[Published in the Opinion section of Episcopal Life Online and in the July/August issue of Diocesan Life]
From the old joke department, I told a colleague that I had a new heart medicine (I do), and that I was having some trouble following its directions. The first was easy: Do not drink alcohol while taking this medication. The second was harder: Keep away from children.
I was hoping for a quick chuckle, which I got. My colleague was more playful -- and thoughtful -- than I. He added, "It's an odd sort of medicine that thinks keeping away from children is good for your heart." Touché.
Children bring us so many gifts. Everybody has their favorite. Mine is that children bring out my imagination and sense of play. When I visit with children during a Sunday service, it's the time in the week I feel most free, most safe. It's good for my heart.
It was a great step in evolution when the Romantic movement discovered childhood. I found myself wishing I had a platoon of children to send in when the bloggers starting arguing after the final episode of "Lost" aired on television.
The series was about plane crash survivors who work out their personal issues and relationship problems on a Pacific island. The jungle island has polar bears, lost colonies, archaeological remains, and nuclear weapons. There are flash-forwards, backwards and sideways. And there is time travel.
In other words, it is all dreamlike and slightly mind-bending fun. Everything is imaginable, and in six seasons just about everything happens. People are born and people die. They have issues with their parents. They love and hate. They change.
The writers had a lark, but something else was happening in the audience. Some viewers, known as "Losties," were attaching Deep Meaning to the show just as Trekkies did to "Star Trek."
I think that is basically good news. Think about the themes of "Lost." Characters work out their own issues at the same time that they participate in a community not of their choosing. They can decide to help save the world. Life defeats death. That an audience would be committed to these themes is strong evidence that a yearning for meaning and connectedness still thrives amidst the quirks in our culture.
The twist was obvious before the end of the first season: these characters are dead and are being given a last chance to develop as human beings. It's not a new plot, but here it is wonderfully done. Sort of "groundhog day of the dead." That this twist was "revealed" in the last episode can have shocked only literary innocents.
So whether you use the word "purgatory" or not, the idea played with in "Lost" is the yearning each of us has to get it right. Through many a struggle the characters basically do get it right, are reconciled, and go on to a pleasant afterlife. The story is fuzzy and imprecise. It also fits the "basic story" that C. S. Lewis says is at the bottom of most the great stories worldwide. Life has a goal, and attaining it is sometimes very hard work. Life defeats death.
On the child's make-believe level, where all equations do not need to balance, "Lost" is a wonderful playground for the mind, and I am happy to let it go at that. But what are we to make of the Lostie "theologians" who need the series to have a consistent and finely defined philosophy where everything makes precise sense? Some indignantly hate the ending, others gleefully shout that they told us so, others triumphantly see their own religion's catechism writ large in the script. Some patently cannot handle the ambiguities presented. And they argue. For them, the fun is gone amidst the arguing.
When we overinvest data in symbols or rituals, which do their work by evocation and ambiguity, we kill them. All too often the human desire for security and control takes over, and living symbols become inanimate objects. Imagination dies. This is why most explanations of the alleged meaning of church ritual and hardware are not only wrong but also damaging.
On the other hand, for instance, the genius of having four gospels is that we can never get the story down pat, so we have to hold their different reports and points of view in a tension that makes our sense of balance better. We understand them as we live them. There is a great gift here. Arguing about the details destroys the sweep of the narrative, and keeps people from entering into the drama personally. The debate about "Lost" teaches us something about the temptations that come to all religions: the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life (2 Cor 3:6).
Children are fascinated by stories and love to play them. They get meanings they could never define with precision by doing them. They would know to leave "Lost" alone and just enjoy it.
Oprah meets Dr. Phil meets Bishop Sheen
From Share the Bread, the evangelism blog of DioBeth:
The Hollywood Reporter says that Fr. Alberto Cutie, aka "Father Oprah," is starting a weekday syndicated daytime talk show. It will show up in the New York City and Los Angeles markets on local Fox-owned stations, and maybe in other markets.
Father Cutie is not new to this kind of of work. He developed a huge following on Telemundo and in syndication in Latin America when, as a Roman Catholic, and became known as "Father Oprah."
The fact that an Episcopal priest has snagged a syndicated television project like this for a mass market audience (in two languages, no less!) is a very big deal. If it passes the test markets--mainly to see how well Cutie is received among non-Hispanic viewers who did not know him when he was on Telemundo--this will be a huge entry for the Episcopal Church in an audience that we do not often reach out to, in a forum that is new to us.
--posted by Andrew Gerns
Posted at 10:59 AM in Evangelism, News Commentary Info, Television | Permalink | Comments (0)
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