Mal's Song

Here it is - my favorite version of the Firefly song: Click here for Michelle Dockery's lyrics

Episode 14 - Objects in Space

This is the last episode produced. It features River. A bounty hunter finds her and boards Serenity to take her back. The episode begins with River being able to hear the thoughts of the crew and learning how unwanted she is. She finds a gun she thinks is a branch and everyone fears her insanity may make her a great danger. She feels she doesn't belong and surrenders to the bounty hunter, but not without playing some mind-games. In the end the crew invites her into the family.


River wants to belong. Don't we all? Don't we long to have that place, that serenity? It's not easy and it's messy, but families, relationships, communities are part of being human and the journey we call life. When you do find the folks who love you as you are - value them.

Episode 13 - Heart of Gold

This is a real wild west show with a bad guy who runs the town and a "hoar house" that's fighting to keep it's freedom. An old friend of Inara's asks for her help. Inara ask Mal and the crew go to fight for independence. At the end of this episode, Inara announces she is leaving.

Inara makes the decision to leave because she realizes she loves Mal and she loves the crew of Serenity. She has formed an attachment and that by getting so close she will not have her freedom to come and go and keep things "clean." Love, relationships, people are messy. You can hurt and fear losing the things you love and that feeling can tear you apart. Running away doesn't make it better. We were not created to be without the mess. Sorry to say, that attraction to belonging and being a part of a "family" of relationships is purely human. Inara leaves, but in the movie Serenity she finds that distance and separation cannot break the tie of feelings and love she feels. Lesson learned.

Episode 12 - The Message

This is my favorite episode and it was the last to be televised. A body of a war buddy is sent to Mal and Zoe with a message for them to bury him on his home planet. Turns out their friend isn't dead, but an organ mule who backed out on a deal with some very angry men. Their friend places everyone in a great deal of danger and turns out to be far more selfish than they had remembered. The episode closes with their buddy's funeral after all and it is the last show to be aired. The crew knew in this episode that this was the end of Firefly and you can see it in their faces that everyone is grieving.

Lately I've felt grief over what has been and what will never be. I've said goodbye to old dreams and begun embracing new ones. I find strength from my faith and the Wisdom writings of Ecclesiastes 3 in the Bible. It says there is an appointed time for everything and a time for every affair under the heavens. A time to be born and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to uproot the plant. A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to tear down, and time to build. A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance. A time to scatter stones, and time to gather them; a time to embrace, and time to be far from embraces. A time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep and a time to cast away. A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to be silent, and a time to speak. A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.
There is not a right time for anything, but time for everything. When you can run anymore, you crawl, and when you can't crawl, you find someone to carry. Who or what is carrying you through?

Episode 11 - Trash

Saffron is back. She has a scheme to steal a rare antique weapon from a wealthy landowner. Unfortunately for Mal, she neglects to mention just how she came across the information needed to break into the landowner's home. This episode invites more action from Inara.



This episode begins with the end. The cameras zoom in on a desert scene where Mal is sitting on a rock naked and defeated. Sometimes that's the best place to start. Go ahead and clean out the trash in your life and start naked in the desert. Of course, he's not there long. The crew comes and picks him up. When they do he talks and walks around like there is nothing unusual about being naked in front of his crew as they try to carry on without laughing.

Here's what I'm thinking when I see that scene: In life we accumulate baggage, trash, the stuff from our past that goes with us. Then something happens and we feel stripped of all our security blankets and identity - we're vulnerable. We can be ashamed of that, try to get our trash back or carry on with our vulnerability in the community that welcomes us just as we are. I'm thankful for a few friends who've been there when I'm naked in the desert, realizing I made a mistake and trusted the wrong person, put hope in the wrong relationship and they've kept the "I told you so's" to themselves. I sure am thankful.

Episode 10 - War Stories

Wash is jealous of Zoe's relationship with Mal. He insists on going with Mal to make a deal and they are kidnapped by Niska's men. Niska tortures them. Zoe goes into save them and must choose one. She chooses her husband, Wash. The crew does all they can to save Mal.

Love is not Jealous. Jealousy in relationships pops up when one partner is insecure about the love of the other. There is doubt and uncertainty which wheedles its way into one's psyche and the troubling effects of jealousy spin out of control. Decisions are made, words are said not in love but in fear. There is a fear of losing and of being left can cause a desperate man or woman to manipulate, control, threaten, and even abuse the one they "love" to keep them. I hate jealousy and all the pain it causes. In the Bible there is a passage, 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 that is heard at many weddings. It says:
Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, love is not pompous, does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.

Love is not fear. Love is greater than our fear and worries. If that is not your experience, then it is not love.

Amazing Grace - Shepherd Book

Lord, I'm walking your way. Let me in, for my feet are sore, my clothes are ragged.
Look in my eyes, Lord, and my sins will play out on them as on a screen. Read them all.
Forgive what you can and send me on my path. I will walk on until you bid me rest.
~Haven Prayer

Episode 9 - Ariel

Hard up for cash, Serenity takes on a job from Simon: break into an Alliance hospital on central world Ariel so that he can get a thorough diagnostic of River and the crew can loot the valuable stores of medicine. But River's pursuers are hot on their trail, and they receive some unexpected inside help. (Wikipedia)

Jayne betrays the crew for money and has to live with the guilt of that decision. Mal tells Jayne that when he betrayed River and Simon he betrayed Mal. Mal is ready to leave him for dead, when Jayne asks that he not tell the rest of the crew what he's done. Mal shows mercy. There is a theme of sin and repentance in this episode, as well as the presence of temptation and evil. In the midst of this is the community, the crew. If you hurt one of the crew you hurt all. Made me think of how in communion we repent and receive forgiveness as a community - we commune. Jayne isn't forgiven, but he at least has the beginnings of a repentant heart.

Episode 8 - Out of Gas

In this episode, Serenity is dying. An explosion damages part of the engine that maintains life support. The crew has hours to live if they stay aboard. Mal sends everyone away as he waits for a response to the distress signal and goes down with the ship. Flashbacks tell us the story of how Serenity came to be and how the crew started.
At one point Kaylee tells Mal that "sometimes something broke can't be fixed." I've been thinking a lot about brokenness. It's a term we throw around freely - broken relationships, broken world, broken heart, etc. I asked some youth what we do when things are broke. Some said fix it and some said throw it away. I guess both are right. I won't throw a broken heart away, yet I've thrown some broken relationships away. Serenity is broke, but Mal won't throw her away. He has faith to the end that an answer will come...and it does.

More Jaynestown

This is one of my favorite episodes. Jayne is named a hero by mudworkers after he drops a load of cash he stole over their township during a mishandled robbery years before. At the end of the episode a mudworker gives his life for Jayne's life. Jayne is left wondering why someone would do that. He was no hero or god. Mal explains that it was not Jayne but the ideal he stood for that people die for. What would I die for? Do we have any heroes? I know I've made sacrifices for my beliefs and know they were the right choices to make, even though one might say the sacrifices weren't worth it. I guess in the end it's the faith that saves us, not the object, person, or organization that we put it in.

Episode 7 - Jaynestown

River's opinion of the Bible


The Bible is about believing in something. It's about Faith. You don't fix faith, it fixes you.
That's what Shepherd Book tells River as she tries to "fix the Bible." I guess that says it all.

Episode 6 - Our Mrs. Reynolds

Summary from Wikipedia:
As an unexpected reward for an unpaid job, Mal finds himself married to a naïve, subservient young woman named Saffron. Saffron is all too willing to play the role of housewife, which leads to argument between Wash and Zoe and lectures from Shepherd Book. But the young woman is not what she appears to be.

A Quote from the end of the episode when Mal finds Saffron who took the shuttle after setting Firefly up to be caught in an electromagnetic net:

Saffron: How'd you find me?

Mal: Only a couple places that shuttle would make it to from where you left… happy to find it intact.

Saffron: You're quite a man, Malcolm Reynolds. [Seductively] I've been waiting a long time for someone good enough to take me down.

Mal: Saffron, you even think about playing me again I will riddle you with holes.

Saffron: Everybody plays each other. That's all anybody ever does. We play parts.

Authenticity in a relationship is what all the books and surveys I read say our post-modern generation is looking for. My church throws around words like "be Real" be Relative" like juggling geese. Yet what does it mean to institutionalize authenticity? In the end is the church just "playing its part" like everybody does (according to Saffron)? You know I don't talk to many folks who become part of a faith community because of the "relative and real preaching" or "contemporary music". Yes those things may be attractions, but they don't keep people coming or build a relationship. It's the people who are authentic about being there and being with each other. The person who lights candles to welcome the presence of God in this space and shares a story about how this weeks been tough and their just thankful to be here. It's letting our guard down enough to stop playing "holy" and admit that a saint is just a sinner who falls down and gets back up. No parts to play, no recipe of worship to follow, just livin' and lovin'. There will always be a Saffron who doesn't get that or believe that. But there's always a Mal who knows a different tale. Who do you believe?

Episode 5: Safe

This episode opens with a flashback to 10 years earlier in the Tam household when River and Simon were kids. The crew arrives to a backwater colony to unload cattle they had been transporting. A gunfight begins and Shepherd is mortally wounded. Mal makes the decision to leave with Shepherd and leave Simon and River, who had been kidnapped, behind. The Tams are taken to a backwoods settlement to be their doctor, but River's odd ways get her in trouble. In this episode we learn that Shepherd has a secrets deeper than we think, for a check on his ID card got immediate attention and he was treated with top medical care by the Alliance. When Mal asks about his connection with the Alliance, Shepherd dodges his question.When on the ship again he says, "It's good to be back home."
The crew swoop in to save Simon and River from being burned as a witch just in time. When Simon asks Mal why he came back for them, Mal said "because you're part of my crew." The episode ends with a meal together. All the characters are now home.

Going home, being part of a family, belonging, communion (?) are themes in this episode. What does it mean to feel safe? Funny how we call the worship center of a church the "sanctuary." It's meant to be a safe place, a place to commune with your brothers and sisters in Christ. May we care for those who are broken and never leave behind those who are lost.