[st uriel's] Next Sunday: The Hymn of the Pearl

[Fr Tim Mansfield]

Sisters and brothers,

Our narthex meeting on Sunday (30 Nov) is at our usual venue, 15 Francis St,
Darlinghurst at 6pm. Next week (7 Dec), we begin the "Living Gnosticism"
study group and there'll be copies on-hand this Sunday to pick up. They're
$25 each. Once you've got your own copy, you can get started on reading and
get ready to discuss Chapter 1.

But first, this Sunday offers an opportunity to meet with one of the most
beloved tales in the Western tradition, "The Hymn of the Pearl".

The story of a young prince who travels from his home country to Egypt in
search of a pearl guarded by a serpent is told in all western wisdom
traditions, there are Jewish, Sufi and Christian versions. The story is such
a great example of the archetypal Hero's Journey that it seems like you've
heard it before even when you read it for the first time.

During the discussion of the "Exegesis of the Soul" last time, we talked a
lot about the Soul and how to interpret it in our own experience. Both the
Exegesis and the Hymn pair a character representing the Soul with a
character representing the Spirit.

To prepare a little for the discussion on Sunday, I thought it might be
useful to say a few things about the Spirit.

The word "spirit" in English is derived from the Latin "spiritus", which
means "breath". The same root gives us "respiration". In Greek the word for
spirit is "pneuma" which also means breath (you might recall we use "Pneuma
Hagion" for Holy Spirit in the Eucharist service) and which gives us
"pneumatic". In Hebrew, spirit is "Ruach" also breath or air.

I've always thought all this spirit=air thing was a kind of poetic analogy.
Spirit is light like air, it's invisible, and so on. As I've pondered it a
little more and especially looked at how the world seemed to people in the
first century of the Common Era, a few things jump out.

The first is that they had no concept of vacuum or space, no real concept of
multiple gases. Air or atmosphere was everything between you and me. It is
the space containing the mysterious force of wind, the vehicle for weather
and it extends up to the Moon, the other planets and as far as the fixed
stars and presumably beyond.

When we breathe in, we are taking some of that empty space into ourselves,
the same space that extends all the way from me, to you, to the planets and
stars - all the way to God.

Looked at from within that kind of lifeworld, the metaphor of spirit as
breath seems more common-sense, more obvious and more clear than from mine.
Entering that simpler way of seeing that our ancestors inhabited, especially
when we engage in a practice like breath meditation, connects us to them,
their thoughtworld and earlier aspects of ourselves while bringing to life
the simple act of breathing.

Every breath connects me to God.

Try living with that thought today and bring your insights with you on
Sunday to discuss the Hymn of the Pearl.

Reverend Father Tim+ Mansfield
Rector, Parish of Saint Uriel the Archangel <http://www.saint-uriels.org/>,
Sydney, Australia
Apostolic Johannite Church <http://www.johannite.org/>
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