Diary of an Urban House

We still have not settled on a name for the house. Usually in my family it would already be named: I lived at 8602 until middle school, when we moved to 23036… or maybe just use the street name: most of my urban ministry was spent at 53rd Street, and 29th Street was the first house my wife and kids and I had ever lived in.

But there is great power in naming a home. It makes it more than merely an address to occupy, however pleasant or meaningful that address might be. When one’s livelihood depends on it, we instinctively name the house: what bed & breakfast establishment, for instance, ever went without a name?

(Good, you thought of one: but aren’t they using the address as a proper noun, and giving it the same significance one would attach to a name? Like The Inn at 657, for instance? Even Number 10 Downing Street or 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue are freighted with significance that any name would be proud to carry… and it feels more natural to call the latter “The White House” anyway)

So: my father’s house in Tahoe, which we now run as a modest retreat/reunion/wedding locale, is a classic Norwegian chalet (dad is Norwegian) so he named it Fjeldheim - “Mountain Home.” Since I’m there a lot (at least, more than I’m anywhere else besides Los Angeles), it seems natural to call this house Stadheim - “City Home.” Nice symmetry there.

The problem is, that gives this house a Norwegian name, and there is very little Norwegian about it. My dad, builder of Fjeldheim, is full blooded Norseman… Kathryn and I, builders of this home, are American mutts with a clearly detectable Scandinavian phenotype in one of us. But our family is an amalgam of contrasting phenotypes besides Scandinavian: British, Mayan, African, probably others more subtle.

What name encompasses that diversity?

We might try another angle, and name the house after its purpose. We like to experiment with interesting languages, and a Jewish friend suggested Bet Elohim or Bet al Amin - “House of God”, or “House for the Peoples.” We aren’t ethnically Jewish at all, but you might argue that the blood of a Nazarene runs through our family, or that we are adopted into the family of the Jewish messiah Yeshua. Adoption is a strong current of our identity and purpose, but do we want to make it the chief metaphor through which we identify this house?

Suggestions and questions welcome!