Sisters and brothers,<br><br>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.<br>
<br>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".<br><br>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.<br>
<br>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.<br>
<br>To prepare a little for the discussion on Sunday, I thought it might be useful to say a few things about the Spirit.<br><br>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.<br>
<br>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.<br>
<br>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.<br>
<br>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.<br><br>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.<br>
<br>Every breath connects me to God.<br><br>Try living with that thought today and bring your insights with you on Sunday to discuss the Hymn of the Pearl.<br><blockquote style="margin: 1.5em 0pt;">Reverend Father Tim+ Mansfield<br>
Rector, <a href="http://www.saint-uriels.org/">Parish of Saint Uriel the Archangel</a>, Sydney, Australia<br>
<a href="http://www.johannite.org/">Apostolic Johannite Church</a></blockquote><br>