(Ha, I just found this in my word documents dating back to January 30, 2010. I was supposed to write a narrative on "something that meant something to you" for my World Literature class. Pretty broad... but since LOST was all I ever thought about back then, and because of the situation written about below, it was the only option. And this is just really funny to me...)
“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.”
Psalm 23: 4
The 35th Episode of the Emmy Award winning television show LOST, The 23rd Psalm, focused on the character Mr. Eko. Once a notorious war lord and drug smuggler in Nigeria, Mr. Eko is now a counterfeit priest and current survivor of Oceanic flight 815. His seventy-two day survival on the island contributed to the show in a great way. Eko is a complex and interesting character, not one you can easily determine is good or evil. His past is intriguing and like all of the survivors, his future is mysterious. Mr. Eko befriends a particular “walking stick” while on the island. On it, he carves 14 bible passages. One of those passages is from the book of Psalms chapter 23, verse 4. Many verses found on Eko’s stick are symbolic of future events and appear throughout the show. What we now know though is Mr. Eko is hardly ever seen without his stick. This might explain, “thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.”
In Episode fifty-three, Eko is deceptively pulled into the jungle were he meets “the smoke monster” and ultimately, his death. And this could explain, “though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death.”
Since becoming involved in LOST, it has been tradition for my birthday cake to be LOST themed. Every year my dad bakes a strawberry cake with cream cheese frosting and on top of it goes an intricately designed figurine of a character from LOST. This year, the character was Mr. Eko. He was sitting on top of my cute little cake, in his fitting and natural surroundings, made possible by frosting, sprinkles and my dad’s artistic abilities.
After blowing out sixteen candles, I notice the little stick in Mr. Eko’s hand. Surely, enough there on the stick, were all 14 passages carved by Eko in the show. I was completely amazed and thrilled on how correct and detailed the figurine was. He was then placed on my shelf next to the other four figurines of past years, to what I thought, would not be talked about again, at least not for a while.
During our religious readings in English, only a couple days after my birthday, I’d always leave my book open to the page we needed to read that night. On the night of our assigned reading of Psalm 23, my dad walks in to help me with Geometry and sees my book open. Of course, this was not planned by me; I had no interest in reading Psalms. In fact, I didn’t even realize that Psalm 23 was on Mr. Eko’s stick until my dad pointed out the coincidence.
I can only wonder though, is this a sign? Are the creators of LOST trying to tell me something? Is Mr. Eko, invisible to my eye, trying to let me know something too? Let’s hope February 2nd will bring me some answers.
