A Review of “Redshirts”

Image of the cover for Redshirts. Used under fair use for review purposes.
The cover for Redshirts. Used under fair use for review purposes.

The first book by John Scalzi that I read was The President’s Brain is Missing, which was a great novella and, I think, a great introduction to Scalzi’s writing style. His science fiction in quirky, imaginative, and tends to not be the sort of thing to read in a quiet place unless you are really good at keeping yourself from bursting out into laughter. There is a wry and often hysterical sense of humor that’s present in everything I’ve read by Scalzi.

I read that novella back in the Before Times, and I’ve dipped into his work occasionally ever since, most recently his Dispatcher and Lock In series (which are great as audiobooks). I picked up Redshirts at our local library recently because it piqued my interest a bit, although I likely wouldn’t have had it not been for already knowing the author’s work. I’m glad that I did.

Scalzi has a way of exploring some really deep questions about our human condition in his work without the reader actually realizing that he is doing so…philosophy with a backward wave, if you will. This is difficult to describe without reading his work, but when you do, I imagine you’ll have an experience like mine in which this heavy realization hits you hours after you’ve put the book down that your mind has been churning on this really deep concept and you don’t know where it came from. That said, Redshirts is a bit more overt with what it’s trying to say, although the vehicle that it uses for exploration is no less imaginative.

This novel is, at its surface, a deconstruction of Star Trek and other popular sci-fi series, taking its name from from the expendable, nameless characters on Star Trek away missions (always in a red uniform) that have a habit of dying for dramatic effect. In Redshirts, these characters (who are functioning in a remarkably Star Trek-like universe) begin to realize that the fatality rate among their number is exponentially high, while the senior officers always make it out of any near-death experience without issue. They begin to ask why, and hilarity…and philosophy…ensue, as they discover that 20th century Hollywood writers are writing characters that mirror them in scripts for a (you guessed it) popular television program. Whatever happens to their characters, happens to them.

If we peel back a layer of the onion here, I think that one of the things Scalzi is doing in this multiversal sort of adventure is to drag into the light the lack of quality writing in a lot of American television, specifically in science fiction. The fun that is poked at a lot of Hollywood culture is difficult to miss, but it feels good-natured in the sense that someone who has lived in that culture gets to be the one that makes fun of it.

When we peel back another layer, things get heavier, because this novel is fundamentally grappling with fate vs. free will, or, in more theological terms, predestination vs. moral free agency. As our characters begin to plan how to stop these events from taking place (and thus extend their remarkably short lifespans), they also ask questions about whether or not they can stop these events. If one is destined to a certain fate, after all, can that be changed? From a broader perspective, do we have any control at all over our own lives? What if God is simply permitting our deaths…or worse, causing them…in a completely nonsensical way? Is there, in fact, any meaning at all to our lives, or are some of us merely supporting or incidental characters in a cosmic drama?

Something that I particularly appreciated about Redshirts is that, as these questions are asked, our protagonist, Andrew Dahl, who has attended an alien seminary before joining the Universal Union (read: Starfleet), pushes back on the nihilism that is the result of these questions spinning out of control. He responds (my paraphrase) that no coherent belief system has a god that would act in such a manner.

I also appreciate the gift that Scalzi has, and the space that this book makes, for the deeper implications of these sorts of questions. One of the characters has lost his wife in one of these nonsensical deaths, and the grief that we walk through with this character is real and lasting. We also are taken into the other side of that grief, in which every day is suddenly so extremely valuable because we know that love and purpose…perhaps even a Divine purpose?…are pervasive and worth experiencing for however long we are privileged to do so.

I often associate Scalzi’s work with humor and lightness. Redshirts pushes back on that framing of the author. This novel will be particularly entertaining if you, like me, grew up in a household that watched Star Trek every week. Even if you didn’t, though, it’s worth the read, but buckle in and get ready. What seems like a routine reading mission will leave you wanting to take evasive maneuvers, because you won’t be ready for the questions that it makes you ask.

It will, however, be worth the adventure.

Why Yes…I Do Want To Do Things Differently in 2024

Happy New Year's 2024. Used under Creative Commons.

Dearest reader…especially those who have been with me here for a while…can I just tell you that 2023 has been a crazy experience?

I feel oddly reminiscent of when I wrote about the change of decade in 2020. I wrote a post so full of meaningful reflection and optimism, only to go falling with the rest of the world headlong into a generation-defining event. In a somewhat similar way, I journaled about New Year’s resolutions at the beginning of 2023, and the year began perfectly fine. Then, as fear about the economy shifted, I was laid off from my job, as were many of my colleagues. Needless to say, the summer was tumultuous as a result. In the middle of this, we switched the kiddos to a new school and we began attending a new faith community in a city that we had only moved to a little over a year prior.

A little change is a good thing. Too much is chaos.

The strange thing is that I’m not sure I would have had many of these things go differently, because I experienced a great deal of life change and personal growth through that trying time period this summer. I also truly experienced the depth of Romans 8:28 is a manner that I’m not sure I ever had before, in that, after scrambling to find employment and all of the panic that went with that experience, I ultimately ended up with what could quite possibly be the best job that I’ve ever held. I feel as though work holds its proper place in my life, and only its proper place, in a position that I find fulfilling. In short, I couldn’t be happier with that part of my life.

“All will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”

Julian of Norwich

All of that to say, while there is now a happy ending, life was strictly about survival for a bit of this year…thus the notable absence of writing here.

So tonight, as the Christmas lights on the outside of our home are illuminated for the final time of the season and I watch the clock tick down to 2024, I’m remembering the New Year’s resolutions that I made for this year, and how many of them received no attention because life got in the way. And, I’m debating whether or not making such resolutions is really just an exercise in futility, if I’m to be honest.

Still, there were good intentions there, and some of them I want to keep in 2024. I still want to watch less and read more, as well as writing more…here, finishing my novel, as well as other ventures. I have the time and the mental space to do that now, which is such a gift that I don’t intend to waste.

I want to re-establish contact with old friends from the before times (I plan to post about what I mean by that soon). When I dropped most social media, I didn’t think through how to maintain contact, and so I’m leaning heavily on my contacts application and hoping that a lot of those details haven’t changed for people.

I feel incredibly optimistic about 2024. I have learned and grown this year, and have emerged both with a newfound perspective on what’s important, and with the space in my life to work on implementing what I’ve learned. We can’t know what lies ahead…I know many who are filled with pessimism about the upcoming year, which is an easy state in which to arrive if you read more than a few minutes of news. I’m holding out hope, though.

My friend, I don’t know what 2023 held for you, or what 2024 will hold. I pray it’s all working out for the best for you. I’d love to hear from you about how it’s going. Please keep in touch, and I’m planning for more space for conversation here in the coming year.

Here’s to 2024!

Image attribution: Carol VanHook under Creative Commons.

What To Do With Anxiety?

If I could articulate one truth about life as a follower of Christ, it’s this: we live many areas of our lives in a state of cognitive dissonance between what we know to be true, and what we experience. Our emotional response to an event is frequently incongruous with our theological understanding on the same event. In other words, we know that God will take care of us, and can look back to see how He always has, and yet we’re in this tension of “will He this time?” when confronted with an event.

There’s a lot of writing out there examining the question of whether or not anxiety is a sin. Various writers fall on both sides. Many writers who fall on the side of it being a sin, I think, are in a mindset that treats psychology and mental health as being somehow inherently invalid, that every problem is a spiritual problem. So before I go further, let’s dig into that statement for a moment. First, every problem is, in fact, a spiritual problem. We know a great deal more today about both physical and mental well-being than we did even a decade ago. Theologically, I’m a trichotomist. That is, I believe that the body, soul, and spirit are three separate and distinct aspects of humanity’s existence. Each person has each aspect. I find it obvious that each of these aspects inform each other, and impact each other. Spiritual health, mental health, and physical health inform each other. It is difficult to maintain mental health without spiritual health, or physical health without mental health, for example. Accepting that, then every problem becomes a spiritual problem, because our spiritual state impacts every problem that we confront. Human beings are amazingly complex, and we are not living in the condition in which we were designed to live.

I think you see where I’m going with this.

There’s a lot exegesis of the the Greek involved to decide whether or not you believe that anxiety is a sin…that is, if it’s wrong, and thus subject to a need for forgiveness. I am not convinced that it is, but even if you are, you’ve experienced anxiety. Given a frightening enough scenario…imagine being confronted with the potential of a catastrophic loss of income, or with a war, or an assault…the human condition is such that it will experience anxiety, especially when secondary to trauma. And while there are many definitions of trauma, perhaps, I would argue that we all experience a trauma at some point. I heard a mental health professional say once that, if trauma were effectively handled when it occurred, that the DSM would be a pamphlet. I think that speaks to how critical it is that we accept this as part of the human condition, to not avoid it, but to confront it.

I recently went through an incredibly stressful period with life events. So many of what I understood to be stable aspects of my life were suddenly thrown into question. I’ve experienced a lot of anxiety over the past few weeks, as would, I think, anyone in a similar position. Through that experience, I’ve learned many hard lessons, grown as a person and as a Believer, and found a great deal of peace.

The first step in living with the cognitive dissonance that I mentioned is to recognize that it exists, and to not deny it. The Christian faith is full of hope, but, as always, we have to approach that hope from the starting point that it is needed, which is rather difficult to do if we deny a problem to begin with. So I guess my point here is, don’t run from it. Don’t theologize yourself into thinking that you shouldn’t be experiencing anxiety about a situation, that it should somehow make you question your faith. That way leads to legalism, and, if anxiety is what you’re experiencing, then it is freedom that you need.

And I pray that you find it.

Image attribution: Kevin Dooley under Creative Commons.

Seeing the Unseen – Easter Reflections

At the beginning of the year, I decided that I would follow the liturgical calendar for my morning readings. I am not at all a liturgical sort of person, but I feel like there’s a beauty in it that I generally miss, so I felt like it would be a good spiritual exercise. I’ve had so many themes going through my head between various readings and services over the weekend, but what liturgical reflections are really good for are reminding us of the simple reality of what we’re observing. Not focusing on the theology of it necessarily, but just reminding ourselves that He is risen.

Reading about Jesus’ appearances to the Twelve after His resurrection is like reading a science-fiction novel. He still had His physical body, as Thomas could tell you, but He also functioned outside of the limitations of a physical body…appearing in locked rooms without using doors, for example. We can infer from this that, after we are raised, we will be the same.

Lewis famously talked about how the world that we can’t see…the spiritual realm…is so much more real than the realm that we can. Earlier this week, there was a significant wind storm where we live. The wind was invisible, but the effects of it (including my trash can being tipped over at the curb) were very real and observable. So it is with the spiritual…while we can’t see it, we can see its effects all around us, even if we do try to explain them away.

Reading about someone rising from the dead smacks of nonsense to us because of our cultural tendency toward empiricism. There is no room for the mystical in our minds…only what we can observe and quantify. Yet, reading about the Resurrection leads us into a very real spiritual plane which exists alongside the physical world that we can sense, a reality at least just as real as our physical existence. That’s the reality that I want to focus on moving forward from Easter, the very real experience of a Savior whose body was never found.

He is risen indeed.

Happy Easter.

Image attribution: Shiva Shenoy under Creative Commons.

The Way Back Machine

I’m beginning to feel like the grumpy old man who complains about what kids these days are watching and listening to, rambling on about how none of it is as good in quality as what we had. I suppose it’s inevitable in a way. All of my holiday gift cards are being spent on television shows from the 90’s and mid-00’s, when we were first married. Objectively, some of it is bad (mostly the 90’s stuff, but honestly, you really can’t help but dig that dystopian, post-apocalyptic vibe), but some of it was really good. In any case, it’s been taking most of my free time this winter.

This nostalgia thing is becoming serious.

In a sense, it’s a sign, not a symbol, and it points back to some really fun times that we had in our early marriage. I’m sure that it’s normal to reminisce about “back before we had kids,” so I can’t be alone in this. I also remember…and miss…our faith community and friends from those days. We were still living in the city where we had gone to grad school, and still had many of those connections. We were very active in the arts, in our faith community, and full of optimism for the future. For whatever reason, it’s much more difficult to make those tight friendships in New England. It’s also exponentially more difficult to find a faith community in New England. As we have searched for both, I’ve found myself missing those days of 10 + years ago much more profoundly, which I think has been informing my nostalgic memory trips.

Our local faith community had a theatre group in which we were leaders, and it took so much of our time. I loved every moment of it, but eventually, we just burned out. We were so busy, all the time, and we needed a sabbath time to refresh ourselves, to take a break, to think about things. That was ultimately only a year or so before we moved away, although that wasn’t the plan then, but I remember this painful realization when our stepping away for a time to recharge wasn’t received well. We began going to other faith communities to get some time away, and found ourselves viewed as pariahs by some in the one that we had attended. It was painful.


Shortly after Christmas festivities were over this year, there was conversation about how our extended family has always remained close, regardless of distance and regardless of faith communities attended. The comment was made that we are uncommon in that sense, that the experience we had 10 years is far more common. That’s troubling to me.

I understand it, though. A local church has so much to keep up with, so many needs to meet, and it exists to focus on those needs, those people. It’s easy to de-prioritize anything outside of that sphere. In that way, while it’s easier now than ever to stay in touch with friends who live far away, it’s not common to talk to them every day as you once did. The typical experience that I’ve had, however, is that moving away is the equivalent of leaving an employer on bad terms. That’s indicative of a deep-rooted misperception of how the Church was designed to work.

I still view myself as belonging to the same Church as all of those dear friends from years ago, even though their ministry focus is different than mine now. My ecclesiological position (and I don’t think it’s so revolutionary), is that there is only one Church, and that all of us who follow Christ are part of it. I don’t think that means that we’re under some sort of artificial obligation to stay in close touch with people who move on to other faith communities, but I also don’t think that we’re under an artificial obligation to cut ties with them, and it’s the second case that I’ve observed happen frequently in my life.

I supposed maybe I’m sensitive to this because we’ve moved a lot. A discontented wanderlust seems my burden to bear. As we’ve lived in different parts of the country and have seen how other Believers express our common faith, it’s expanded my view of our relationship with God dramatically. I’m hopeful for a day when I can stay in touch easily with others if we move on again.

Even better, I’m hopeful for a day when I re-connect with those dear friends from my past.

That would be truly nostalgic.