Do you believe in life after LOST?

Ok, I know this isn't a promising start on two levels 1) there is a play on words with a Cher song and 2) it brings up a reality that so many of us are in denial about. In a little more than 24 hours, the phenomenon we all know as "LOST" will end. I guess in a figurative sense, it will always go on through the power of syndication, DVD sales, possible conventions (think trendier versions of the Star Trek ones), action figures, lunch boxes, spinoffs, imitations shows (I'm lookin' at you V and Flash Forward), and the Jimmy Kimmel LOST after show (really, Jimmy Kimmel?). But it is true that Sunday night is the finale.

I've taken lots of time to process this (hey, I'm raising support, give me a break!) and what my life will look like post-finale. I hope that some of these things will help you process this as well.

Q: What will the finale do to LOST's legacy?

A: I think most people are putting lots of pressure on this final episode to answer every question. It's like they have taken JJ Abrams hostage and are torturing him to get answers about the light in the island, Jacob and Flocke's identities, and who Desmond is. They have threatened to be eternally frustrated with LOST if these things arent answered and will huff and puff every time it comes up in conversation.

To me, they have already answered most of the questions. Remember when we didnt know where the polar bears and the smoke came from? When we wondered who the Dharma folks were? Why Richard never aged? When we wondered how Kate could date a guy as short as Charlie in real life? The last one is still a head scratcher, but the rest have been answered. The show has done what it is supposed to do: entertain and make us want to wonder what will happen next. So for me, the end would have to be REALLY stupid to tarnish the show as a whole.

Q: So after LOST ends, how will I fill this time slot?

A: It's like after a guy/girl in an emo movie gets dumped. You have 2 choices, 1) over eat, get drunk, live an generally vagrant lifestyle or 2) find another passion whether it be another person, a cause, or musical instrument. My stint team watched a movie where a long time professor meets some homeless African people who teach him the wonders of playing the Djembe. So he finds life in playing the Djembe on the street for change and applause, gaining street cred along the way.

So what should be your Djembe be? There are a few suggestions I have. Something not so similar to LOST that it just seems like its a lesser version of it, but something long enough and interesting enough to give you that same hunger to watch the next one. In my opinion the reason people loved LOST, was because of the characters you pulled for. Without them, its a weird science fiction story that is confusing and doesn't make you tip in favor of watching it. Basically, its what I envision Battlestar Galactica being. Here are a couple of ones I've seen already that fit the bill. (I'm leaving out reality TV shows and comedies because they are a different genre and a different experience altogether).

1) Friday Night Lights- on it's fourth season. Good music, good acting (for the most part), great writing, very easy to watch in mixed company. Really can't recommend this one enough to everyone. Plus, it has the guy from Early Edition as the star (anyone else not allowed to watch non-CBS shows growing up???)!!! Cons- gets a little soap opera-ish at times and I still don't know if Tim Riggins is Canadian or not.

2) The Wire- I know I said I'd never suggest it and technically I'm not endorsing it. You definitely won't be talking about spiritual significance or "who the Christ figure is." But it is a unique look for ivory tower white people like me into the drug culture of inner cities. It's a sad, harrowing, and gritty look. It is kinda depressing at times, but has that same quality of stickiness that LOST has. There's a reason critics have said its the greatest show of all time. Lots of no name actors, but has great writing and you really never know what will happen next. The show isn't attached to any one character and anyone is as likely to "get got" or transferred away. Season two sucks big time, but the other 4 are incredible in my opinion. It's HBO, so be warned that it's not for the faint of heart and I would never recommend girls to watch it. It's President Obama's favorite show, so if it offends you, just know that it's his fault and that I didn't vote for him. (that should absolve me).

3) 24- I'd probably recommend this one the least because it's a little redundant (though intense and involving). Also, most people have already watched them. And sweet fancy Moses, the acting is turrible, turrible, turrible.

Here are a few I haven't seen, but may end up watching for afterwards as options for the post-LOST fallout:

1) Heroes

2) The Corner

3) Weeds

4) Breaking Bad-Heard especially good things about this one.

5) The Mentalist-Only because it's my Dad's favorite show and he talks about it non-stop

6) The Sopranos

7) Deadwood

8) Happy Town

Ones I wont be watching:

1) Mad Men-too depressing, couldn't last 2 episodes through it

2) Any Crime Scene Investigation show (because I'm under 60 years old)

3) The OC-I dont even need to explain why for this one...

4) True Blood

5) Really anything with vampires

Wow, so now that I am feeling guilty about how much I know about TV compared to how little I know about the Bible, I'm going to spend the rest of the night repenting and memorizing enough scripture to even these things out.

Why late night TV is on late at night

For some reason, I've recently reverted back to my college schedule of sleeping as late as possible and consequently, watching late night TV until I fall asleep. The TV in my room is about 10 inches so I normally have to squint to see very clearly.

Late night TV is like rummaging through a garage sale "name your own price" bin. You KNOW there's not going to be anything of worth in there. Otherwise they would've put it on the display with the furniture and "AS SEEN ON TV" section of Slap Chops, EuroSealers, and WeedWackers that were only sparingly used if at all. The same is true of TV.

Along with informercials for the above stated products, there are mostly just repeats of 24 hour news broadcasts, comedians no one has heard of (and probably never will be heard of), and courtroom reality tv shows like Judge Judy. Occasionally you'll find the crown jewel of late night TV: a newish South Park episode that isn't sacrilegious. However, I would estimate that 85% of channels that aren't undergoing a test of the emergency broadcast system are the only thing that can divert my anger away from Coach K during this season of life: televangelists.

Normally they are either in front of a pulpit or in a sort of telethon setting, raising money for more people to be blessed through Reverend X's ministry. There are testimonies of elderly women being healed of the gout and youngish teens telling stories of placing their hands on their TV's late one night to receive a blessing from the televangelist. (I tried and all I got was a static shock from my TV screen. Thanks a lot Reverend.) For the most part I know that it's a hoax and a scheme to get old people who don't know that emails from Nigeria are normally dangerous, with lots of money to send them checks.

My unfiltered mind during late night times thinks about all the awful ways people are ripped off and start thinking of all the testimonies not shown on TV of confused people who are on their death beds still waiting for a miracle that will never come. Or the woman who is sterile who sows a $100 seed to this ministry who will never conceive, but has all the faith in the world.

But part of me kinda wants these guys to be real. Wouldn't it be great if all we had to do to prove to our skeptical friends that God is real was just to send in a $100 check and receive a miracle? It would take out so much intellectual work and faith work, believing in someone we've never seen in the flesh. As cheesy as these TV preachers are (the aren't really evangelists so I'll just say "preachers" instead), they really know what people want. They know that most people think they just want prosperity and not a real knowledge of whether God exists or not or whether we can know Him.

I'm reminded of the passage in Revelation where God sends Jesus to separate the true followers from the fakers. The real men of God from the extortionists, the cheaters, the actors, the ones who appear to love him, but really only love themselves and try to profit from him.

I should probably save this for another blog entry since its kind of a whole other topic, but the same night I was fuming over a TV preacher selling a color coordinated Bible (with every topic in one of 12 colors to signify whether it was referring to "God," "Peace," "The Devil," "Blessing," etc) for $129.99, I saw a video game commercial for the new Splinter Cell game. There were the normal scenes of a spy killing all sorts of bad guys with awesome graphics. But this was the song in the background that both brought me fear and confidence in God's justice:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxh-FfElY0M

Whenver a dead guy is still producing music after he's gone, you know its gonna be powerful. Especially if he can get powerful celebrities to do it for him and act all serious in a video. (My favorite part is the sign Bono writes that says "Sinners make the best Saints: RIP JC"...and then also Owen Wilson and the guy from ZZ Top throwing the flower in the air at the end).

But seriously, this was a really moving thing for me. The splinter cell commercial prompted me to look the video up. And then it made me think. This is a great message, not only for the celebrities of excess in the video itself (which, do you think they understood the irony of being cut down by God for ignoring His commands?), but also because it so reminds us that one day we will be judged with justice for the things we know in our hearts. For the actions we do and not the actors we play. For our attitudes and not our public personas. This is kinda scary honestly. But for those who know God and have received grace it is also comforting to know that one day there will be no more late night preachers left to confuse the poor and tease the weak with empty promises. Nor will there be idols of celebrity for us to chase after. The celebrities and TV preachers alike still have time to repent for their rebellion of the Gospel. For every long-tongued liar, every rambler and gambler and back-biter will one day either turn from their ways or be cut down.

"...but having seen them from afar..."

So admittedly and apologetically this will probably turn into my 2nd of 2 recent posts that are pretty morbid, death-focused musings. They are more serious than my demeanor would indicate most of the time, but it's been a topic that I've been confronted with a good amount recently for some reason. I really haven't been hanging out in graveyards or reading Poe and Kafka at all, I promise.

What I have been doing is questioning when my day will come.

"Death smiles at us all. All a man can do is smile back," Maximus says.

Last year I had some pretty crazy moments where I was sure I would die within minutes. Most of them took place on crickety old Asian airplanes with pilates who looked no older than 16 years old.

Some of the others occurred after the Earthquake in Sichuan Province that killed so many people. One afternoon lying in bed, it was swiftly swept across my room, prompting me to run half naked into my roommate's room and scurry outside for a place where I could at least meet my Maker in the sunshine, not in my musty apartment room, clothes and papers strewn everywhere.

To be honest, I think that's why I was perpetually afraid of death, unable to smile back at it. I didn't want to be caught looking narrowly into my own life of disorganized papers and dirty laundry. It wasn't that I was necessarily convinced that I would cease to exist, foregoing the Biblical view of Heaven, but more that I would have died without experiencing lots of meaningful things in life.

Recently, I've felt like I'm just kinda treading water until I can start ministry again in East Asia. And without remembering those before me who have already died honorable, suffering-filled, spirit-fulfilling deaths for Christ, I will probably continue fretting about the day I breathe my last.

To be honest, if all I have is a bucket list where I want to get married, get promoted, get a house, have awesomely-athletic toddlers who are sports prodigies to groom, and get respect from important people, then I'll probably even feel that way when I start my job where I serve the Kingdom for a living.

But this is something that helps me: rereading Hebrews 11 and the "Hall of Faith" recounting how flannel-graphed Bible characters are given praise in the Heavenly places for the faith they demonstrated specifically. Many were martyred, but all (ok, except Enoch...he is almost ruining my point here...) died a physical death where they stopped breathing, their heart stopped beating, and brain synapses stopped firing.

This is what the author of Hebrews has to say about them (the long list of faithful men): "These all died, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one." Hebrews 11:13-16.

We are all dying in a Sylvia Plath kind of way

The inspiration for the title of this blog post can be attributed to Edward Norton's character in the movie Fight Club, which I think I've already used up my quota for "number of Fight Club spiritual analogies in a year."

It's when Norton and Marla Singer run into each other at several support groups for various diseases neither of them actually has that this idea is presented. Norton goes to these groups because they are the only things that can help him cry and therefore help him sleep. Marla's reason is unknown, but Norton knows that seeing Marla's lie by also coming to these meetings with cancer patients exposes the lie he himself is caught in.

"Marla did NOT have testicular cancer," Norton says.

When he finally confronts her lie he states that Marla was not dying,

"In the Tibetan philosophy, Sylvia Plath sense of the word, I know we're all--we're all dying, all right? But you're not dying the way Chloe back there is dying."

I know it wasn't the intention of this scene to do this, but I think recently I've found comfort in knowing that we are actually dying in the Tibetan philosophy, Sylvia Plath sense of the word." On one hand it's a little depressing thinking that we will all have 5-8 minutes less than we did after we finish reading this than before we started. On the other hand it seems that our mortality is a gift that keeps us humble and grounded in something otherworldly and eternal. Each second our body is decaying, our skin dying, our organs losing their strength, but it does not have to be despairing.

I started reading Safely Home by Randy Alcorn today (thanks Carol for lending it to me!) and was really moved by one character "Ben," who is the VP of a big microchip company. He apparently was a committed follower of Jesus in college at Harvard, leading his Chinese roommate to Christ while there. But now, he is successful in business, and divorced, lonely, alienating even to his cousins and family.

Every Monday morning he reads a list of goals he compiled while at a convention 6 years ago. The first was to integrate his business' assets into the Chinese market and infrastructure. The 2nd was to be President by the time he was 48. Within reach. The 3rd was to accumulate enough wealth to do anything and go anywhere he wanted.

I really hope I never lose sight of what God is doing in me and showing me in my 20's. I hope that remembering we are all slowly, but surely dying will keep me from making professional or ministry goals the Lord of my life.

It's a sad existence to leave

Poetic thoughts from prison

Personally I don't really think poetry is all that cool. I read some in English courses in college, but normally just thought the writer was insane because none of his words made sense without a commentary from a slightly less insane critic. In high school, when we'd have to write poetry for some standardized unit, I'd find the shortest one or the shallowest one and choose that one to write a paper on.

They were normally written by some tortured soul who suffered from depression and were therefore seen as artists. I thought it was such a con. You can just throw a bunch of words with little syntax, grammar, or sense in them and people would think you were cool and brilliant artists, just because the readers really had no idea what was being said, but didn't want to appear ignorant or unsophisticated.

It wasn't until I found out that Tupac used to write poems that I got intrigued slightly. In fact it was really just the fact that they were normally about sensitive stuff like rainbows and flowers and lovey-dovey stuff that I felt compelled to read more about his life. All his raps were about gunnin' down rival gang members and actin' a fool. But his poems from earlier exposed such a different side of things. Essentially, he was D'Angelo Barksdale, drug slinger on the outside, but poetic softy literature critic inside his prison cell. I think that's a compelling story line. Even most brilliant people and our biggest heroes are insecure people with their own vices, Jekyl and Hyde-ing their way through life.

I just started reading The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German pastor who resisted Hitler in the 30's and 40's and was ultimately killed for his speaking/acting out against the Nazi regime. His thoughts have been so interesting to me as I imagine the implications of a Christian nation gone wrong and how I would react to cultural compromises that tempt me to grab power and release my grasp on the cross of Jesus.

He speaks and writes in the Introduction of his constantly paradoxical nature and wonders aloud "Who am I?" He wrote this excerpt as part of a larger poem from prison describing his internal dilemna of personal self-unawareness:

...

Who am I? This of the Other?

Am I one person to-day and to-morrow another?

Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others,

and before myself a contemptible woebegone weakling?

Or is something within me still like a beaten army

fleeing in disorder from victory already achieved?

Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of

mine.

Whoever I am, Thou knowest, O God, I am thine!

...

Depressing, self-torment like this is hard to accept from a man who ultimately laid down his life for the freedom of his flock and Germans as a people. I cycle through these questions about every 7 hours one at a time. Self-doubt and humility seem to be intertwined throughout life as a Christian and at times, can be indecipherable, though they are clearly enemies of one another.

I guess the lesson to be taken away here is that we might not ever overcome our personal disorderly, fleeing army inside us, but I can still be used to bring liberty to the captive, to bring life to the barely-hanging-on, to defeat the powers of lingering sin and death in our lives because of the fact that I am God's.

But also it's important to note that God can use us in spite of our conflicting selves. We can remain "his workmanship, created for good works, which God prepared before hand that we might walk in them" and still be in-process, figuring out what we are, standing firm, yet all the while just wanting to give in to our fleeing armies.

In lieu of having a horrible week due to the loss at Dook*, I've decided to write a few quick hitters (with links) every couple days to both a) soothe the pain and take my mind off of how frustrating this year has been and b) remind myself that things are going to be ok soon.

Here's step one to bringing back some laughs and remembering why, it is always better to be on our side of the tracks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aeCIrGywIo

Additionally,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbTSz1OtcR4

That's all for now.

Preparing for a lifetime of ministry...

Many people have asked me questions in the last few days since returning from 5 weeks of New Staff Training Sunday.

"Where have you been?" "How was it?" "Did they make you drink strange juice or take a Red Pill?" and my personal favorite, "Wait, you were gone?"

But the most important question was "Why were you there?" At a surfa

ce level I normally say that I was there because I have been called to reach the world for Jesus and be a bridge for those who are hurting and suffering the effects of sin to find grace, forgiveness and life. At an even shallower surface level, I might say, "because it was in Daytona and it's January and I have a low tolerance for cold weather...I don't even like ice cream that is slightly too cold (I'm looking at you, Baskin Robbins!)."

The real reason I was down there was to "prepare for a lifetime of ministry." I dont think it hit me until now that I'm in this for the long haul. I know God has called me to reach cultures that are not my own. I know that he is currently equipping me mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually for that task, too. But I dont think it was until I was commissioned as a real "missionary" last Sunday that it sunk in.

I had to stand up and recite something that I can't recall now, but I know was meaningful and even made me stop joking around with the 7 others at my dinner table (and some other good friends at other tables via text message) for several minutes and contemplate what the Lord is doing to me and in me.

The keynote speaker was an elderly man who had been on staff with Campus Crusade since the Reformation. He had thin white hair and had been battling cancer for several years. He talked to Vonette Bright (Crusade's founder's wife and local celebrity, pictured above) as if they were platonically involved, in the way people in retirement homes are. But beyond that, and through him leaning too far away from the microphone, he inspired me that students in the world are so lost, need hope in Jesus, and that they are worth enduring hardship for.

He told stories of becoming the first Asian director in the 70's. Again, he was very white and old. He talked of hardships with cultural differences and yet, because of his faith in stepping into discomfort, Crusade is now being used mightily to reach the most open parts of the world spiritually.

I was reminded of the last movie I saw, The Book of Eli. Like Denzel, this man told stories from a deep faith and deep experiences with God. He knew his life was ending soon. Yet he also knew that his purpose was not in vain and neither was his work. He had lived a good life and was enjoying the nostalgia of God's faithfulness. He talked as to inspire us, though told stories as if we were his grandchildren, sitting on his lap, listening to tales of war.

And now, he was content for the Lord to take him any day.

"I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have have kept the faith."

I pray that one day I can stand in front of a group of ignorant, uber-texting, unsanctified kids and speak like that man did of Jesus' power in his faith. I hope that my lifetime will be as rich and I will have stories that will make people wonder if I'm making them up, or if I just have taken my meds in a while. I yearn for the lifetime of ministry highs and lows that I am only beginning now.

-D