From tim at saint-uriels.org Fri Dec 5 02:58:13 2008 From: tim at saint-uriels.org (Fr Tim Mansfield) Date: Fri Dec 5 02:58:23 2008 Subject: [st uriel's] Living Gnosticism Reading Group and Fwd: The Soul in The Hymn Of The Pearl Message-ID: <35565cab0812050058u6fd8039aq8b802c7642a12ed6@mail.gmail.com> Hi Folks, Sister Trish facilitated last week's discussion about The Hymn of the Pearl while I was off in New Zealand running a retreat. I've attached her account of what she discovered in the conversation. This Sunday, we'll meet to begin our reading of Father Jordan Stratford's "Living Gnosticism". This reading group which will continue up to Christmas, take a brief pause and then continue in January will be a golden opportunity to engage directly with a modern gnostic theology and with the key ideas our church think are important in your spiritual journey. Each week we'll have a set reading and meet on Sunday evening to discuss the week's assignment. We will join with other groups in the church network who are reading the book via online discussion as the programme rolls on. Come along and join in. Copies of the book will be available in person for $25. 6pm, Sun 7 Dec (and weekly from then) Unitarian Centre 15 Francis St Darlinghurst Reverend Father Tim Mansfield Rector, Parish of Saint Uriel the Archangel , Sydney, Australia Apostolic Johannite Church ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Trisha Nowland Date: 2008/12/3 Blessings at Advent to all, Last Sunday we had the second of our reading group meetings dedicated to exploring the soul. This time we sampled a hero's journey in 'The Hymn of the Pearl'. The Hymn comes from the Acts of Thomas (ch 108-113). In the poem we see the hero(or 'soul') as a young child living with his Father in Parthia, from whence as an adult he is sent, leaving behind his glorious robe 'which in their love they had wrought me'. He is given a load of precious stones and instructions to fetch home the Pearl, which is guarded by a drakon, or serpent in the sea, in Egypt. Upon arriving in Egypt, he clothes himself in the somewhat grungy dress of the Egyptians, partakes of their heavy and intoxicating victuals, falls into a deep sleep, and consequently forgets about his mission. A letter is sent to him from home, on the wings of an eagle, which he both hears and reads, reminding him of his task. He successfully charms the serpent that guards the pearl, and returns with the pearl to his father, receiving, in return, the robe 'of his real nature'. Different versions of this same story come to us in the parable of the Prodigal Son in the Bible, Joseph and the Technicolour Dreamcoat in the story of Genesis, and in several other places: Version of this parable is in the Gospel of Thomas (1:76): "The Kingdom of the Father is like the man, a merchant, who possessed merchandise and discovered a pearl. The merchant was prudent. He sold the merchandise and bought 'the one pearl' for himself. Version of this parable from Syrian mystic Makarios: The man receives again the garment of glory that he had lost when the soul fell from it's height and became the slave of the true Pharaoh. Scripture is a letter written by a King, and the Christians are sons whom a father sent to foreign countries with drugs to soothe the dragons that attack them. Version of this parable in Gospel of Phillip (12): 'One single Name they do not utter in the world, the single Name which the Father gave to the Son, which is above all things, which is the Name of the Father. For the son would not become the Father except he clothe himself with the name of the Father. Version of this parable from the Odes of Solomon (39:8): Put on, therefore, the Name of the Most High and know Him, And you shall cross without danger, While the rivers shall be subject to you. Version of this parable from the Old Testament (Judges 6:34): The Spirit of God 'invests' man, so that he is clad with the Spirit. Version of this parable in a Samaritan Moses hymn: Mighty is the great prophet who clad himself in the name of the Godhead. So the soul, born in heavenly paradise, must be reminded of it's task in the body, so it can return to paradise and receive the original garment of Spirit. There is a split in this hymn, but it is not between the forces of good and evil, it is the split between fallen Man incarnate and his remembrance of his divinity. Gnosticism itself seems to me to be in many ways structured around the phenomenological remembrance of 'what we are, where we come from and whither we go'. Our sense of soul then includes both an inner awareness of the light of the absolute pearl of Spirit that we already always are, and also the relative inner engagement with the colourful 'gems' of the different personas and characters that we fleetingly robe ourselves in as we make our way through the everyday world. Collecting sparks, or dare I say pearls, of wisdom on the way. It was an inordinate amount of fun on Sunday, and I'm looking forward to seeing all who can come along this week for our first peek at Fr. Jordan Stratford's+ 'Living Gnosticism'. Peace be with you, Trish _______________________________________________ community mailing list community@saint-uriels.org http://laika.gnusto.com/mailman/listinfo/community -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://laika.gnusto.com/pipermail/announce/attachments/20081205/f79bbf80/attachment.htm From father.mansfield at johannite.org Thu Dec 11 05:44:46 2008 From: father.mansfield at johannite.org (Rev Fr Tim Mansfield) Date: Thu Dec 11 05:44:51 2008 Subject: [st uriel's] Living Gnosticism reading group Message-ID: <35565cab0812110344x2929a7e4mfc48e6a600ee0824@mail.gmail.com> Beloved friends, Have you ever wished you could find a spiritual path that was individually yours, in which you had control of your journey, but somehow also connected you to a community of fellow seekers? "Living Gnosticism" portrays just such a path: the gnostic's path. Last Sunday we talked over the start of the book about the basics of Gnosticism and the Four Point definition of Gnosticism. This Sunday we'll be discussing up to p26 most of which is about the history of Gnosticism from the first century to the twentieth and each of the key "outbreaks" of Gnostic movements, many of which we in the Apostolic Johannite Church count as core parts of our lineage. If you'd like to join us this Sunday, please come along to the Unitarian Centre at 6pm. We'll have a few extra copies of "Living Gnosticism" so you can take one home. Come along and see if this path might be yours. When: 6pm, Sun 14 Dec 2008 Where: Unitarian Church, 15 Francis St, Darlinghurst Reverend Father Tim Mansfield Rector, Parish of Saint Uriel the Archangel, Sydney, Australia Apostolic Johannite Church From father.mansfield at johannite.org Fri Dec 12 22:15:57 2008 From: father.mansfield at johannite.org (Rev Fr Tim Mansfield) Date: Fri Dec 12 22:16:09 2008 Subject: [st uriel's] Christmas Service Message-ID: <35565cab0812122015u4b153eb4j2b5aa92aaa2cfae@mail.gmail.com> Beloved friends, Next Sunday (21 Dec) will be our last Eucharist service for 2008 and an opportunity to celebrate the Incarnation of the Light, the reality of the indwelling Divine in all humanity. I've attached an invitation, feel free to pass it on to interested friends. I'd love to see you there. Please join us for dinner at a nearby restaurant after the service. Father Tim+ -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Xmas invite.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 73875 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://laika.gnusto.com/pipermail/announce/attachments/20081213/750aa35e/Xmasinvite-0001.jpg From father.mansfield at johannite.org Mon Dec 29 17:09:44 2008 From: father.mansfield at johannite.org (Rev Fr Tim Mansfield) Date: Mon Dec 29 17:09:50 2008 Subject: [st uriel's] Christmas Message-ID: <35565cab0812291509i20003a36i31626c9da1ae3e4b@mail.gmail.com> Friends, I spent Christmas day in Sydney for the first time this year. This is the second time in my whole life that I haven't been in Brisbane with my family at Christmas time. When I was a teenager, living at home, family Christmases saw my mum, dad and sister along with Mum's parents and her sister all together at our place, eating and opening presents all day (and into Boxing Day). Dad's sisters and their families would visit through the day, neighbours would drop by. Vast amounts of food and endless gifts. Lots of joy and love and... well... bounty. Through my late teens and early twenties, dad's sisters got older and less inclined to travel. Mum's parents died, then Dad, then her sister. For the last ten years, it's been my sister, her daughter, Mum and me together on Christmas day. In the last few years, since Mum moved out of our old neighbourhood and into a house far out of town there's been no neighbours or friends dropping around. There's still been a lot of food and presents, but the whole event has had for me a kind of grim determination to keep having Christmas. It's still been a lovely time with my family, but with less of a sense of joy for me. To me it's felt a lot of the time as though we're keeping Christmas largely for Mum's sake - it's always been her favourite time of year and since she lost Dad, it feels like we've all been very focused on "putting on" a good Christmas. Towards the end of this year, Mum died. My sister and I gave each other permission to have our Christmas however we needed to - both acutely aware that this was going to be a weird one. So, I stayed in Sydney. A friend offered to join Anthony and I on Christmas day, so I bought unreasonable amounts of food and spent the day cooking. And we feasted and toasted and enjoyed each other's company. I had my own Christmas, more or less on my own terms and I found myself delighting in many of the things I'd always done. Sydney at Christmas time takes on a very focussed character. Things get more and more directed toward the day, special shops selling Christmas decorations open, local groceries give away bbqed sausages, houses get decorated in inflatable Christmas-bling. But the streets get quieter as the day draws nearer. It's usual for clergy to decry the "consumerist" character of modern Christmas, to bemoan how "pagan" our Christmas customs are, to mourn the "loss" of the "true message" of Christmas ? the incarnation of the Divine in the human form of the baby Yeshua, who will grow up to show forth the Word Incarnate in his actions and his teaching. But I kind of don't get all the hair-tearing. From where I'm sitting, the true message of Christmas is Divine Grace: the free, unearned, unmerited love of God. "For God so loved the world, that He gave his only begotten Son". The story we tell is that we are given someone very precious - a gift which nothing in our actions or our words really warrants - a gift of healing and reconciliation, a gift of limitless, unconditional Love. The story of Christmas is that no matter what, God always shows up first. She is always there for us, She is always waiting, ready for when we want to come home for dinner. She is overflowing with gifts and with food. Our time spent with Her is full of love and joy and bounty. When we ignore that inner meaning to Christmas, all our shopping and our gifts and our cooking and eating can be debased into meaningless consumerism. But when we walk in Her Light, those exact same visible actions are lit from inside as manifestations of the Grace and Bounty of the Divine. So next Christmas, shop shamelessly. Give shamelessly. Love shamelessly. Christmas is the one moment in the year where without any boundaries or limits we can celebrate the bounty of our material existence and the spiritual bounty that symbolises. I don't think we should rein it in, I think we should challenge ourselves to take it further. Deeper. Wider. To family, to friends and beyond. May the love and light and bounty of the Infinite Divine Mother-Father overflow from the cup of your heart to illuminate your soul, life and world with boundless joy, grace and peace. My blessings for the coming year in all your endeavours. My regards to your families and friends. Your servant in the Light, Tim+ Reverend Father Tim Mansfield Rector, Parish of Saint Uriel the Archangel , Sydney, Australia Apostolic Johannite Church -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://laika.gnusto.com/pipermail/announce/attachments/20081230/c68e69fe/attachment.htm