This is a message I shared on Guilford’s campus during our Community meeting worship time on 2023-12-05.
Revelation 7:9 After this I looked, and behold, ba great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb…
Hebrews 12:1 – “we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses”
Moment of Silence
Introduction
When Meagan – our chaplain for students and multifaith coordinator – first asked me to come and share a message for the last community worship of the year, it was in the context of my upcoming Sabbatical that starts here in just a couple weeks.
I think the intention was to provide space for a bit of a farewell, maybe a bit of talking about what I’ll be doing on my sabbatical.
What has been on my mind is to share with you a bit of what my vision is and has been for my (and our) work on campus, and why my being gone might mean for all of you.
So I want to start with a weird question:
Are you a lone genius or do you have a scenius?
There’s this myth that’s been going around a long time that artists, genius, leaders, even theologians are supposed to be these lone geniuses, fueled by ego.
You know the ones I’m talking about.
They squirrel away out of site in their ivory tower, or an undisclosed location off the coast of France and after a few years they emerge victorious – manuscript or painting in hand.
“A revelation!” The people say. Everyone marvels at their brilliance, ready to make a statue in their honor.
And while we all clap, inside we feel a little deflated.
“I could never be someone like that.”
Or “I could never create something like that.”
We might think: “They will never build a statue in my honor.”
Parents of young children say to themselves, “I wish I could get 10 minutes by myself just to go to the bathroom, let alone be a lone genius with no worldly responsibilities!”
The singular figure. The superhero. The sage on the stage. The person on a pedastool are all ways of imaging what I’m talking about – this image of the lone genius.
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