![\"\"](\"https:\/\/forbiddenplanet.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2006\/05\/Kate%20Lost.jpg\")
<\/a> <\/p>\n. There are actually episodes I have never seen, since I started watching LOST somewhat late, and so while I\u2019ve caught up on all episodes from season 2 onward, there are a few in season 1 I will finally watch for the first time.\nThe first episode after the pilot is \u201cTabula Rasa\u201d, Latin for \u201cblank slate\u201d. From the very beginning the series intended to explore the notion of people getting a \u201cfresh start\u201d, who they were before the plane crash and what they did then not mattering. But of course, as the flashbacks always demonstrated, the idea that moving to a new place allows one to make a clean break from the past is nonsense. We carry our pasts around with us. We are not static beings, but who we are now is the sum of who we\u2019ve been. This doesn\u2019t mean that change isn\u2019t possible. But as the survivors discover, change comes not by pretending the past doesn\u2019t exist, but by dealing<\/i> with the past.<\/p>\n
The fact that who we are now is a continuation of who we\u2019ve been up until now has relevance for reflecting on the idea of an afterlife. Since I\u2019ve just read Peter Rollins\u2019<\/a> recent book The Fidelity of Betrayal<\/a> A man finds himself before the pearly gates of heaven, having just died quite suddenly and unexpectedly. St. Peter meets him. \u201cWelcome, friend!\u201d he says, \u201cWould you like to come in?\u201d The man says that he doesn\u2019t yet feel any different, and asks what will change when he goes through the gates. St. Peter explains to him, \u201cYou\u2019ll be given a fresh start. Since your past would inevitably influence your ongoing existence in countless negative ways, we will erase all your memories. Since the form in which you existed as a human being was frail and fallible, your body will be replaced by a glorious one incapable of sin or error.\u201d<\/p>\n The man looked at St. Peter puzzled. \u201cIf you do all that to me,\u201d he asked, \u201cin what sense will I still me me<\/i>?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cGood question,\u201d answered St. Peter. \u201cThis new self will still have your name and will incorporate those few elements in your prior existence that were in no way, shape or form entangled with the sin, suffering, and other miseries of human existence.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou know what,\u201d the man replied, looking around at the clouds and seeing that there were other people who were outside the pearly gates, \u201cI think I\u2019ll pass. What you are offering would negate the value of everything I\u2019ve ever learned, everything I\u2019ve suffered, everything I\u2019ve done \u2013 in short, everything I am!\u201d And at that, he walked away.<\/p>\n St. Peter watched the man until he was out of sight. Then he looked up and said to God \u201cStill no takers.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThey make me so proud of them, sometimes,\u201d came the cheerful booming voice of God from above.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n