You may not like my answer but I am more and more convinced of it. I don't think that the island is morally good or bad. I think the island is consequentially neutral, like nature itself. I'll reduce it further: The Island simply is. It's just there.

Before you throw your hands up in disgust, let me suggest something. We have seen two kinds of power exhibited on the island: electromagnetic power and negative exotic matter. Might there not be a third kind: the power of life?

Let's look first at the two scientifically observable powers. If you agree that the scientific concept of the power of electromagnetic or negative exotic matter exists, then you might reasonably accept that there could be some place on the globe where those powers could be centralized. The island is your hub. Dharma are your people. Peace, love, flowers, and go science! I believe when we look at Dharma and see Hanso (my favorite unseen character) funding it, Widmore supplying it, and all the Dharma-ites from Horace to Roger to Sawyer to Hurley staffing it and living their lives out there, we are seeing the Golden Age of science on the island. Their predecessors were certainly the ancients who also appear to have tapped into the island's power with that donkey wheel, while also managing to build an effective civilization, leaving behind the relics of the well, hieroglyphics (which we should note are both record-keeping and storytelling runes) and the statue. Actually, the statue and the temple are pointing to another sort of power.

That power is the power of life. I might even mean something like The Force. No, I do not think TPTB are just filching from George Lucas; but I think his life force phenomenon is the grandfather to their own modern creation. I have decided that on Lost we have a new power - I'll call it Island-ism. This has as its color the verdancy of green, as its subject our Losties, and as its goal true life for all. Is this because the island is good? No, it is because life is preferable to death and like the island is a hub for science, it is also a hub for faith. Life can be worth living. Life can overcome its two arch-nemeses: death and time. If you agree that the philosophical concept of the sheer power of life - even over death- might exist; then you must simply accept with reason that there could be some place on the globe where that power could be centralized

The island is your hub. The Others could have been your people, but they fell into sin. (I think that was at the Purge. Or maybe it was before when Charles Widmore ruled tyrannically. At some point though the island rebelled against them and starting killing their women and embryos.) You might instead consider that your people are the Losties, and that this is what the story is about - them all fulfilling their destiny and being granted everlasting, overcoming, worth-living life.

John Locke has managed to come back from the dead by sacrificing himself to the island, with some meddling help from Ben. The island, being full of life, rewarded John's belief with the return of his life. Don't forget that we have written about what the island is doing with the whisperers, the visions, the undead, and even Jacob, Richard and Ben. Dead is less than dead on the island. We all know it. But Locke is thoroughly and miraculously alive. He looks good too, doesn't he? I like him in the jungle in his coffin clothes. He's comfortable in his skin, he's confident, and he's been downloaded with more information than Ben has had. He is the poster child for Island-ism, its greatest adherent, its staunchest defender, not its only martyr but its greatest - its only triumphal martyr.

Why is Ben scared of what Locke's resurrection means? That to me was the most intriguing moment of the fabulous episode 12 "Dead is Dead." I appreciated Ben's beginning redemption. He did very well during Smokey's judgment scene. It was good to see that he really loved Alex as his own. So now what will he do? He needs to do exactly what Alex told him: "You will listen to every word John Locke says, and you will follow his every order." This will likely lead to a colossal course correction. Now that the full power of the island has been manifested, faith in it will take on ever more meaning.

We as an audience have been on this island now for 96 chapters of our story. With a promised 118 total episodes in the epic of Lost, we have only 22 chapters left. That is only 1/5 of the story remaining. Nothing that happens is wasted now. From the moment that we heard that not Jacob but the island wanted things to happen I personally have been scratching my head as to what was up with that! At the worst moments I have considered that the writers were simply hiding behind the biggest character - Make it happen because the island wants it! Who's going to argue with an island? But the intriguing thought that the island actually has a will, now that got my attention.

They let us stew over that from the end of last season until now. In some ways I think they wanted us to see it from Jack's perspective. He had thought of the island only as a place to run from. But once the island got his attention in episode six of this season "316," once Locke was dead and incapable of speaking for the island and Locke's suicide note insisted on being opened, Jack has become a believer. They haven't given him very much to do since that moment, but I like that. Sometimes you have to live with your belief, day in and day out before it is tested. His belief will be tested, as will all of the Losties. I contend that their belief or lack thereof in the power and benefit of the island will either save them or destroy them.

And with that assertion here come all the insects and rodents of doubt and debate that have been in our story - the ones I knew were in here when I started cleaning. I'll face them one at a time.

No, the island is a center for life, which includes death as a part of the life cycle, but not as its conclusion. In that sense Charlotte was right: this place is death. But life overcomes death - look at Christian and Locke. In other words, the usual progression is life ending in death. But on the island, life overcomes death. It can't avoid death. But death is not as strong as the afterlife. How do you kill someone who has overcome death? That is why Ben is afraid. He has always lorded death over his opponents. The island might not let him anymore. At least his promise to Alex won't let him anymore.

People die all the time for all sorts of reasons: accident, malice, crime, disease. It's not any different on the island. However, it was Locke's coffin journey to the island that granted him life. Being on the island is what healed him of his paralysis, Jin of sterility, Rose of cancer, Sawyer of vengeance, as well as various other miracles. Richard seems to be well-preserved by maintaining proximity to the island. Even the off-screen story of Alvar Hanso is that he discovered life-extending properties on the island. And now we see that the O6 need to be on the island in order to face their unresolved issues.

This is where the story gets very intimate, personal, individual, secretive - Do you like being alive? What if the best life you could live could be yours to live without fear of death? What then? The answer to this is the crux of faith. I'm going to get very personal here - I am looking for something beautiful, magnificent from the end of Lost. I refer regularly to the final tableau at the end of "Tabula Rasa" and the song "Washed Away." This was not the only moment of rest, connection, joy, forgiveness, quiet and love that our Losties will know. And if it was, then I'm still grateful to the island for giving our heroes the chance at it.

And what if I'm wrong? If time is really an uncontrollable terror, life and death are all a big accident, and in the end we all just die and go away forever, at least we've had the vision of something better. At least we know the mountain of life and hope are there.

For now though we have John alive and Ben forgiven through the grace of the island, Sayid morally and physically lost, and Sawyer and company waiting for Locke like the characters in Samuel Beckett's play "Waiting for Godot" - in limbo waiting for their "little god" or Christ to appear. In that story he never shows. I don't think that will happen here - I think they will look on the one slain, the one capable of forgiving his assassin and his naysayers, and they will follow him willingly.

But to what end, you ask? Well, now we pull out the box marked "Power" and we consider however inadequately what the factions are that will be part of the Great War. That's the next and last article.