Santorini and Patriotism
Santorini is the one place on our journey that had nothing to do with Paul or New Testament history. It is simply a beautiful place our tour hosts wanted us to see. I do not have a lot of footage of Santorini because there were so many people one could barely maneuver around, let alone take tons of pictures. The video starts me overlooking the ocean on our way to the island.
Santorini is one of the most beautiful places in the world and so popular that to visit it is to swim through a sea of people. But it wasn’t always like that. Until the 1970s, it was a sleepy little place with few visitors. But all that changed when the island hired an advertising firm to show the world what it was missing out on. Some of the first people to take notice were from Hollywood, and they helped make Santorini a very fashionable destination.
Santorini was already a stunningly gorgeous place, but it was many people’s love for the place that made it world-class. And all of this got me thinking about something G.K. Chesterton once said about how places become great and why some never do. Granted, not every spot on earth has all that Santorini has going for it, but every place has more than enough potential. But it takes one crucial ingredient: love.
In chapter five of his book Orthodoxy, Chesterton talks about patriotism or a love for one’s home. I have paraphrased Chesterton and changed two of his locations from early 20th-century England to 21st-century Tennessee. He says,
Let us suppose we are confronted with a desperate thing – say the housing projects on the wrong side of town. We’ll call it slum town. If we think what is really best for Slum Town we shall find the thread of thought leads to the throne of the mystic and the arbitrary. It is not enough for a man to disapprove of Slum Town; in that case he will merely hate living there or move to Collierville. Nor, certainly, is it enough for a man to turn a blind eye to the problems of Slum Town;for then it will remain Slum Town, which would be awful. The only way out of it seems to be for somebody to love Slum Town; to love it with a transcendental tie and without any earthly reason. If there arose a man who loved Slum Town, then Slum Town would rise into ivory towers and golden pinnacles… If people loved Slum Town as mothers love children, arbitrarily, because it is theirs, Slum Town in a year or two might be fairer than Florence or Nashville. Some readers will say that this is mere fantasy. I answer that this is the actual history of mankind. This, as a fact, is how cities did grow great. Go back to the darkest roots of civilization and you will find them knotted round some sacred stone or encircling some sacred well. People first paid honour to a spot and afterwards gained glory for it. Men did not love Rome because she was great. She was great because they had loved her. – G K Chesterton, chapter five of Orthodoxy.
The Prophet Jeremiah, writing to exiles living in Babylon, has something similar to say:
“Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.”
– Jeremiah 29:4-7
Patriotism, or a love for one’s homeland, is the key ingredient to any place becoming great. And, any truly amazing place you have ever visited was that way, in part, because someone loved it well.