bubbling? Existence ends in impersonal being. All is one.

All is well Jack closes his eyes and breathes his last. Wakes up in the loving community of friends, some who died before him, some after. As each one steps through the chapel door they step into the light that radiates, not from an impersonal wellspring, but from a Person. The greater which has created the lesser. (How can it be the other way around? How can an impersonal source of light and water create the richness of human love, life and complexity we’ve seen on the screen?

The recovered memories and the richness of their heroic acts and choices go with them. They remain the individuals we have come to know and love. Nothing of their individuality is lost. Not even their flaws. Their poor choices have been redeemed. They don’t have to work them off or be separated from the sacred circle. Forgiveness has been freely offered by the one who waits for them and loves them far more deeply than they love one another. Who became the evil and selfishness of their own lives and died in their place, but who was resurrected from the grave to offer them forgiveness and life. Even Ben. All is mercy and grace for those who choose to be reconciled with their Creator in the way he has provided. By his stripes, the scars from the whip lashes, all their wounds are healed. It is a beautiful mythology, a true myth, as CS Lewis has said. One that mirrors and yet transcends our own experience of how suffering and sacrifice and choosing others over self bring richness, life and joy. (In mho far more beautiful and meaningful than the mythology of impersonal electromagnetic light holding all things together and turning greedy, selfish people into smoke monsters.)

As Jack and Kate, Sun and Jen, Sawyer and Juliette step into the light of eternity, not simply one person awaits, rather a loving community of three persons, whose individuality and community are mirrored in these lives. The end of all things is co-participation—with each other and with the Father, Son and Spirit who protect and make good on promises and yet offer real choices with real consequences that ripple out into eternity. And if Ben remains on the outside, never ready to go in, that is Ben’s choice to be truly and deeply lost.

Those who enter find themselves in a new story. An unfolding plot far more exciting than mere existence. They continue to live individual lives of challenge and choices, service and leadership in a community of ever-deepening love. Life together becomes richer, deeper, higher and above all, more joyful. Nothing is lost but pain and separation. All is well.

 
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PREVIOUS ENTRIES
F&CD Contributor Dallas Willard on Harvard’s Grant Study part 2 and Why God withholds knowledge of himself
Devo Commentary: Belief, Knowledge and Truth
PREVIOUS BLOG 1
F&CD Contributor Dallas Willard on Harvard’s Grant Study part 2 and Why God withholds knowledge of himself
June 5th, 2009

On Sunday The Things That Matter Most aired the second segment of our radio interview with Faith and Culture contributor Dallas Willard on his new book Knowing Christ Today: Why We Can Trust Spiritual Knowledge. Both programs with Dallas are available at our website or on iTunes podcasts–an enjoyable way to sample the best book I’ve read in a long while on the issue of belief, certainty and the confidence that spiritual knowledge affords. The interview ended with the following exchange on why it seems that God often hides knowledge of himself from us.

Lael: If having knowledge of God is so vital for human flourishing, why do you think God didn’t give us more knowledge—more archeological evidence for the ark or the exodus, earlier manuscripts of the Bible, individual visions or dreams …some silver bullets of evidence that would give us the undeniable knowledge we need to trust him? As you said earlier, communication is as much about what you make known as what you withhold. Why do you think God withholds so much if knowledge is so important as the basis of faith?

(Dallas) Knowledge is also dangerous. And you have to grow into it in a way that makes it safe for you. You can illustrate that by technological knowledge. We have a problem with terrorism today precisely because of the advances in technology. People have been blowing themselves up to kill others for a long time, but we did not have a problem with international terrorism.

Our problem with knowledge today is that we already know more than we know what to do with. And with reference to God, he has adjusted the reality of himself to beings that he wants to choose and seek him…as a part of development that allows them to receive him and live as he would like them to live in their increasing knowledge of God…

The issue is not just, “May I have more knowledge?” or “Should we have more knowledge?”, but “What did I do with the knowledge I had?” If we use that knowledge, we will be safely led into all of the knowledge of God that we need. And I think that you have to understand that in order to understand why the Bible is in the situation it is in, why the church is like it is, why history has been the way it is. That is often a dreadful thing, but I believe that it is a part of God’s technique to adjusting himself to what we are capable of as human beings.

Lael: Because we all know people who are “educated far beyond their intelligence” as we like to say, far beyond their character to be able to handle their knowledge…

Dallas: This is tied to what Paul says about how “knowledge puffs up…Love builds up.” And “if anyone thinks they know anything, yet,” Paul said, “they do not know it as they ought to know.” Knowledge has effects on our character that are only safe as we grow in love.

That means that it [knowledge] will not run over us.

And we want to remember that knowledge is like that in all of its dimensions. It’s not just knowledge of God. Knowledge does not run over you. And we have a school system now that basically presents knowledge as something [where] you come, and sit in this room, and it will run over you. And it doesn’t. And that’s why we have such massive failures, because we are not approaching it from the attitude of, Knowledge is for people who seek it and want it.

Lael: And for people who can “handle the truth” as Jack Nicholson would say, in humility. In a way that doesn’t puff us up and destroy us like maybe it did for some of the Harvard students that we mentioned in the Grant study starting out, but in a way that leads to peace and joy.

Dallas: You can be absolutely sure that that is a major part of what was going on there. And it’s a pity that the study is not able to deal with that.

 
Posted by larrington @ 00:07
 
Devo Commentary: Belief, Knowledge and Truth
February 26th, 2009

Here you’ll find reviews, pictures and updates as we take A Faith and Culture Devotional on the road. Also commentary on news, events and, in sequence, most of the devos.

From Lael, commentary on Philosophy, Week 1.

Not all scholars agree that truth describes a relationship of correspondence between words and reality. Some doubt the usefulness and even the existence of truth because they question our ability to reliably wrap words and sentences around objective reality. Others believe that absolute truth is unknowable because we are limited by our own finite and fallible point of view. But even those who reject a correspondence view of truth admit there is a certain common sense correspondence between words and reality when you are giving directions to your house. Turn east instead of west off the highway and you may wind up in the ditch.

Jesus said, “I am the truth.” So as we consider the connection between truth and correspondence, the source of truth seems a good place to begin. Jesus is also the Living Word. While human words may be inadequate to express the reality of God, Jesus, in his person and his life, clearly reveals to us the reality of the Father. His thoughts, words and actions correspond to the Father’s.

Further, Jesus’ every thought and intention corresponds to his own perfect character. His every word and action corresponds to his thoughts and intentions. He lives in perfect integrity—a wholeness of truth to the core.

Jesus’ wholeness challenges me to ask, “Am I living with integrity?” Do my thoughts, words and actions correspond to each other? To his? Do I want to give my presence as a gift to others the way he so readily gives his presence to me? Do my actions correspond to my intentions? What gets in the way?

Jesus’ words correspond not only to the reality of his Father and his own character but also to the reality of his creation. While he does not give us exhaustive truth, and while we struggle to comprehend his depth and complexity, his words are “true truth”—never spoken merely to exercise power, but to show his love. Jesus is limited by his own character. He can never lie. When he says, “I will be with you always,” and “I will come again for you,” his promises correspond to a future reality that will surely come. He can never betray our trust in his promises.

In these fragile times we can be ever more grateful for the solid rock of Truth. As he told a despondent father whose daughter had just died, “Do not fear, only believe” (Mk 5:36).

 
Posted by larrington @ 21:25
 
 
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