C3/CCC Sermon Transcript for December 21, 2008
"Christmas is a Celebration of Genius in Every Person"
By Ian Lawton
Namaste. Genius in me greets genius in you. I honor the part of you that is pure genius. It is your birthright. You can do nothing to earn it, and no one can take it from you. It has nothing to do with how many degrees you have, or what your IQ is. Your genius is love, love, and more love. It is your creative wisdom, uncluttered by layers of conditioning and self limiting beliefs. Your genius is a winged, naked child, ready to soar. Will you allow your genius to fly again?
My hope today is to reconnect you with your genius, and there is a reason I want to do it today, four days before Christmas.
Let me tell you a story of some Aussie ingenuity, to show you why I am speaking about genius today.
The conversation goes something like this: "Hello, is this the police?"
"Yes, it is. How can we help you?"
"I'm calling to report my neighbor, Warren. He's hiding drugs inside his firewood!"
"Thank you very much for the call."
The next day, police officers descend on Warren’s house in great numbers. They search the house and then go out to the shed where the firewood is kept. Using axes, they bust open every piece of firewood but they find no drugs. They leave.
The phone rings at Warren’s house.
"Hey, Warren. Did the cops come?"
"Yeah!"
"Did they chop up your firewood?"
"Yep."
"Happy Birthday, maaaaate"
A little Aussie cultural humor there. If you don’t like it, please don’t throw your shoes at me. I might throw mine back, and I have very large feet.
Birthdays and Genius
It’s all about birthdays. Genius relates to birthdays because every person is born with genius. In Roman mythology, every man was born with a guardian spirit. This guardian spirit was called in Latin, “Genius”. Every woman was born with her guardian spirit, her “Juno”. Even groups, nations and places had their own genius. On a person’s birthday, they would offer a sacrifice in honor of their genius. It wasn’t a blood sacrifice. Something more tender was required; incense and wine, indicating the scintillating aroma, the intoxicating pleasure, of following your bliss.
The genius born within each person controlled their fortune and destiny. Later on, the notion of genius took on an astrological meaning. It represented the guiding star, the natal constellation, of each individual. It was each person’s uniqueness.
Now, who was born into this Roman worldview of Genius and Juno? Jesus. Those who told the story of the birth of Jesus wanted to emphasize the genius of Jesus. So they told a story that included details that related to genius-
1. A guiding star. Jesus’ uniqueness wasn’t that he was the only Son of God. His uniqueness was his genius, his unique manifestation of a creative spirit. His genius was his non conformity, his authenticity in a world that wanted to typecast him. He consistently evaded people’s boxes. His genius was his liberation of people who were being forced into social and religious boxes. He offered people self acceptance in a society that stripped people of worth.
2. The Genealogy. Matthew included a long list of Jesus’ ancestors. You know, the whole “Abraham begat Isaac, Isaac begat Jacob, and all the way down to Joseph, father of Jesus” Genealogy comes from the same root word as “genius”. The genius of an individual includes but is not limited by their history. The inspiring point about Matthew’s genealogy is that it includes some famous people, and it also includes a prostitute, an adulteress and a foreigner. These ones were nothing more than footnotes in history, and yet they also had a genius.
You are a genius, whether you feel worthy or not. You are a genius whether your ancestors feel worthy or not. Believe me, my ancestors were convicts. But only on one side. I’ll leave you to guess which side.
A little girl asked her mother, 'How did the human race appear?'
The mother answered, 'God made a beautiful garden called Eden. God put two people in this garden, Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve had lots of children and they had children and that’s where people came from.'
Two days later the girl asked her father the same question.
The father answered, 'Many years ago there were monkeys from which the human race evolved.'
The confused girl returned to her mother and said, 'Mom, how is it possible that you told me the human race was created by God, and Dad said they developed from monkeys?'
The mother answered, 'Well, dear, it is very simple. I told you about my side of the family and your father told you about his.'
3. Leaping for Joy. In Luke’s account of the birth of Jesus, there is a beautiful detail included. It says that Elizabeth, even though very old and with miraculous child, felt her child leap for joy in her womb. Now, I don’t know how you can tell the difference between a joyful leap and a vicious kick from a baby in the womb. But somehow Elizabeth seemed to know the difference. I like to think that this detail was included because an unborn baby leaping for joy represents humanity in touch with genius.
I spent yesterday afternoon at the ski bowl in Grand Haven. I watched some young kids skiing and snow boarding for the first time. I saw our own Jack Leech sailing down the hill for the very first time, and he did it in style. I watched my two youngest graduate from the bunny hill to the big hill. I couldn’t help but feel as I watched these kids pick up skiing so naturally, that they were very near their genius. Now this wasn’t the Swiss Alps. It was Mulligan’s Hollow. But these kids were close to their genius; un self-conscious and natural.
The Christmas story offers examples of genius from several generations. Elizabeth is leaping for joy, as her long awaited dream comes true. The encouragement is that age is no barrier to genius. Birthdays are good for you. Statistics show that the people who have the most birthdays, live the longest. That is pure genius. You are never too old to get back in touch with your genius.
An unborn baby leaps for joy. Remember that this is the unborn baby John, not Jesus. John’s genius was his raw authenticity to live in the wild and never be tamed. Genius should never be tamed.
The stories of the birth of both John the Baptist and Jesus remind us that every birth is the birth of genius, especially yours.
Genius In the Face of Birthday Melancholy
So why does genius so often get stifled? As the saying goes, “genius by birth, slacker by choice.” So often, self limiting beliefs smother genius. Birthdays should be a time for reclaiming genius, but too often they end up being times of self sabotage and pity.
In Winnie-the-Pooh, Eeyore has a Birthday and gets very somber and reflective, like we all can on birthdays.
Eeyore, the old grey donkey, stood by the stream, and looked at himself in the water.
“Pathetic,” he said. “That’s what it is, pathetic.”
He turned and walked slowly down the stream for twenty yards, splashed across it, and walked slowly back to the other side. Then he looked at himself in the water again.
“As I thought,” he said. “No better from this side. But nobody minds. Nobody cares. Pathetic, that’s what it is.”
Sound familiar to some of your birthdays? You wonder where the years have gone. You remember being in school at a time when there WAS no history class. You and your teeth no longer sleep together. You ponder the passing of years and the disintegration of your body. The years are marching on and genius feels like little more than a distant regret.
The harsh details of the story around Jesus birth are a reminder that reclaiming genius as your birthright requires overcoming all sorts of barriers; humble beginnings, feelings of inadequacy, a dubious ancestry or maybe even overcoming society’s prejudices.
I love the story of Sidney Poitier, the genius actor. His story is a modern day nativity story. In his autobiography, he describes how much inspiration he gained from his humble beginnings. He was so poor that his mother made his pants out of empty sacks of flour. As he said, he had “imperial flour” branded on his back side. Poitier has often said that it was for his mother, because of his mother, that he wanted to be extraordinary and manifest his genius. He developed an unwavering belief in himself. Understanding where he had come from, his genealogy, his family’s struggles, was crucial in developing self belief.
Like Sidney Poitier, you too are SOMEBODY. Like Elizabeth and Mary, John and Jesus, you are a person of infinite worth. You are a genius by birthright. Will you allow yourself to reclaim your genius and let it fly?
Some Birthday Genius Rituals
Create a Birthday Genius Altar. Include on the altar photos from various parts of your life, including infancy, childhood, youth, and adulthood. Include items representing achievements, travels, personal likes, and your ancestry. Place a single candle on the altar to represent your genius. On your birthday, light the candle and meditate on your genius. Connect with your genius at the core of your being. Celebrate yourself as multifaceted as you look at each of the symbols on the altar. Reflect on yourself and your life as a work in progress, but the light of your genius candle shines on it all.
Keep a Genius Journal. Write a letter to yourself about yourself, and in it describe yourself and your life. Write about the main achievements and challenges of the past year. Where have you grown? Where have you stagnated? Keep it, and compare it from year to year. Your genius transcends your changing life. Its shines through all the changes of life.
The Birth of Your Christmas Genius
The story of Elizabeth and Mary, each with child, is the story of every person. Every one of us was born, and has a history. Every one of you, like Mary, Elizabeth, John and Jesus, has genius. It is your birthright and your guiding star.
So there they were, Elizabeth and Mary, like many women before them and so many women after them, each carrying genius in their bodies. Each of them was preparing to deliver genius into the world. Elizabeth in particular represents the rapid passing of life; new life and aging life united.
The Unitarian minister, Victoria Safford, tells a beautiful story about the time she took her baby to visit a very old neighbor who was dying. It was the neighbor’s birthday and a small group of friends were gathering around her bedside to have a piece of cake and a glass of sherry. When Victoria needed to cut the cake she laid her baby down on the bed, right up on the pillow and there was a sudden hush in the room. They were caught off guard, beholding.
“It was a startling sight…Two people side by side…Neither one could walk, neither one could speak, not in language you could understand, both utterly dependent on the rest of us bustling around, masquerading as immortals.”
They “were dancers on the very edge of things,…closer to the threshold, the edge of the great mystery, than any of us had been for a long time or would be for a while. Living, breathing, smiling they were, but each with one foot and who knows how much consciousness firmly planted on the other side, whatever that is, wherever that is, the starry darkness from whence we come and whither we will go, in time. Fresh from birth, nigh unto death, bright-eyed, they were bookends there, mirrors of each other. Radiant.”
The Christmas story is every person’s story. It is your story. It is the story of life meeting life, and genius being born. Your life is radiant in its genius. You are both mother and child, both the bearer of genius, and the genius itself. You stand at the edge of the great mystery, so near your genius, mirroring life back to itself. Your genius is a naked, winged child, ready to soar. Will you let it soar?