Both Kathy Nicolo (Jennifer Connerly) and Colonel Behrani (Ben Kingsley) consider this house a key element in their respective struggles towards identity formation. Abandoned by her husband only months before the film begins, Kathy clings to the house left by her father as a sole remaining foothold in an endlessly shifting, shifty world. The house provides Kathy with a sense of continuity, physical security, and an accessible repository of comforting memories. Her forced removal because of a legal blunder casts her psychologically—as physically—adrift. In a desperate attempt to regain security, she grasps at the advances of a sympathetic (but married) man and a distant, busy brother; neither provides her a useful lifeline, and her life slowly floats into dangerous waters.

Behrani discovers in this house—what he calls an “investment” property—an important means to an end. Having fled with his family from a politically dangerous situation in Iran, Behrani works multiple jobs in America to maintain a façade of the old wealth so he can marry his daughter off to a good family and buy a house like the one he settles on. He fixes the property up a bit and then markets it at a substantially higher price in order to earn funds for his son’s university education. While lacking Kathy’s personal ties to the house, that is, Behrani’s future and that of his family rests just as heavily on legal possession of the house as does Kathy’s.

Is Kathy’s love of place a kind of idolatry? Should she just get over her loss and pursue a life elsewhere?

Because my wife and I are currently engaged in extensive, involved discussions and prayers about our own future course (I’ll complete the degree this year), my recent experience with this film struck me much more deeply than my first viewing last summer. My childhood was divided between Washington and Tennessee, the college years happened in Kentucky, Austin hosted the first years of my marriage, and our family has now been in Chapel Hill, North Carolina for seven years. Until this past year, I’ve never really had a strong sense of place. I cried a bit when we left Richland, WA after eleven years, and I learned upon marrying to really despise moving truckloads of boxes, but I can’t recall feeling strong ties to a particular spot.

At the moment, we’re struggling over to what degree we’ll allow the job market to dictate our final destination (and subsequent communal, educational, and cultural options), and to what degree we’ll instead privilege community and geography. For the first six years in Chapel Hill, we assumed we’d move virtually anywhere to follow a good professional opportunity. Now we’re not so sure. Though many good friends have moved recently, we find our own relational roots diving deeper into the local soil. If we had to move and could choose our destination, we would probably land in Portland, OR.

We’re called to view this world as foreign territory, and Christ reminds us that he has prepared a much better, permanent residence elsewhere. Does this mean, however, that an itinerant lifestyle is somehow ideal? To avoid a spiritually unhealthy codependence on others, or the material accumulation that somehow accompanies settling down, must we be ever on the move like the apostles of yore? Their mobility didn’t prevent the important relationship-building that should always accompany sharing God’s love, and their accomplishments for the kingdom sure can’t be gainsaid. Am I fooling myself by thinking that I can be just as networked into God’s people and a hurting world by trying to live in just one or two more places for the rest of my life, by committing to a community instead of a professional endgoal?

It’s a tough question, one I don’t think should be answered with only platitudes and reminders about economic realities. My professors and many peers in UNC’s English department would offer one answer. What’s yours?

I welcome any reflections and prayers.

June 3, 2005