[Locke emerges from Ben’s closet after one of the Other’s leave and demands to know…]
Locke: “‘Bring me the man from Tallahassee.’ What is that? Some kind of code?”
Ben: “No, John, unfortunately we don’t have a code for ‘there’s a man in my closet with a gun to my daughter’s head,’ although…we obviously should.”

Lost in Translation: Phoebe turns one tomorrow. We will not have a major party, but we did get a cake. Ivy went with Meg to pick it out and she told me about in front of Phoebe. Of course Phoebe could not understand us talking, but Ivy keep mouthing all the important words, like “Phoebe’s Birthday Party”. Unfortunately I have never been able to read lips—hopefully I do not go deaf—and I was just as clueless to Ivy’s words as Phoebe. So rather than thinking about the cake, I pondered how Ivy is growing up. Soon, just like her mom, she will be mouthing words from across the room that I misinterpret. Get a drink becomes skating rink, which make me nervous because I am terrible skater…

The HS Lost: I confess I was also nervous about playing the HS in kickball on Wednesday. I suppose the reality of students who were barely, or not even, teenagers playing near adults (if a grad can be considered near adult?) had me worried. Plus the HS came out with confidence. In response to our gift of flowers (pansies) they brought  black-eyed susans for the losers. But the MS won handily. I will admit that part of our victory was due a few rule tweaks (but these were created by Andy). Still, even without the rule tweaks, the HS could not put us away…

Lost in Space: And you do need to put things away. This past Sunday I helped Ivy change from her favorite princess pajamas into a dress. While I focused on buttoning, I did not notice where the PJs landed. And now, almost a week later, they are still missing. Which has lead to depressing moment every night, as Ivy laments her lost princess pajamas…

Lost and Found: Of course losing things is a part of my reality. I can not tell you how many times I have lost my wedding ring. Most time it is gone only a moment when l I remember that I took it off to give the girls a bath. But this last year I lost it for days. It is a strange feeling to go without our ring.  Not as bad as the dream where you arrive without pants, but there is definitely something missing. So we decided to go buy a cheep silver band—I no longer deserved gold and this would be the second ring. But then I was looking under the couch cushions for something else—can not even remember what—and there was my ring…

Sitting on the couch brings us closer to the point. The final Lost airs Sunday and I must say I am excited and depressed. The show which started out weird, only to leave reality completely, has captured my imagination. Of course I know the lack of stability turned some off, but I enjoy the imagination—every twist and turn. To not know where the show would go next… well, I love it! But tonight we will arrive somewhere and it will all be over. And I want to arrive, that was the goal, what I wanted to know all along. But now that we are here I realize it was the journey that was so good.

During our lifetime we will not arrive at holiness. We are on a constant journey. In the end we will find ourselves made holy, but, there we will also learn that holiness was not our desire. Instead we will realize we had our heart’s desire all along. For it is the journey with Christ that we need. And this relationship, by grace, will continue into the ages!