Read More @HJ Reviews: Rediscovering Life's Rhythms Elisabeth Leitch Previews: Overview, Trailer David Bruce, Webmaster

The Visitor is peopled with a variety of characters that have little more in common than that they live in cosmopolitan New York. Well, except for Walter. He lives in Connecticut, but keeps an apartment in the city that he rarely uses and which has been squatted by Tarek and Zainab, from Syria and Senegal respectively. He is the one who belongs, but he is also the outsider. That dichotomy is central to my appreciation of the film.

I identified strongly with Walter. Middle-aged, American, professional, educated. But there is something missing. Walter's life is very empty. We see very quickly (the opening shot) that he is alone. Life seems to be happening for Walter, but it isn't really. He's marking time—for what, he doesn't know. He tries in small ways to fill the void in his life (a void that manifests itself in silence) in little ways, like trying to learn the piano; but these are not enough. Instead he has built walls that keep the world at bay—even the academic world he inhabits.

Staying away from the city is part of the way he's trying to cope. If he doesn't have to see life going on, perhaps he won't notice his own lifeless world. So he stays in Connecticut and does as little as he can in his job at the college. To do more would be to stretch his life beyond his self-imposed walls. He follows rules (at least sort of) to provide some structure so he won't have to really interact with people's lives. There is no joy or passion in him anymore. He has no idea what else his life could be.

Walter's life is in spiritual crisis. It has nothing to do with religion, per se. The hole in Walter's heart isn't necessarily "God-shaped," but such a void enters every life from time to time. Walter's hole seems to have started with the death of his wife. In trying to avoid the pain of that void, he only made it grow. Soon there was very little left in his life except that void. It was only by accident that he encounters Tarek and Zainab and begins to even notice the void so he can find something to fill it.

I said that I identify with Walter, and I do. But there are matters of degrees. I am a very private person. I am not as alone as Walter is, but I can easily imagine such solitude. The kind of dissatisfaction with work is something that probably everyone goes through at time, but I think clergy are especially prone to such feelings because so much of what we do has so little tangible reward. It is easy to go through periods of burnout by just letting things flow by. Usually something happens to reenergize us for ministry, but for some the burnout is just too much to work through.

But this struggle with life is not limited to clergy—I am merely speaking from what I know. Such spiritual crises are common. Everyone is a potential Walter—maybe not as extreme, maybe even more so. Often the way back to life is found in living. That may seem to oversimplify the answer. What I mean is that in the midst of such spiritual crises we often shut out life (especially other people). It is only by letting that life and other people into our lives that we once again experience the joys and passions of life. It is then that we may discover the ways that the many and varied people around us are so often God's gifts to us.