We've come to an end...sort of

As I write this, I have just finished watching the season finale of season 2 of Lost. Hence the fact that my brother an I have come to an end...sort of. We'll probably start season 3 in a few days. Several things about this season made me think though. The whole season encompassed a vast variety of things, but everything revolved in some way around the hatch. For non Lost fans, the hatch is basically an enigmatic metal thing in the ground that opened up to reveal an apartment/bomb shelter/secret agent station thing that nobody really understands. There was one purpose for the hatch, at least one known purpose. Every 108 minutes, someone had to enter the code (4 8 15 16 23 42) or presumably the world would explode. No one knew what would happen, or if anything would happen, but they pressed the numbers and then "execute" on this ancient little computer every 108 minutes, without fail. Which brings me to what I think this season was all about. Faith. Specifically, Locke's faith, Jack's lack of faith, Ecko's growing faith, and Locke's loss of faith. In the beginning, the man who lived inside the hatch told Locke everything he needed to know to press the button, then ran away. Because of many previous factors, Locke already had some serious faith in the island, but now he had a choice. Enter the code, or experience the possibly non-existent consequences. Locke believed in the hatch, so he pressed the button. Enter Jack, who hears all this information and thinks that it can't be for real. They shouldn't enter the code, they should just ignore it. This led to a major confrontation between Jack and Locke, which resulted in Jack caving and entering the numbers. As the season progressed, I don't think Jack ever really developed faith as much as he did caution. Whenever the code needed to be input, Jack never really rushed to get it done if something else was more important. He put the numbers in when he had to, but more often than not someone else did it. I think he thought "better safe than sorry", but I don't think he really believed anything would happen. Mr. Ecko is a Nigerian priest (sort of ) who came onto the scene much later, but after having a dream he through himself at Locke and the hatch with a reverent passion. He and Locke went traipsing through the woods and discovered another hatch. This one was an observation station, overlooking their hatch. The orientation video for that hatch told them that their own hatch was just a psychological experiment. At this point, Locke's faith crumbled, and Mr. Ecko's soared. Skipping forward, Locke ended up locking himself in the room with the computer, determined to let the countdown run out and prove that nothing would happen. Mr. Ecko was certain this would be the death of them all, but ultimately he was unable to stop Locke. A bunch of loose ends were left hanging at the end of the episode, which is how all season finales ought to be, I suppose.

After that long winded explanation, let me get to my point. Everybody has faith in something. I don't mean just religion. Even atheists have faith. We have faith in people, who let us down. We have faith in things, which fade. We have faith in UFOs, who may or may not even be out there. Those of us who have faith in God often struggle with that faith. I would compare it this way. A lot of Americans are like Jack. Those like Jack think, "God's probably not real, but I'd better be prepared just in case." We have a "Christian nation" made up of a lot of people who don't really believe. A lot of Christians are like Locke. They believe strongly for years, then something happens to shake their foundation and they crumble. They lose their faith and they can't find anything to rebuild upon. I think we should be like Mr. Ecko. When that foundation shakes, we should grab on to God with all our might and our faith should increase ten fold. We shouldn't lose our faith when the foundation shakes, we should grab the one thing that will never shake. 

Forgive me if my Lost analogy is a little out of whack. I tried my best in my tired addle-brained state. For those of you who suffer through my Lost posts, I promise to make the next one strictly non-Lost. Oh, and I might get around to posting part 2 of my rant soon.