"Which One is Home?"

Father Pat O’Shea's "Which One is Home?" reminded me of the movie we had watched last night. The movie was "The Forbidden Kingdom" starring Jackie Chan and Jet Li.The film begins in modern-day Boston. There, while teenage kung-fu enthusiast Jason (Michael Angarano) is buying from his favorite shopkeeper, he is drawn to an ancient golden staff. When a local bully forces Jason to help rob the shop Jason escaped with the staff handed to him by the old shopkeeper who was hit by a gun by the bully's gang. He was then transported to ancient China. Then the adventure began with Jason being helped by Chan and Lee as he learned how to fight and to fulfill his mission of bringing the staff back to its real owner "Monkey King" who was transformed into stone by the bad emperor hundred of years ago.

There were two different worlds and two different times presented. Their worlds and their time were really far from each other. Yet, despite the great differences, Jason has found home both in the modern-day Boston and ancient China. When he returned to his real world, after fulfilling his mission, what he had learned while he was at home in his another home have greatly helped him in his struggles with his present home. He has learned friendship, loyalty, concern and responsibility when he get to know another home...

I could still remember my grade four lesson in our Home Economics class. The instruction was to differentiate a house from a home and I could still vividly recall my answer. House would usually mean the structure where we lived, covered with walls, roofs and composed of different parts serving different functions to comfort and to protect us. That characteristics would usually be enough to call it a house but in order for it to be referred to as a home, it should first be a place where an individual could feel that he was being loved, understood and that he could grow healthy and maturely. Hence, a family should not just work to have a house but exert more effort in building a home.

No wonder, most missionaries usually have more than one home...