I'm "Lost"

It's been five days since the Lost finale, and I'm still thinking about it. Is that crazy? Why yes, but the best stories grab a hold of your heart, mind, and soul, and won't let you go.

The more I think about it, the more I think about C.S. Lewis. He was very aware of the truth that life on this mortal sphere is just the beginning. There is more. So much more. He ends the Narnia series with this fantastic sentiment:

“...for them, it was only the beginning of the true story, which goes on forever, and in which every chapter is better than the one before."

It is so delightful to me that Lost ended with a new beginning. There is so much more to the story. We're not privy to it, but we can imagine what life will be like for this ragtag bunch of lost souls. They're together in the afterlife, where their past does matter. They've been redeemed. And what a redemption Jack had. that was quite a conversation he had with Christian. His death as a martyr will go down as one of the great ones in TV history. He literally died to save the world. And that death was so tender and it just broke my heart. He did not die alone. Vincent, the sweet yellow lab, was there to comfort him as he closed his eyes for the last time. But that was after he saw the Ajira flight overhead. He knew Kate, Sawyer, and Claire would be okay. He had done all he could. That telling smile also broke my heart. It was almost beautiful.

C.S. Lewis talks a lot about heaven in his essay, "The Weight of Glory." I adore this writing and read it often, especially when this life gets so quotidian and bogged down. If you haven't read this sermon, do it now. There's the full PDF here. Reading this makes my heart soar and break all at the same time.

Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

And more good words:
 

These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.

There is more. There was more for Jack and the other Lost souls that got found. There is more for us. The beauty of that makes my heart ache.

As Meister Eckhart said, "God is at home. We are in the far country."

Now this gets me thinking about Andrew Peterson. I'll leave you with these lyrics.

And in the end, the end is
Oceans and oceans
Of love and love again
We'll see how the tears that have fallen
Were caught in the palms
Of the Giver of love and the Lover of all
And we'll look back on these tears as old tales

'Cause after the last tear falls
There is love

After all...there is love.

I'll write more about the amazing journey I had watching this show, but that's for another time.