This will certainly surprise some people — I’m deeply religious. I don’t talk much about it because religion is goofy and it’s a private matter. And people get the wrong idea. Intelligent people start to look down on you.

I’m not a monotheist but a pagan. That instantly calls up images of hippies burning candles in the woods and spouting new-age rhetoric. But that’s not what I’m about. I do believe in Gods and Goddesses. I do believe that they take an active interest in our lives. I don’t care if they’re real. For me, they’re beyond that.

Here’s how I look at it: Let’s say you follow Mammon (the God of Money) and you want to gain favour with him. You have to sacrifice. I’m not talking about burning candles or killing a moose on an altar. I’m saying that you don’t buy a bunch of silly crap, no matter how much you want it. You sacrifice that and, whatever it was you sacrificed, you invest into him. The Gods can be capricious but the person who sacrifices to Mammon stands a much better chance of gaining favour -making money- than the person who doesn’t.

Even the atheists can probably follow me on that. I don’t know if they’d follow me into believing that Mammon is an intelligent creature who’s body is made of information encoded on coins, bills and credit cards, but that’s fine. I’m not trying to convert anyone. I’m just saying that my religion is important to me.

I’ve brought all this up is because I didn’t want to say “I feel punished by the Gods” and come off as a melodramatic flake. Maybe I am, but I’d rather not appear that way. (It’s probably a bit late to worry about that.)

I owed Tyche, Goddess of Luck, a favour and I didn’t pay up. Instead I turned my back on her and sacrificed to Bacchus. Turning your back on a God is a dangerous and ill-advised proposition. Particularly, if you owe them anything. They tend to collect.

Just ask Odysseus. He didn’t pay proper homage to Poseidon after the Trojan War and he even blinded the God’s kid. For his trouble he was stranded on an island, far away from his loved ones and with the dubious company of a sea-nymph named Calypso (“I will Conceal”). His wife, Penelope was beset by rowdy suitors, who ate and drank Odysseus’ wealth.

It was only the intervention of grey-eyed Athena, Goddess of Wisdom and the Noble Aspect of War, that brought him home again. Not instantly and not without trials, but she got the job done.

You know, I love the Odyssey yet, before this week, I’ve never thought of it as a love story.

I don’t know where home is and, unlike Odysseus, I don’t plan on slaughtering almost everyone when I get there, but I’m off the island. (In my case it was concealed in a mysterious blacked out place and run by a dubious nymph named Jack Daniels.) Now, I just hope I can make good with Athena. I think I can. After all, the owl, grumpy or not, is her symbol.