You probably heard about the Berkeley City Council passing a motion declaring the Marine recruiters in their city "uninvited and unwelcome intruders" and about Code Pink's aggressive, ongoing protest against those recruiters, which includes carrying a banner with the words "No military predators in our town," calling the recruiters traitors, and physically blocking anyone trying to enter the recruitment center (as the police stand by, remaining "neutral").

But yesterday, I was told about a story you might not have heard.  Eamon Kelley, a Marine who was present at the continuing protest last week, witnessed an incident he described in an email to a friend:

While we were at the protest in Berkeley from 12 to 4 p.m., a white Volvo drove by and a man spat upon Code Pink.  They chased him down the street and got into a verbal altercation.  The police were NOWHERE in sight.  That’s not the best part, ready for this?  Medea Benjamin [co-founder of Code Pink] yelled, and I quote, “Marines!” She actually yelled for our help because this man had stepped out of his car.  I even asked her if she was yelling Police and she told me, “I said Marines” then put her arm around my friend Allen (the Marine Vet).  Ironic?

As I was listening to my roommate tell me about this, I admit I was hoping for some juicy justice in which the Marines said sadly, "I'm sorry, we've decided you were right.  You don't need us, and we should go away.  Good luck with your problems, there."  Nobody can deny that's exactly what they deserved.  But my snickers of anticipation were silenced when I heard there was no witty comeback from the Marines.  Apparently, they helped her.

The whole story ended up making me weep.  I wept at the strength, and mercy, and goodness of men who would risk their own safety to help a person who hated them, mocked them, picketed them, and demanded angrily that they leave town.  How, how were they able to do this in the face of such bitter and stark unfairness? 

I wept because I then saw the face of Jesus in these men--a beautiful, powerful, deeply humbling mercy towards me, His enemy.  In a new and biting way, I saw what I deserved, and the mercy of His self-sacrifice was suddenly beyond imagining.

I wept because I didn't see Him in me.  Lately, in dealing with those who mock the truth, I've been acting more like the spitting passerby who hated the protesters and wanted to punish them than the Marines who steadfastly persevered in serving them.  Oh, Lord, help me!  I don't know how to love people like that.  I can't love people like that. 

I wept for the people of this world who continue to scream at Jesus to leave them alone, stubbornly suffering the daily consequences of a life lived without Him.  There will be an end to God's patience, and the full, righteous, deserved justice will come.

May God have mercy on us all.

(Warning:  Spoilers ahead, touching on the last couple seasons.  If you don't watch Lost, turn off your computer now and go rent Season One!)

I've mentioned before that I've always been interested in stories that involve time travel of some sort, so I've enjoyed the direction Lost began to take last season.  But there's something different about this series.  Normally, the type of time travel described in a story will fall into one of two categories:  1) The people who go back in time change things, thereby creating a new future or even a new parallel universe (e.g., Back to the Future), or 2) The people go back in time, but the actions they take there don't change anything in the future because it was always the case that their actions in the past led up to the future they've always known.  That is, time is set--all of history already happened, and they already acted as a part of it (e.g., the ending of Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure). 

The time travel in Lost, on the other hand, describes a third kind of time--one governed by Providence or fate.  Certain characters go back in time and can change things (history is still fluid, as it is in Type 1), but no matter what they do, they can't ultimately thwart the purpose of God or fate (just who is in charge remains to be seen).  So, Desmond can keep changing the future by repeatedly saving one of the characters from death, but eventually, the death of that character will be accomplished by the one who is governing the flow of history, moving it in a precise direction for a purpose.

It would seem, at first glance, that J.J. Abrams (the creator of Lost) believes in God or some sort of designer.  But, as with his other work (e.g., Alias), he creates a scenario that I suspect reflects a kind of battle going on in his own head:  Some characters see intelligent design and/or evidence of the supernatural in what's happening, and some see only naturalistic explanations.  In Lost, that inner-Abrams battle is characterized as "faith" vs. "science," Locke vs. Jack, purpose vs. random circumstances.  What's interesting is that you're never quite sure which side will win, or even which side should win.

It's as if Abrams wants the supernatural to be true, but he can never quite get there because he loves science and can't see a way to bring the two into harmony--and even though he feels a pull towards the supernatural, he's a little suspicious of the people who embrace it.  They seem somewhat...unstable.  So he keeps the two perspectives (supernatural and natural) existing side by side, almost as two separate stories, with each pretending the other doesn't exist--never touching, except to occasionally butt heads.

Sounds like Abrams's ideas are a good reflection of what our culture has done with religion and rationality (which they wrongly equate with naturalism), and it's a sad, compartmentalized way to live.  The two can be brought together; we can live as whole, integrated people who embrace God and rationality because they embrace each other in an integrated, whole reality.  "Live together, die alone," right?  Someone send this man a copy of Total Truth.