Sorry, but I have to do it

So I watched the end of lost last night (I know, I was a week late, blame Africa) and I need to process it. In other words, if you haven't watched the end yet and you still think you will, stop reading now.

In short, I loved it. I was emotionally connected to characters I hadn't really cared about up until that moment, all of the confusion and frayed plot twists were seared off, and I was left remembering why I stuck with it for all those years. It wasn't the island, sure it was a mystery and seemed to be what the series was all about, it wasn't the multiple realities, strange worm holes, a smoke beast, the ancient conflict between good and evil, the fountain of youth, or the garden of Eden. Though in some part, most of those things came into play. The fact that a bunch of the mysteries weren't fully explained left me stuff to wonder about and forced me to recognize the point of it all. It was about the people. It was about the broken, the stupid, the selfish, the sacrificial, the good, and the bad. It was about the love that went between them, and in a few cases, it was about the redemption that they experienced.

It incorporated aspects and symbolism from a bunch of different religions, mostly Christianity (I think), and it answered the question that had existed from the first season, "what is real?" with the answer, "Everything." I loved it because it left me feeling the hope, redemption, and love that had come to all of the characters. Jack's sacrifice that seemed to cost him everything, ended up costing him nothing more than what everyone else ended up paying. He made the right choice, he left it all behind, and he let go of the things that he loved, but in the end he had so much more than he ever thought he could have. Ben, Lock, Hurley, Kate, and everyone found a peace that was magnified, not by what they had done, but by who they were with. it was the relationships that always mattered and it was the relationships that brought them back together. In the most basic sense, it was a story about love, not the romantic love or the selfish love that often governs our thoughts on the topic, but the knowing love that comes from an intimacy that is only realized after time. The love that we all desire in the deepest part of our beings.

Lost wasn't about God, but it made me think of Him. It helped me remember the vastness of life and the yearnings that are often under the surface. I'm impressed that a stupid T.V. show about an island was able to do that.