A Place of Healing for the Soul : Patmos

Rating:
Summary: Unsatisfied on Patmos
Review: About five years ago I read a book called Hermits by Peter France and I was delighted with it, so I was expecting a lot from this book. Unfortunately, my expectations were frustrated. The author writes about the charm and grace of the people of Patmos, about the beauty of the island, and about the deeply mystical dimension of the Orthodox Church. Yet I was left with the feeling that his underlying intention was to show how peculiar and backward the people are, how the island is selling its soul to mass tourism, and how the church is run by sacramental materialists.

There are a few good passages where he shows the love many Patmians have for their island, but such passages are few and far between.

In this book Peter France makes a few incursions into such areas as theology and ethics. He would have done better to steer clear of these, because his preparation is clearly not adequate to the task. His attempts to compare Orthodoxy to the Western Churches, especially at the level of theological argument, are probably ill-considered.

Rating:
Summary: Another 'Revelation' on St. John's Island of Patmos
Review: Former BBC reporter, Peter France, intersperses his dream of a simpler life with a quest for spiritual awakening. For years he has studied and reported on different religions, yet he skeptically remains an agnostic. When his wife, Felicia becomes an Orthodox Christian, sparks are lit within him to at least intelligently inquire about this tradition that has set his wife on spiritual fire.
The couple ends up on Patmos, a Greek Isle of the Dodecannese grouping, the island where John the Evangelist wrote his famous gospel and had his frightening visions which led to the prophesies in the Book of Revelations. Through his wife, France becomes aquainted with nuns and priests of Orthodox Christianity who patiently recognize his need and are happily willing to help nudge him subtly on his journey.
For this is what France discovers while he and his wife plod through the normal (and not so normal) procedures necessary to move their lives from England to Greece---that spirituality is a journey--not an arrival. Religion opens a portal that will lead to greater understanding and oneness with the infinite. It is this 'Revelation' that brings the beginning of peace to Peter France's life.
The procedural part of the narrative--the complicated 'purchase' of their home, their frustrating difficulties with the electricity, the comprehension of what time means in terms of promised appointments by workmen, their decision to move out of town and into an isolated farmhouse and their subsequent battle with the field animals and vermin that ruled there in the absence of human beings are all charmingly told and woven with tales of the island's history and France's discoveries about Orthodoxy's relevancy to his life.
A very pleasant sojourn -- I wish Mr. France tranquility and greater understanding---God willing!

Rating:
Summary: If a statement is true, it's a coincidence.
Review: Peter France has shown a total lack of respect for factual accuracy as well as for the Greek people in his book about Patmos. He has apparently spent no time checking any of his facts, and one wonders if he has actually been to Greece at all. His lack of respect for the Greek people is typical of the British traveler, and his lack of respect for truth is perhaps typical of the British journalist (perhaps of most journalists today). But one might expect the publisher to show some principles. Mr. France can't even get the difference between ouzo and tsipouro clear, let alone the origin of the phalanx. He presents the Greek people as if they had just emerged from the Stone Age, when in fact, this is a culture which was enjoying epic poetry, lyrical poetry, and narrative fiction while his ancestors were still shivering in caves. Perhaps Mr. France should stick to his own cave, religion, where no factual accuracy is required.

Rating:
Summary: If a statement is true, it's a coincidence.
Review: Peter France has shown a total lack of respect for factual accuracy as well as for the Greek people in his book about Patmos. He has apparently spent no time checking any of his facts, and one wonders if he has actually been to Greece at all. His lack of respect for the Greek people is typical of the British traveler, and his lack of respect for truth is perhaps typical of the British journalist (perhaps of most journalists today). But one might expect the publisher to show some principles. Mr. France can't even get the difference between ouzo and tsipouro clear, let alone the origin of the phalanx. He presents the Greek people as if they had just emerged from the Stone Age, when in fact, this is a culture which was enjoying epic poetry, lyrical poetry, and narrative fiction while his ancestors were still shivering in caves. Perhaps Mr. France should stick to his own cave, religion, where no factual accuracy is required.

Rating:
Summary: A Year in Provence Meets the Gospel of St. John
Review: This book's first theme is 50-something British couple's twelve years of seasonal residence on the Greek island of Patmos. The second is the author's spiritual awakening from committed agnosticism to, apparently, embracing his wife's Greek Orthodox faith (naturally non-believing Mr. France spent many years doing religious broadcasting for the BBC). I say "apparently" embracing Orthodox Christianity because following what Mr. France seems to consider an "experimental" baptism he lets the topic fade away. That's too bad, because Mr. France's evolving spiritual insights are far more interesting than his pale Greek imitation of Peter Mayle's delightful book about French country living, A Year in Provence.

Mr. France starts out ridiculing local monasteries for not adapting to modernity as illustrated by, in his view, their old fashioned insistence on "proper dress" for tourists coming to gawk at religious art objects (Cover up those bikinis and Speedos sun worshippers!). Gradually, as he gets to know the local Orthodox community, priests, nuns and lay people alike, his thinking changes. For example, Mr. France says that as an Oxford University graduate he thought "humility" meant "never make your superiority to others apparent to them". Then, observing some Orthodox nuns at work he concludes "real humility... is thinking of others so completely that you do not think of yourself at all." Mr. France comes to realize, "I had been thinking and reading for forty years, slowly amassing knowledge but not advancing in understanding," which he concludes may, after all, only be accessible through means other than human reason. This eventually leads to his baptism. This book would have been better and more distinctive if Mr. France focused solely on his spiritual awakening, gave more in-depth profiles of the Orthodox-influenced aspects of the islanders' lives and told us whether or nor he had fully embraced Christianity.

Mr. France refers several times to the concept of "cognitive minority"; i.e., having a different world view than one's surrounding culture. As a non-Christian on Patmos he found himself in a cognitive minority, among locals at least. I have a feeling that when it came time to publish a book that would be visible to the British and North American media elites Mr. France still identifies with he couldn't bring himself fully "out of the closet" as a believer.

Despite the inconclusiveness of Mr. France's spiritual journey, I recommend A Place of Healing for the Soul - Patmos for the person interested in the spiritual development/pilgrimage and moving-beyond-materialism aspect of the book. The secular local color and British couple-adapts-to-quaint-local-lifestyle part isn't worth the price of admission.

Rating:
Summary: An Education of the Heart
Review: This candid, informative and funny book is an engaging account of how France came to know the living Christ.

Before he arrived on Patmos France had endeavoured for years to discover and share in the Orthodox Christian faith of his beloved wife. He had read widely and, on the cerebral level, understood much, but the certainties he must have continued to elude him. Then, after he had made the island his home and had become immersed in its culture - both ancient and `modern' - he began to perceive for the first time "that Christian truth is not an objective series of propositions that can be understood by anybody. It is accessible only to those who have undergone ... a complete change of perspective". France agreed to be baptised whilst still officially an agnostic but once he had been received into the Orthodox Church he came - over a period of time - to experience for himself the reality of grace, which hitherto he had felt to be shrouded in the colourful imagery of myth. "It had come in the form of an increase not in conviction, but in awareness, in receptivity".

`Healing for the Soul' could equally serve as a potted history and/or a geographical guide (in which case the provision of a map and an index would make it a much easier read), but far more important is that it bears witness to an understanding: that Orthodox Christianity is the means whereby a man's heart may be educated.


Rating:
Summary: Love for Patmos
Review: We met Peter France on Patmos and read several of his books. Having retired here, we know the people, places and religious
experiences he wrote about. Without being pedantic, he wrote about his baptism to Greek Orthodoxy after years of study and introspection. We were impressed by the meticulous attention he's given to the smallest details and nuances of life
on Patmos. We chuckled as he described some individuals with his
unique wry humor, and quietly reflected upon many of his more serious, thought-provoking comments. In a very relaxed manner he
has you focus on many meaningful aspects and some amusing incidents one experiences while being on this tiny, remote island. I would venture to say that he has broadened and deepend our appreciation of this place we now call "home".
As to the reviews offered by Mr. Ashley Black and Mr. Aleko:
"Gentlemen, I believe we have not read the same book, nor can
I believe you've ever lived on Patmos".
After reading "A Place Of Healing For The Soul: Patmos" you will
find that one is both entertained and stimulated to think more
about one's every-day life. You may even develope an "itch" to
visit this place. Thank you, Peter, for this lovely book.