Smokey

I walked into a Barbecue place today, and the smell of 60 plus years of smoke hit me like a wall. It was a pleasing, mesquite tinged smell, but overpowering, as if the smoke had managed to embed itself in the panel lined walls and refused to move. It was choking me.

I managed to escape this smoky locale, but many of the castaways from flight 815 never escaped the clutches of Smokey, aka The Monster. He too seemed to be ingrained in the fabric of the island, he too had a (literal) choking effect on those he encountered. But he was also sentient. No amount of time was going to allow the smoke in the BBQ place to suddenly become self aware.

Smokey pursued people, he watched them, he unraveled the mystery of who they were. Some he let go, others he crushed the life from them. But make no mistake, everyone was playing by his rules.

As the series developed, so did the Monster. He began to offer promises, make deals with, and basically tempt people. He would appear in a pleasing form, a form that would put his target at ease. But it was not for the benefit of the target- it was only for Smokey.

We have smokeys in our world as well. They draw us off the path with the promise of adventure or shortcut, they pull us into situations that are in fact not for our best. They themselves have more in common with the BBQ joints smoke that the Smokey of the Island. They are neither benevolent or malevolent, they just draw us in with their pleasing aroma then choke the life out of us.

But behind these temptations, we have the living Smokey. AKA Lucifer. AKA Beelzebub. AKA Satan. He uses these baits to lure us in. He appears to be that which we desire the most- money, fame, power, sex, religion. He watches us for our weakness, plans counters to our strengths, sets a trap. He is, as 1 Peter tells us, a roaring lion stalking us like prey.

Smokey, and for us, Satan, is the ultimate Other. While the other Others are human, Smkoey/Satan is not. We don't really understand him, we are afraid of him, and truthfully, we would rather dismiss him as a fairy tale, a bogey man designed by the Church to keep us honest.

That's the disservice, the smoke-screen, if you will, that Satan has allowed us to put up. The world may put up with us believing in an unseen God, but the Devil? Please, that's ludicrous. Because if there is a devil, then there is real evil. If there is real evil, man can commit it, and that make us uncomfortable. I've heard people say that those who beleive in demons and possession are not in their right mind, or that they are morons. Why is it so hard to believe that there is an evil supernatural force in this world?

"The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist." was made popular in the Usual Suspects and was a paraphrase from a poem by Baudelaire (do I get artsy points for that?). It is being lived out today. To deny that Satan exists and is actively seeking the destruction of what God calls good is to hand him victory. Conversely, to see Satan hiding behind every misdeed is to reject personal responsibility. There must be an acknowledgemnet that we have an enemy, but also a realization that that enemy is sometimes ourselves. The Losties did just as much or more damage to each other than Smokey did, even when Smokey had not interfered. Sometimes we are just jerks.

I beleive that there is a war in spiritual realms unseen. I believe there is a war over the souls of those uncommitted to God, and a war over the souls of those committed to God as well. We need not live in fear of our Smokey- we can't. That lets him win as well. Instead we must live in the shadow of God- fancy church talk for trusting in God to see us through. We will be attacked by Satan- we will be tested by him. When this happens, we must let our response come not from us, but from God. When Jesus was tempted by Satan, he quoted scripture. We need to know what the Book says. We need to pray when we feel tempted. We need to band together in prayer, and worship.

And we need to be aware that the noises coming from jungle of our life are not to be trifled with.