Memorial Day is a day set apart to honor the war dead. It became a federally recognized holiday in 1971, but it has been celebrated throughout the country since 1868. Memorial Day takes place at the end of May because that is when the most flowers are in bloom throughout America. It was formerly called Decoration Day, because it was the day that veterans and children put fresh flowers on graves.
In December of 2000, Congress passed The National Moment of Remembrance Act. The Act encourages all Americans to pause for a moment of silence at 3pm and honor the 1.1 million American soldiers who died in service to America.
“Not only are they commemorated by columns and inscriptions, but there dwells also an unwritten memorial of them, graven not on stone but in the hearts of men.” – Pericles
A few months ago I was at a bar with some friends. We couldn’t help but notice the sole figure on the dance floor. It was a middle-aged woman wearing a dress too small and too young for her. She was toasted out of her mind and flirting with guys fifteen years her junior. Our waitress told us she had been there for at least eight hours that day. It was gross and kind of sad.
Ugh. I have been sitting here for twenty minutes, trying to muster my bounteous reserves of Latin-blooded emotion so that I could adequately summarize my LOST experience. It all sounded either cheesy or really indulgent, so I’m just going to shoot from my hip. Here we go.
First, listen to the first minute or so of this:
What a mess. I’m a mess. That song is called Life and Death, and I think that’s what LOST was about all along. It was about our friends on Oceanic 815 and the adventures of their lives. They went back and forth from being tragic to heroic to unlikable to wonderful. They went through some crazy things, and in the end they died. And they found their best selves and each other. Like Christian said, they needed each other. I think that’s what life is all about, I think that’s why God put us here. We’re made to love each other and help each other, and then we go to heaven to be with God. And each other. We’re lost. Some of us have Charlie moments, though, where we just swallow some drugs and we get it.
So what about the Island, the mysteries, time travel, the Dharma shark? Don’t we need ANSWERS? I don’t! You know why? Because I don’t understand most of the world around me right now. I don’t understand space, time, spacetime, how we all fit together perfectly, why everything happened, why all my ethnic friends are extremely attractive and awesome with handguns and hut building. What I DO care about is living together and not dying alone. And Bai Ling explaining my tattoos and then getting me beaten up on the beach.
While I’m on a rampage, let me say that Expose was an awesome episode. It was a one-time neo-noir Hitchcockian throwback morality tale with cool music and the song Rumpshaker. You know who else loved that episode? Liam Neeson. If you have a problem with Expose, take it up with Qui Gon.
The moment Sawyer decided to love Juliet.
Let’s talk about the finale episode. Did it answer everything? No. Did I mind? NO. Did I love it? Yes. Would I ever watch it again? Probably not, because I’m a mess. Why was everyone so mad about the flash sidewayses? What is so bad about spending some time awakening to the fact that life as you knew it was gone and now you are entering immortality with the people you love the best? This is a bad thing? In retrospect, I think it’s a pretty fun idea because you can see characters as they sort of wish they were. Sawyer and Miles were no longer con-men, they were cops. Ben made the right decisions for Alex. Hurley wasn’t unlucky. Dogan didn’t kill his son. Jack didn’t cheat on his wife. Juliette got to help babies. Locke had his woman. Jin and Sun had a whole new take on blouse buttons. Jack didn’t hate his dad. Claire wasn’t alone. By the way, I don’t think that was just Jack’s waiting room, I feel like Christian made it clear they built the world together. You know what else I love? Jack finally caught up to Christian, a man he chased his entire life. Even after all their years of tension, he still wanted his dad to help him and protect him as he entered his new life. Also, I realize the ending was ambiguous enough that it could be totally different to you based on your beliefs or religious beliefs. I just projected mine. I’m all about happy endings. I mean on tv and in books and the end times.
What about the Island? What about the Dharma Initiative and the Others? Don’t worry about them, they’re fine. There were plenty of Egyptian skeletons in the cork-cave. They’re stories are still going on, just like countless stories and mysteries continue after we pass on the the Sky Church Tram with all of our attractive friends.
Also, people are complaining that we got strung along with things that didn’t matter. I disagree. Spending time thinking about the Island and its mysteries did matter. It changed the Oceanic refugees. They forged new, better characters. It changed me, as I thought about life and death and faith and where my time was best spent.
Here’s a list of my favorite episodes:
Pilot
Tricia Tanaka is Dead (Hurley convinces everyone to get the van rolling.)
Expose (Nikki + Paolo)
The Brig (Josh Holloway dominates the killing Sawyer scene.)
Greatest Hits (So sweet.)
The Constant (British Romantic mess.)
Ab Aeterno (Latin Romantic mess.)
The End (Personal mess.)
In sum, LOST was awesome, the characters were great, and I don’t think I’ll watch it again because it was pretty emotionally draining. It reminded me a lot of Battlestar Galactica, my other top ten show that I will never watch again. Now that I think about it, even the finales were similar. Friday Night Lights is probably my favorite drama, because people don’t die all the time and it’s funny and also I live in Texas. Whew.
If you want to listen to people make intelligible statements about lost, then Google: Doc Jensen, Vozzek, Jay and Jack, Sepinwall. And finally:
FACT: I watched The Bachelor last season. I was Team Tenley all the way, but I did feel bad for Gia. She seemed really nice towards the end, and I was pulling for her to be the Bachelorette. I wasn’t pulling for Allie. A Jake/Allie conversation was hard to follow. It was like Jodie Foster in Nell. It was like Snow rapping The Informer. BUT. I decided to watched The Bachelorette with an open mind. Plus, Lost is over, Idol is over, I need some new water-cooler material. After watching Episode 1, I think I’m on board for the season. Let’s break it down.
ALLIE
She’s winning me over. First of all, she’s really nervous. It’s endearing. I can’t think of anything more awkward than meeting 25 cheese-ball love interests in front of a camera crew and knowing that all of America will be dissecting everything you wear, say, and do. Second, she’s being really nice to all the guys, even though 23 of them are dorky or creepy. it’s cool that she’s taking it all in stride. Third, she’s laughing like a maniac. My only complaint is that her dress has a weird rabbit-tail flower on the butt.
THE DUDES
Since I’m now an advocate of The Bachelorette, I feel it’s my duty to sort through these guys. Allie, I have one piece of advice. Ask yourself this question: What can brown do for you? The answer, of course, is that brown can do EVERYTHING. That’s why Roberto should be your man. He’s good-looking, he’s a family man, he’s Southern, he dances, he speaks Spanish, he’s got a cool pocket square. Game over. The only other choices you’ve got are the Canadian pro-wrestler* and Cape Cod Chris, who is such a good guy that it physically hurts me to look at him.** Also, why we are talking about wrestling, let me go ahead and tell you unreached people that wrestling isn’t fake. Watch this. Was that fake? Also, every movie you have watched also has a predetermined ending. That doesn’t make it a fake movie; it makes it entertainment. So, you should love pro wrestling.
Some other guys deserve mentioning. Jay the Lawyer looks like the love child of Edward Cullen and Jimmy Fallon. One guy looks like fake Vin Diesel. One guy looks like fake Joel Olsteen. One guy looks like fake Neil Patrick Harris. The worst guy on the show is fake McDreamy. He looks really drunk all the time and I think he’s going to throw up on somebody by week three. Either right before or right after a fight.
MY GAMEPLAN
If I were a single guy going on this show, I think I would have to just completely be myself or else I’d get N0-Rosed immediately. If I tried a cutesy intro, I would just be really nervous and it would be uncomfortable for me, the girl, and America (looking at you, cowboy boots guy). I think I would just walk up and introduce myself and tell her I was shy but looking forward to talking soon. I would definitely make friends with cool guys, not talk smack about anyone, and just smile at any crazy drunk guy who tried to fight me. Even if I got No-Rosed, maybe America would feel bad for me and I would get my own season of the show. Then, I could wear a suit with a flower on the butt.
I’ll try to make this a weekly thing. I’ll do my best to get it up on Tuesday morning.
*My only squabble with this guy is his wrestling name. Rated-R. There is already a “Rated R Superstar” in the WWE.
**Unless he’s the one with a girlfriend or he kicks his dog or something.
I just wanted to say thank you. Thank you for telling us a story that mattered. Thank you for having the guts to stay true to yourself and the show for six years. Thank you for allowing LOST to transcend genres and be what it was – a show about about people, a show about us. Lost people without all the answers, trying to make sense of our lives, trying to figure out the right thing to do. Lost people that are hurt, angry, and hopeful. Lost people that are better off together than alone.
Thank you for respecting us enough not to spoon feed us answers and lessons. Thank you for asking real questions about faith, reason, science, and why we’re here in the first place. Thank you for not solving those questions for us. Thank you for reminding us how to use our imaginations and how to disappear into a story. Thank you for reminding us how great it is to read.
Thank you for giving us something to talk about with our friends, and thank you for giving us an excuse to get together. In other words, thank you for LOST.
Getting to meet new people is one of the best parts of traveling. Take, for example, the photo above. Kerry and I crossed paths in Uganda during the summer of 2008. She was volunteering with an NPO and I was interning at a local court. We got along pretty well because we shared questions about life, spirituality, and whether or not a local beer had butter in it.* She is on the short list of interesting people that I’ve met, as well as one of the nicest. Luckily for all of us, she writes.
What does she write? Hate letters to violence. Essays on the spiritual importance of loving assholes. (Her words.) Bittersweet poems about lonely unicorns. And, my personal favorite, memories of monks wearing plastic sunglasses and singing the ABC’s (photo included).
Here’s my theory: We know that places all over the world have special magnetic properties, just like the island. We saw Rose go to Australia to get healed. We saw Ben and Locke take the donkey wheel to Tunisia. What we didn’t see is why Christian was in Australian or why the psychic fraud was so interested in Aaron, Christian’s grandson. Here is what I think happened:
Just as Jack is the island’s protector, so was Christian the protector of Australia, and so will Aaron be the protector of Tunisia or another special place. My guess is that the Shepherd family is shepherding groups at all the locations. Other Tunisian candidates will include David, Walt, Charlie and Je-Yeon.
John Piper’s This Momentary Marriage has a lot of great, biblical things to say about marriage. If you are married and you haven’t read it, you should read it. For my single friends, there’s a pretty good chapter on the purpose and advantages of being single in there as well. If you don’t read the whole book, at least read that chapter. The book is free online and $5 in print.
Ok, now that I have shamelessly promoted John Piper and his book and website, I feel better about my upcoming gripe.
The book is called This Momentary Marriage. That’s the title because marriage is temporary, according to Piper. It’s a worldly relationship designed and ordained by God, but it’s still just a temporary thing. In other words, no marriage in heaven! He bases this on, well, the Gospel. In Matthew 22 and Mark 12, Jesus talks about how in the resurrection people aren’t married or given in marriage.
My first thought – LAME! I want to live with my wife in heaven. I’ve only been married for like two months, but I got married for a reason. I really love my wife, and it seems like a bummer that it will just end. We’ve got a pretty good thing going on here. My second thought – Ok, how do I use some rhetorical gymnastics to wiggle out of these words in the Gospel? I couldn’t figure anything good out. What I did figure out is that I had to reevaluate my own feelings and perceptions.
First of all, I forgot that heaven is going to be pretty dang good. I mean, it’s heaven. Even the best parts of our world are only sneak previews of what is to come. (I Corinthians 2:9, Ephesians 3:20) Second, I say/do a lot of dumb things here on Earth. For instance:
Example: I got us lost in a cave. My bad!
That weak sauce won’t happen to heaven. Instead of messing up when I try to express myself and know Sam (and all of you), we’ll know each other better instead of worse. I’ll love her better instead of worse. Third, we’ll still know each other in heaven. (Matthew 8:11, Luke 9:30,33) Finally, I forgot that Sam is not mine. I forgot that love does not insist on its own way. Even if marriage ends, love doesn’t. Since God is eternal, and since God loves Sam, God’s protection and care and guidance of Sam never ends. Mine will, but his won’t. So, I should defer to God’s wisdom instead of my own. That’s settled.
Still, I hope our Heaven Townhouses are next to eachother. Or maybe we’ll be roommates or ride tandem bikes or something. I would like that.
The whole Arizona immigration law debate has been wild. It has inspired mass protests, mass support, new NBA playoff jerseys, and lots of internet flamewars.
I haven’t said anything about the law for one simple reason – I hadn’t yet read the law. I finally read it in its entirety. You can find it here. The website I linked to is a great place to read it, because the site explains what was already law, what was deleted, and what was added after the initial bill was passed.
After reading, I have to say, I was surprised. It’s not bad. There’s no Big Brother anti-Mexican anti-immigrant anything in it at all. Contrary to what supporters are saying, it’s not fascist or turning Arizona into Nazi Germany. It doesn’t give police the power to stop anyone and ask to “see their papers”. What it does do is give police (1) who have made lawful stops, detentions or arrests (2) in the enforcement of an existing law (3) that have reasonable suspicion that a person is (4) an alien and (5) illegal the obligation to make a reasonable effort to figure out if the person is an alien (6) IF making that determination doesn’t hinder an investigation. If a person meets all six of the criteria the law lists and is asked to prove citizenship, they can prove citizenship by having their Arizona drivers license.
So, as you can see, in real life it shouldn’t play out like a racist cop walking up to a brown person and saying, “Show me your papers!”
What if someone is an alien over 18? Well, then, they have to carry their papers with them all the time. That might sound harsh or weird, but that’s actually not new. Aliens over 18 always have to carry papers on their person. It’s an existing federal law, USC 8 1304(e). That law, according to the US Department of Justice, is fine.
Now that I have actually read the law and done some research, I see no problem with the law at all. Read it for yourself and see what you think.
