So Totally Lost Watching Lost

Ok, so I’m watching yet another complicated episode of Lost, and I just keep wondering if I’ll ever feel as though I understand this show I’ve grown to both love and hate. Every week, new characters are being introduced when I can’t really seem to keep up with all the ones I already know. But even more stretching is the jumping from the present to the future to the past, trying to connect the dots, always feeling off-center and more than a little confused.

Seeing the popularity of this show and the buzz it generates actually gives me a certain degree of hope because programs like this one do not insult the intelligence of the viewers and do not seek the typical lowest common denominator. While I may feel lost, I am also intrigued and fascinated enough to hang in there and seek understanding.

When it comes to any form of communication – including what we do in church – I wonder if perhaps we should and must aim a little higher. What would we create and write if we were willing to trust the intelligence of our listeners more, if we didn’t feel such a need to “dumb everything down.” Clarity is a tremendous goal, but every so often, maybe it’s more than ok for people to wrestle with a concept that requires digging, that beckons us into the land of mystery, that asks more of us than immediate buy-in. As a communicator, I’d like to intentionally stretch both myself and those who listen – even if in the process we all feel a little lost.