Who will receive the greater honor? That is the question for any social event where two or more dignitaries are present. For example, at a formal dinner, who will have the honor of speaking last? You may not have realized it, but social planners have already prepared lists to deal with such contingencies. These lists are called orders of precedence.

The concept of precedence is distinct from orders of succession or formal chains of command. Precedence is the ceremonial order of respect. Being higher on a list of precedence does not necessarily imply having greater authority or power. In fact, someone high on a precedence list may have much less power than someone lower on that same list.

What precedence bestows is the greater honor. The list of precedence for the United States is at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_order_of_precedence. You’ll find the list for England and Wales at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_precedence_in_England_and_Wales.

Precedence echoes through great historical moments in American history. For example, President Abraham Lincoln gave the Gettysburg Address after the featured speaker Edward Everett because the president had the greater honor. At inaugurations, the President is sworn in after the Vice President. The Supreme Court of the United States maintains its visible order of precedence with its seating order: The Chief Justice sits in the center, the most senior associate justice to his right, the next most senior justice to the Chief Justice’s left, and so on, alternating between right and left for all 8 associate justices as per seniority on the court. After all, to sit to the right implies the greater honor. Yet to sit closer to the center of the court is an even greater honor.

In England and Wales, proximity to the throne grants the greater precedence. Then, the greater titles take precedence. In the United States, a mayor of a city has the greater precedence while in his or her city than almost everyone else. For within the proverbial walls of the city, the mayor is the honorary king or queen, able to give the ceremonial “keys to the city” (the proveribal city gates) to others. Regarding mayors, the American order of precedence recognizes that a mayor is, in a sense, a monarch within one’s own home town.

And so it is with each of us: with the measure of spiritual rule that we have each been given. There will be others with more power, money, and authority in this world. Yet within our own homes, whether actual houses or within the lives of those few who are close to us, we are kings, queens, princes, and princesses. In a way, we each have a divine precedence given to us that takes effect within our own “personal kingdoms”. And that precendence is not given to us to “lord it over” others. Rather, it’s given to us for the sake of love.

In the recent film The Young Victoria, HM Queen Victoria, presented in the movie at the beginning of her reign, and her husband, HRH Prince Albert, are surprised to discover that the royal household that the queen has just inherited is well-, let’s just say, not functioning in a way that would be fit for a monarch.

Cold. The scheduling and maintenance of fires in the palace fireplaces was completely out-of-order, leaving the queen, prince, and their servants sitting in the cold. This cold palace is a symbol of the coldness in our own hearts. The palace looked great on the outside and thus seemed to be a place where everyone would have preferred to live. Yet even the royal family struggled to stay warm through the winter. Will the love of our hearts grow cold, so that we look good on the outside but are frozen on the inside?

Windows. Window cleaning is sporadic in the palace. The outside and inside of the windows are never cleaned at the same time. The dirty windows make it hard for the royal couple to see outside their own house. This is a picture of a lack of clarity in the way that we see things looking out from ourselves to the world around us. These dirty windows represent “faulty filters” in our approach to how we view the other people in our lives. We have to adjust or clean these filters, the way that we see things, before we can truly relate to others in love.

Lunch. Prince Albert is shocked to find a servant preparing for a formal lunch for HM King George III and his officers, even though King George, Victoria’s grandfather, had died over twenty years before. There comes a point for each of us where old things must be “pruned” and pass away. They are no longer useful and need to be trimmed from our lives.

The 2009 motion picture Avatar is the clear box office winner in the United States and elsewhere this past week. Set on the mysterious moon Pandora in the year 2154, the film chronicles the story of marine Jake Sully and his interactions with the native inhabitants of Pandora, the Na’vi, through his avatar body.

The film is getting the most attention for its fantastic special effects. Yet the symbolism behind the story is also worth paying some attention to.

Avatar borrows from the symbols and ideas of many spiritual traditions. The name Pandora, for example, comes right from an ancient Greek goddess. I’ll focus here on a few of the symbols that I found notable.

Harsh Disorientation. When Jake arrives on Pandora in his wheelchair, he is told more than once, and somewhat harshly, to watch where he is going. Colonial Pandora is place where the weak and broken must make way for the large and robotic. Other marines unkindly refer to him as “meals on wheels”, insulting him for his disability. (This is also an insult to the elderly: Many poor, elderly people in the United States depend upon the meals on wheels program to provide them with food.) They see Jake only as a liability and not as a asset.

Home Tree. The Home Tree is the home for an entire clan of the Na’vi. Symbolic of the Tree of Life from, the Garden of Eden which in turn may have represented the unity of all humankind in connection to God. This tree represents Edenic humankind: The way that the world should have been before things went terribly wrong. Yet the knowledge of good and evil lies beneath the Home Tree, the valuable ore Unobtanium. The symbolism of Unobtainium is obvious (”unobtainable”). Yet the promise of the serpent of the garden, that Adam and Eve would become fully like God was also ultimately unobtainable. The Home Tree represents earth and the temporal, whereas …

Tree of Souls. … the Tree of Souls represents the eternal. Once their earthly home was destroyed, the Na’vi can only retreat to the only place that they know where to go: to the Tree of Souls. This sacred place, where outsiders are prohibited, allows the Na’vi to reach out and touch their mother goddess and their ancestors souls via iridescent strands, which may symbolically be prayers (the natural touching the divine). The Tree of Souls is the place of finality.

Diplomatic Solution? The corporate leadership on Pandora has charged Dr. Grace Augustine with finding a “diplomatic solution” re: the conflict between the colonists and the Na’vi. Grace is a spiritual word and that spiritual emphasis is given more weight with the name Augustine, the great Christian theologian of grace. The word grace means a gift and, even more specifically, a gift that enables someone to do something. At first, it seems as though that gift is Dr. Augustine’s avatars, which might enable a peaceful, diplomatic solution to be found. But a diplomatic solution is not seen in the film as something good or as something that is merely better than war. Rather, it is viewed as an evil in itself: An unwanted displacement of a native people from their home. It is, to put it somewhat theologically, a cheap form of grace. It is not the real thing (the real enabling gift, “grace,” of the colonists to the Na’vi), but it only poses as the real thing. And notice how Grace cannot make the transition into her avatar body: She symbolizes a grace that is not able to bring about salvation. Victory and salvation are the ultimate grace, enabling gift, for the Na’vi.

Humankind Expelled from the Garden … Again. Like the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Eden (the eviction of humanity from the Garden of Eden), most of the humans are expelled from Pandora (a new Eden) at the end of the movie. The immediate cause of this expulsion was the loss of the battle to the Na’vi. Yet the deeper cause was the people’s failure to learn the ways of Na’vi on Pandora. This was because the colonists were more concerned with their provision and protection than with having genuine openness to others. This ending scene in Avatar symbolically confirms why Adam and Eve had to be expelled from the garden: They were spiritually out-of-touch with their Eden.

Adam and Adam. Jake Sully is only able to access an avatar because his identical twin brother had died a violent death. The first man (”Adam” in Hebrew) was shot just a few days before embarking on his mission to Pandora, his brother Jake, another man (in this case, the last Adam), who is of the same image and likeness of his deceased brother, inherited the job. (Notice how another character in the beginning of the movie says that the avatar body looks like Jake, yet Jake says that it looks like his brother. Also, remember how someone points out to Jake that he and his brother have the same genome, the same biological likeness.) The second man becomes the replacement savior and lord for Pandora after the first cannot complete that mission.

Fully Incarnated. The story of Avatar is, in reality, the story of a man, Jake Sully in this case, becoming fully mature. Jake (”Jacob”) Sully’s name may mean sullied trickster. Unlike the corporation’s leader, Parker Selfridge (”the selfish”), who is greedy and never matures, Jake changes from an immature young man (someone with a pure heart but acts like a small child; someone who is just a “poser” for his dead brother) into a mature man and then into a leader. He goes through ritual stages of rites of passage. Jake gets to the point in the middle of the movie where he cannot tell what’s the dream and what’s reality (his human life or his Na’vi avatar life). This is a hint to the movie goers that Jake is undergoing a fundamental change. The story ends with Jake becoming “fully incarnated” into his avatar body, leaving his human body behind forever at the Tree of Souls. He is then no longer an avatar but completely “one of the people”. Notice that this incarnational transformation occurs on Jake’s birthday, thus symbolizing a new birth.

Shadows and Symbols had the privilege of seeing Greg Mortenson, co-author of the bestselling book Three Cups of Tea, and author of Stones into Schools, speak in Washington, D.C., USA, on December 3, 2009. Mr. Mortenson, who is the founder and leader of the Central Asian Institute (CAI), has been instrumental in building dozens of schools in remote areas of Afghanistan and northern Pakistan. These secular schools especially promote education for girls in very poor rural areas where educational opportunities are usually non-existent. For his humanitarian efforts, Greg Mortenson is the recipient of the Star of Pakistan and has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.

Mr. Mortenson was introduced by New York Times reporter Tom Friedman. Mr. Friedman’s gracious introduction described how he had recently flown by military helicopter into a remote area of Afghanistan with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) of the U.S. military, Admiral Michael Mullen, in order to be present at the dedication of one of CAI’s new schools. Tom Friedman then described how one of the most powerful men in the world, Adm. Mullen, proceeded to distribute the notebooks that the admiral’s wife and other military wives had given to him for each of the girls on their first day of school.

Greg Mortenson, who is suffering from a weakening heart virus which he had contracted while on his latest trip to Afghanistan, then took to the podium and began to describe his very unique life-story, most of which is chronicled in Three Cups of Tea and Stones into Schools. The presentation included a short video clip of Mr. Mortenson’s daughter interviewing retired NBC News anchorman Tom Brokaw at his Montana ranch. Mr. Brokaw is now somewhat famously known as the only well-known celebrity to send any support money to Greg Mortenson when he was beginning his work in Pakistan back in the mid-90s. (Mr. Mortenson did confess during his talk that his daughter had recently figured out that Mr. Brokaw’s $100 check did not cover the postage cost for her father’s earliest efforts to raise money.)

After the video interview, Mr. Mortenson then explained the societal situation in Afghanistan, and how he works to address that. With a video slide presentation produced by his son shown on a screen behind him, Mr. Mortenson described how various outside forces have broken down traditional relationships between the elders, the spiritual leaders, and the youth in Afghanistan. Rather than working to destroy traditional relationships, Mr. Mortenson specifically seeks to build relationships with local village leaders and show respect and deference towards them.

Mr. Mortenson did not only highlight his own work during his time with us. He specifically praised other charities, particularly ones run by children or young adults. He clearly likes charities like his own that are organic, independent of outside influences, and decentralized in their approach to fundraising and care.

Education is most definitely Greg Mortenson’s focus, and the education of girls is his primary concern. He mentioned an African proverb that says that if you educate a boy, you educate an individual. If you educate a girl, you educate a community. Mr. Mortenson stated how he believes that education is the only long-term answer to terrorism and poverty in the world. It is, in his view, more important than other humanitarian projects in the developing world such as paving roads. He even simplified his efforts towards education in one simple fundraising pitch: one penny buys one pencil.

Mr. Mortenson may be the best combination of gentleness and determination that you will ever meet. His style of speaking was definitely unpolished and even a bit folksy. Yet he also showed the fierce determination that he needs in his work in the one part of the presentation where he specifically addressed his critics: People who dislike his friendship with high-ranking members of the U.S. military. (Mr. Mortenson’s presentation included a three-point summary of the main points of Three Cups of Tea by USCENTCOM commander General David Petraeus.) Yet no matter how you view his relationship with the military, it seems as though Mr. Mortenson is having a lot more influence on them than they may be having with him.

Greg Mortenson’s did not mention his own political views or spiritual beliefs during his presentation. Are they the quiet, motivating force behind his extraordinary charitable acts? That will remain a mystery for the time being. Yet as Mr. Mortenson said during his presentation in the U.S. national capital city on December 3, if anyone can rightly claim that God is own their side, then they need to display acts of kindness and love towards orphans and widows and others in need. And this is a viewpoint that is very hard for anyone to argue with.

The December 2009 issue of National Geographic magazine includes an excellent article about one of the few remaining hunter-gatherer groups in the world, the Hadza of northern Tanzania. Unlike the vast majority of African tribes in the early 21st century, the Hadza have not switched from hunting and gathering to either of the two dominant forms of land agriculture: grazing herds or planting crops. The Hadza, as hunter-gatherers, simply live off the land without any special preparation or maintenance of the plants or animals.

According to the article, there are several interesting characteristics of the Hadza that I think are worth considering:

• They have no real sense of elapsed time, such as a year, month, day, or hour. Because they are not tied to annual agricultural cycles, they perpetually live in the immediacy of the moment.
• They have no concept of warfare and live almost entirely free of any possessions. It is considered inappropriate for a hunter to gloat over a successful hunt, and the game of each hunt is shared openly with everyone else.
• There are no official leaders of the Hadza, although the senior male of each camp has the honor of the best portion of the hunt of the day and has the camp named after him. Each Hadza group (camp) maintains a small number of members, usually clustered around the senior male. Other Hadza are free to come and go between the various Hadza camps.

I would propose that the Hadza give us a glimpse of the genuine expression of the life of the kingdom of God:

• The kingdom is a place where elders are respected, yet no one lords it over anyone else.
• The kingdom is eternal and comes from a realm beyond time and space. It is truly timeless.
• The kingdom’s modus operandi is cooperative and not competitve. Provision is freely shared.

The writer C.S. Lewis once wrote that a true religion needs to be both thick and clear. (Please see: “Thick and Clear Religions” at dangerous idea.)

“Thick” religion is full of symbols, traditions, ceremonies, and mystery. It touches the human heart as per what is extra-rational and eternal. “Clear” religion provides a straight-forward philosophical and moral arrangement for living that even a child can understand. A religion that is thick but not clear is a cult of great obscurity, where only a small priestly class knows (or is allowed to know) the inner secrets of temple life. A religion that is clear but not thick is a perpetual child’s school, where simple truths are never built upon into adulthood.

I come from a faith tradition that had far more emphasis on “clear” spirituality than on “thick” religion. I am seeking a way of life that maintains my clear religion yet lovingly incorporates mystery, shadows, and symbols (”thick” religion).

Any thoughts?

In addition to a visit to Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois, Shadows and Symbols also had the opportunity recently to visit Solomon’s Porch in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Because Solomon’s Porch is a much smaller faith community than Willow Creek, I’ll be keeping many of the details of the service/meeting at Solomon’s Porch purposefully vague. Since the service at Willow Creek had more than 10,000 attendees, there was really no expectation of privacy for what was said or heard there by anyone present. On the other hand, the meeting at Solomon’s Porch had only 100-120 people present; so, even though their meetings are open to the public, there should be a much greater expectation of privacy for any services that are held there, and I’ll be respecting that here.)

Just walking into Solomon’s Porch is a wonderful experience in itself. Meeting in what used to be a moderately small and traditional church building, Solomon’s Porch has completely redesigned what most of us would expect to see when we enter a church. Instead of pews or rows of stacking chairs, one is greeted by circles of easy chairs and sofas. In the middle is a stool that can be rotated for the speaker to see everyone. The concept is similar to theater in the round. The part of the room that used to be for the choir also has sofas and easy chairs. The only difference with the old choir area from the rest of the room was that it was elevated slightly. Most traces of traditional church building symbols, such as a pulpit or altar, were also not present. A large wooden cross, however, was visible above the old choir area. Solomon’s porch is also an artist’s colony, and several original paintings from that artistic community are visible next to the wooden cross above the former choir stage.

After a period of time, the music band, a group of about four musicians, began to play a set of original songs, each evidently composed by musicians within Solomon’s Porch. The music was great, refreshingly original, and one of the best parts of the service. The lyrics of the songs were definitely original as well and somewhat open-to-interpretation as per exact theological meaning. Periodically, the music stopped and gave way to what I might term “a light touch of liturgy”.

Rather than a sermon from one pastor or preacher, there was a guided discussion time, with readings from Bible on two projection screens on both sides of the church building. This part of the service was led by the leader of Solomon’s Porch Doug Pagitt. The thing that I noticed (and respected) the most about this was that, rather than shying away from controversial subjects, Mr. Pagitt and the congregation took theologically difficult subjects head on.

The pace of the service was leisurely and the exact starting and ending times of the service and the parts within in it didn’t seem to matter or be important. In fact, Solomon’s Porch is really a community experience rather than a church service, as you would commonly think of it. So if you’re ever in Minneapolis on a Sunday night, I’d highly recommend a visit to Solomon’s Porch.

Sorry for no posts lately. Shadows and Symbols has been on travel recently, including visits to two interesting churches. I’ll be describing my impression of these visits in the next two Shadows and Symbols posts.

Willow Creek Community Church is the third largest megachurch in the United States. Its main campus is located in the northwestern Chicago suburb of South Barrington, Illinois. I visited Willow Creek’s main campus recently for its Saturday night service.

The Willow Creek facilities are massive. Just driving up to the parking lot is like driving into the parking lot of a basketball or hockey arena or a large shopping mall. Parking attendants guided our car through each part of the parking lot to our parking space. After leaving our car, we entered one of the large number of doors into the main campus building. We walked down a wide hallway that led into the open air cafeteria. Food service lines, where people could buy cafeteria food, were visible on the right side as we walked into the cafeteria area.

Rounding another curve, we finally approached the main auditorium. And I say main auditorium because there is another smaller, overflow auditorium next to the lake on the left as we walked past the cafeteria. The main auditorium can seat thousands of people in theater-style seating. The very large room is divided into balcony, mezzanine, and main levels, each separated by escalators.

After taking our seats near the front of the main level, the house lights were dimmed and a set of drummers on the stage began a series of energetic beats. After a period of three minutes, two large choirs filed onto the two sides of the stage. A handful of  praise singers or leaders also came onto the stage and positioned themselves at the front of the stage and began leading the congregation (audience) in a series of fairly simple praise songs. Two very large projection screens displayed the lyrics for each song in English and Spanish. The volume of the music was loud but not overpowering. It seemed clear to me that the volume for the music had been carefully considered and calibrated.

The overall experience of the Willow Creek music for me was that it was very professionally produced and managed, but that it was in no way a transcendent spiritual experience. For me, probably the best part of the music service was the scripture reading by the song leaders during a musical pause in the middle of the songs.

After the music, there was a series of announcements and a brief video presentation. After this, Willow Creek senior and founding pastor Bill Hybels came onto the stage to give his message, which lasted about 25 minutes. Bill Hybels, one of the foremost proponents of the “seeker-sensitive” movement for churches (although that’s a term that I don’t think that Mr. Hybels uses), gave what appeared to be a completely scripted message. During the message, Mr. Hybels did explain his approach to evangelism, which is closely linked to local churches. Other than, perhaps, the importance of evangelism and its link to the local church, there was little that was spiritually challenging or profound during this talk. There was some mention of fighting poverty and social justice, but this seemed to me to be dissonant to the ears, hearing it inside of one of the wealthiest church facilities in the United States.

I would like to stress that there is no spontaneity whatsoever during the Willow Creek service. Nothing is given to chance or surprise, and every action appears to be scripted down to the nearest second. The lighting in the auditorium is fairly dark, so it is difficult to see one’s neighbors or read anything (such as a Bible) other than what is on the projection screens. The setting made it impossible to interact with other people during the service time, other than a brief time of saying hello to one another near the beginning of the service.

Shadows and Symbols did appreciate some of the people that I met while visiting Willow Creek, including some of the other congregants and ushers. I also appreciated that people genuinely seemed to be pleased to be there and were positive about their experiences at Willow Creek. Willow also had none of the very visible displays of the American flag, such as Matt Pritchard of At The Margins saw when visiting the largest megachurch in the United States, Lakewood Church, in Houston, Texas. In fact, the Willow Creek auditorium displayed no typical church items or symbols of any kind, such as a cross, a pulpit, or an altar.

However, that being said, Willow Creek appeared to Shadows and Symbols to be overproduced and too large in numbers. A person could both enter and exit the service anonynously, with no meaningful contact with other people within the church community. While respectful of Mr. Hybels’s innovative approached to evangelism, I encountered really nothing that could be said to be a spiritual experience. A completely secular presentation could have been substituted for the Willow Creek service and it might have produced about the same level of spritual transcendence or sense of community.

According to the podcast The Missing Link, Episode 6, when European farmers began to settle southern Africa about 200 years ago, they noticed that the native inhabitants of that region had a completely different way of keeping track of their cattle.

When it came to cows, the Europeans were masters of headcounts. If a count came short by the expected number, then these farmers knew that cows were missing. The native African farmers, on the other hand, had a completely different way of keeping track of their cattle. As far as counting was concerned, the Europeans quickly discovered that most of the African herdsman could not count beyond the number ten.

Instead of counting, the native farmers took the time to know each of their animals personally. For example, the African herdsmen would carve, over the course of a long time, the horns of cattle into distinct shapes and curves. Special care was then paid to the various spots, colors, and patterns of each animal. The native Africans would raise each of these animals from birth and knew which ones would be near certain others in the overall herd. The rich pasturelands of southern Africa allowed the native Africans to live with their cattle rather than having to send them off to distant grazing areas. Another memory aid: Names were assigned to each of the animals that matched their personalities and habits.

The culture of the African tribes also supported the personal care of their cattle. For instance, the Xhosa tribe’s creation story tells of their ancestors emerging from a cave with their cattle. Additionally, cattle were held in high regard and only killed on very special occasions.

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So we see here in the difference between these two methods of keeping track of cattle a way of knowing versus knowing personally. And it is knowing personally that is the true spiritual path.

Neil Howe, co-author of the books The Fourth Turning and Generations, recently sat down for an interview to talk about the fourth turning. You can hear this interview here:

http://podcast.streetiq.com/streetiq/?GUID=9987586&Page=MediaViewer

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