This is a lovely essay by my friend Dr. Hilda Kleiman of Mount Angel Seminary, an essay about Star Trek and, ultimately, about why Hilda decided to leave Queen of Angels Monastery in Mount Angel.
My little town is fortunate to still have a single-screen, independently-owned movie theater, so last week I went to see the new Star Trek movie, Star Trek Beyond. While the basic plot of the crew of the Enterprise saving billions of souls from a misguided bad guy was not original, in terms of the relationships among the crew the movie was quintessentially Star Trek. It was about the larger Star Trek family, the actors and their fans, as well as about the formation of a family and about deciding to be a family.
In Star Trek Beyond, Kirk is struggling with the meaning of his, at this point, young life and career, his reasons for being in space, and the question of which relationships will be his primary bonds. He smiles sadly when he sees Sulu greet his young family when the Enterprise docks at the space station, and he asks Spock whether Spock thinks the two of them make a good team. He is struggling to be a man other than his father, to find his own way, and to determine if that way does or does not include the Enterprise.