Madeline Miller’s ‘ The Song of Achilles’ has been lauded and nominated already for the Orange Prize. It is a brilliant re-telling of the Achilles legend, drawing on the Iliad, but more so on the other stories which grew up about the Greeks’ greatest hero. His training by Chiron the centaur and the attempt by his mother to save his life by disguising him as a dancing girl  form large tracts of the plot. It is only in the last third of the book that the familiar tale of dishonour and revenge unfolds.

Unlike Mary Renault when seeking to reconstruct the ancient world Miller takes the religious background wholly seriously- her introduction of Thetis, Achilles’ mother, is one of the most beautiful and chilling passages in the entire book!
It is in her handling of the relationship of Achilles and Patroclus, that veers most into the modern world, and rejects the classical one. In a wholly convincing account of a young love affair, which has respect, affection and passion at its core, she humanises and makes contemporary a relationship which is entirely other in the Iliad. It works, but in turning Patroclus from a good, but vulnerable and utterly mortal hero, who has his one glorious day of battle before death takes him, it does replace a tantalising military ethic with a more mundane romantic one.

But that makes no difference to the excellence of this book, which will undoubtedly join Mary Renault on all reading lists for classical studies courses at all levels, and is a great tale, well re-told.

If you have an elderly neighbour who might seek company or want a warm place to go do let them know about this group which meets in the parish room every Tuesday. Sadia and her team are pariculatly good at providing advice, as well as companionship. This is an inportant enterprise that we are hosting in partnership with Wandsworth council, specaiily to help those over 60.

In my encounters with self defined rationalists on the internet, I have noticed that some reach first for irony as a weapon, and don’t bother much with the reason that they prize so highly. It’s as if they seek to model their behaviour on that of contemporary movie action heroes, – but having delivered the killer line they then neglect to follow it up with the killer blow!
In the latest edition of new Humanist magazine there is a hostile review of Jonathan Haidts new book, the Righteous Mind( sub-title- Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion) which adopts exactly this tactic.It mocks the author’s admiration and love for colleagues and friends and totally mis-represents the central metaphor at the heart of his exploration.Haidt sees the conscious, rational mind, as like a mahout, the emotional, subconscious element, as like an elephant- a formidable independent creature, with an intelligence of its own. The reviewer renders this as a rider astride a rogue elephant crashing through the forest!

Haidt is a moral psychologist and explores the way our moral attitudes are shaped by triggers we are hardly aware of- For example that standing near to a hand sanitizer, when answering a questionaire, makes you more ‘right wing’; if you move away your liberalism is liable to return because you are further from the symbol of purity.

The essential reason, I think, that Haidt’s book got such a bad review was that he is an old Humanist and not one of the up to date variety. The clue is in the frontispiece, where he quotes, that seminal old humanist, Baruch Spinoza.

I have striven not to laugh at human actions, not to weep at them, not to hate them, but to understand them.

Haidt seeks to understand why people think what they do about religion and politics, and other moral issues rather ,than as is so often the case in the current conflictual landscape, just embrace post hoc justifications for why the other guy is wicked or stupid. He has great fun too with such things as the weirdness of much fashionable opinion. It is Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic, and is not necessarily that representative of humanity as a whole. I will ignore the negative review and keep on reading!

We owe a great debt of gratitude to Fred Shaub and his fellow musicians for the concert last evening. About 130 people were in the audience to enjoy the music and to hear Sarah Miles talk about the work of The Ace of Clubs. The final figure of £1018 will be divided equally between the 3 Festival charities.

Those who were in the church last night for our poetry reading experienced something they will possibly remember all their lives. Enchanting and inspiring words crafted with such thought and skill, and introduced and read with meditative calm. It was a shame though that so few attended, both from the church and the local community. Please do come to our other events and do enthuse about them and spread the word. If you really do share my belief that we should do all we can to strengthen the local community and inspire people’s spirits, please get involved and share the good news.

Due to work commitments this will now be at 7.30 pm on the 20th May instead of the 13th.

Mark Vernon has had to switch dates for his talk in May. He is now coming one day early- on Tuesday the 15th May!

I have been moticing some of the signs of spring; from chionodoxa and tulips in the churchyard, and the purple carpet of dog violets beneath the olive trees, to the long tailed tits gathering nesting material, that I saw on a walk to Wimbledon. Our garden bird bath is now used daily by a pair of blackbirds and a few goldfinches have taken to visiting the feeder, but today Ruth came in elated by an encounter with two goldcrests, met with a mere 100 yards up Lavenham Road. After last year’s experience I am just waiting with anticipation for the first Orange Tip to fly by as that will for me  mark the true beginning of Spring.

Last Monday, at a conference organised by the Fayre Share Foundation and the Faiths Forum for London, hosted by the BBC’s Religious Affairs Correspondent, Roger Pigott, and beginning with a keynote address by Boris Johnson, I found encouragement and inspiration.

By the role of the churches and other faith groups in clearing offering safe places to go for those on the receiving end of the worst of the disturbances, in  places such as Tottenham and Croydon, where security and a welcoming cup of tea were to be found.

By their leading contribution in the aftermath by helping with the clearing up of the streets and getting people together to explore what went wrong.

By the balanced and informative information proffered by reseachers, which punctured the reassuring notion that there were simple explanations and easy solutions.

By the airing of uncomfortable but necessary truths; such as that the way stop and search was being  conducted was a contributory factor to a mood of anger, which effected those who got involved and those who stood back.  A question to the audience about our experience of the practice reminded both myself and the Hindu academic sitting next to me of our own feelings on being subject to it. I also recollect that having friends in the police force muted by own resentment!

Leading on from is the role that parents, and a connection with the local community due to to participation in scouts or churches, played in keeping young people out of trouble.

The courage of Camila Batmanghelidjh in reminding us that young people are the most mistrusted group in society, after politicians and journalists, and yet they are also the group who suffers most as a group through poverty, abuse and violent crime.

The determination of  some business leaders to enter into local partnerships to provide mentoring and most importantly jobs. An example being Maurice Ostro, who created the Fayre Share Foundation.

Much much more, including the positive role that the arts, youth groups, schools etc  can have in transforming lives, alongside religious groups, to rescue people from a position of fury driven materialism.

And finally, at the Wandsworth Council Meeting, there was a note of rare harmony when the decision of the council to spend up to £100 million over the next couple of decades in an attempt to renew some of the worst estates in the borough. Those concrete jungles that for a few years  in the 1960′s held the promise of paradise for people escaping terrible housing elsewhere. Discussions about how are just beginning but there will be a genuine attempt to include the insights of people living in the estates in the process and engage the other community groups and business.

As someone at the conference on  Monday put it, ‘ the best antidote to a rioting is a job.’

In an article in the New Statesman Richard Dawkins again revealed that he can tell a good joke. This one was about a colleague who on admission to hospital was asked the standard questions, including the one about what religion she belonged to. Replying’ none’, she later heard the nurses talking about her.’ She doesn’t look like a nun.’

But having started like the late Frank Carson, he then continued more like Frank Spencer, in a maladroit attempt to justify his survey which purports to reveal that most of the people who said they were christians on the last census were deluded- which, knowing his thoughts on the subject, he must have thought was a dead cert all along!

One of Richard Dawkin’s chief failings is that he thinks he knows enough about religion to declare it false, but can’t avoid littering howlers throughout any book or article he writes about the subject. This might explain why the survey produced on his behalf is marked by a similar imprecision in its choice of questions. So in his article he is content to assert confidently that the New Testament was ordered in a completely arbitrary way while the survey included a question about the Resurrection which indicated complete ignorance of what the traditional christian definition of that particular doctrine is. Other questions were framed in a manner that makes analysing them in an either or fashion perilous- do you guide your life by your moral conscience or the Bible or the teaching of Jesus? Maybe I am just confused, but I would certainly tick all 3 , but of course you can’t do that when you are expected to make a choice between all of the options, as if you were sitting a GCSE multiple choice paper!

The purpose of the survey is overt; to provide evidence that when christians claim privileges in society on the back of  census data they are over-stating their case, because most christians aren’t really christian at all and are purely nominal. I actually have some sympathy with that last bit, but I also think he is mistaken to see church schools and bishops in the House of Lords as somekind of power play by christians to control society. Asking what church schools actually do and what contribution the bishops actually make might go some way towards undermining what looks like a somewhat paranoid outlook. Like so many of those who dislike religion he seems to be projecting the culture wars that prevail in the USA and the Middle East on to a very different society, where religion and secularity tend to be in dialogue rather than at war. On this matter I am almost tempted to think he is deluded!