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.

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

Recently, shadows and symbols happened to notice a trend at his local workplace in the United States. All of a sudden, as I walk the halls of my office building, everyone seems to be either about 25 years old or, conversely, 55 years old. The large number of young new-hires seem to be gathering around the offices of the senior leaders (the 55-60 year olds) in order to receive inspiration and directions. Additionally, my workplace is organizing a special meeting that is focussed on addressing the concerns of both the younger-adult, twenty-something generation *and* the more senior, 55-65 generation. Another interesting trend is that rising stars in the younger generation seem to be on the fast-track to promotions.

In the midst of this trend, however, there is a problem: There is a generation in between, and as a member of that generation, I’m feeling a little overlooked these days.

Referencing Strauss and Howe’s work on generations in the U.S., which I surveyed in a shadows and symbols post a few months ago (http://www.shadowsandsymbols.org/?p=44), there are now primarily three generations in the American workplace:

1. The oldest is the Boomer generation. According to Strauss and Howe, this idealist generation was born between the years of 1943 and 1960. They are now, as of 2009, between the ages of 49 and 66. They are known as “boomers” because they were born during the great post-World War II “baby boom” in the United States. Their current ages now put them firmly in control of most business management positions, with the very noticeable exception of the White House.

2. The youngest is the Millenial generation. According to Strauss and Howe, this civic-minded generation was born between the years 1982 and 2000. They are known as “millenials” because they were born right before the start of a new millenium. They are now between the ages of 9 and 27, with their older members now filling the junior ranks of American workplaces.

3. The in-between generation is sometimes known as Generation X. According to Strauss and Howe, this “nomadic” or reactive generation was born between the years of 1961 and 1981. They are now between the ages of 28 and 48. Sometimes called the “baby bust” generation, this generation is about 40% smaller than the Boomer generation.

So, is this just an errant Generation X perspective of the workplace that I think that my generation is being overlooked? Perhaps my generation is just too small in size to have an impact. Or perhaps this is just a natural part of the approaching Fourth Turning time of crisis that Strauss and Howe talk about in their books. In such a time of crisis, the civic-minded younger generation is supposed to look to the older idealist generation for wisdom, guidance, and inspiration.

So, I’m inviting comments here. If you think that I’m being too sensitive or complaining, please leave a comment here. If, on the other hand, you’re a member of the so-called Generation X and you agree with me, please leave a comment here, too.

“Lament for racial divisions within the church and our communities combined with the active pursuit of a just reconciliation.”

It started out so well. The apostle Philip, one of the original followers of Jesus, was traveling down a desert road when he came across an Ethiopian of the royal court. The man was reading the passage from the Hebrew Bible that spoke about a lamb being led to the slaughter. Puzzled over the meaning of this passage, he asked Philip to explain it to him. Philip then began to explain to the Ethiopian the good news about Jesus. Eagerly embracing the water of baptism, the Ethiopian came into the body of Christ that very day. This is story in the New Testament book of Acts is one where a white man, one of Jesus’s personal friends, invited a black man into the worldwide communion of Christ-followers at the specific direction of the Spirit of God.

Jesus is for all peoples, and he clearly told his original followers to go to all of the ethnos (people-groups) of the world. But something happened through the centuries since then: The racial and ethnic divisions of the world around crept into the community of Christ-followers.

Yet even with this, as if by some miracle, Jesus was embraced by some of the ones who oppressed by those who claimed the Name of Jesus. Perhaps one of the greatest witnesses for Christ is that he was embraced so eagerly by the slaves of the colonial period in the United States, in spite of the fact that he was also the savior of their masters. Then, they held faithfully to him during their many years of slavery and about 100 years of segregation and discrimination. Surely the goodness of Jesus is seen in his relationship with this often-oppressed minority group.

Yet racial divisions are not just those that are in the written law but, more importantly, in our hearts. When the world looks at the body of Christ, what does it see? For example, in the United States, the most racially segregated hour of the week is when churches meet on Sunday mornings. Yes, this is beginning to change, but we have a long way to go.

What words that stand out for me here:

1. Lament. This is where mark #4 starts, and it means a period of mournful reflection and careful consideration. Then, a period of tearful consideration gives way to the next stand-out word …

2. Active. Something that is active is not something that is on proverbial “back burner”. It something to be pursued now and continuously until the goal is fully achieved.

Can the body of Christ express true racial reconciliation? If the answer is no, then we are truly without hope on the earth. Yet in our hearts we know that the answer must be yes. With that, we must each take the courage to step towards this just end.

Today, Shadows and Symbols is pleased to introduce a new category: history. With this new category for posts, we’ll be able to explore shadows and symbols of the past.

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The military and political structure of the empire had evolved into a governmental system where the western and eastern halves of the empire each had one or two emperors. These emperors, at least in theory, ruled over supreme military commanders. The eastern side of the empire had multiple military commanders, and the emperors there managed to maintain control over these military leaders. In the west, however, there was only one military commander, and successively weaker emperors began to lose control over them.

By the mid-470s, the last remnants of the Western Roman Empire were decaying to the point of disappearance. The last western emperor to be approved by the eastern leadership, Julius Nepos, made a mistake that cost him his throne: He appointed a military commander named Orestes who would soon overthrow him.

The usurpation of a ruler by military generals is an old story in history throughout the world, and there is nothing remarkable about it. Yet, what Orestes did next after deposing Julius Nepos was unusual.

Instead of taking the imperial throne for himself or appointing his brother or another adult, Orestes decided to appoint his teenage son, Romulus, as emperor. The reasons for Orestes’s action are not clear, yet it does appear that this was a way for this commanding general to maintain his military office while filling the imperial throne with someone whom he could control. Finally, the western empire had changed to the point where the emperor was a complete figurehead.

Through his actions, Orestes had involved his own son, Romulus, within his own political machinations in at least three different harmful ways:

1.  Rebellion. The father had made his own son into a usurper. The western and eastern emperors had by custom concurred on the imperial succession of the other half of the empire. Since Julius Nepos had been deposed without the permission of the east, Orestes had undertaken the illegal overthrow of a legitimate emperor.

2.  Hypocrisy. The father, Orestes, nominally was serving his son but, in reality, the father was controlling his son for his own political purposes.

3.  Endangerment. Orestes was himself deposed and executed within a year of his own coup against Julius Nepos by Odoacer, a Germanic king. For some reason, Odoacer decided not to kill Romulus but merely to depose him. Still, the young son had been placed into a position of danger and risk-of-life by his father.

The life of Jesus presents a different picture of fathers and sons. It demonstrates to us a heavenly father and his love for his adopted children on earth. The Lord’s Prayer itself begins with an affirmation of our relationship to God, when it says, “Our Father”. Consider what Jesus and his original followers said that runs directly counter to the three items above:

1.  Legitimacy. Adopted sons and daughters have a full share of the inheritance of their heavenly father. The children are legitimate because they are of the same house (family) as their father. They are also privileged to call upon him in order to see his will done on earth as it is in heaven, and then to participate in his plans to make that will a reality.

2.  Truth and Reality. Rather than seeking to use us for selfish purposes, our heavenly father earnestly seeks to bring his children into a full measure of maturity. Those who are faithful with a little are then given much more to be faithful over. Authority in the kingdom of heaven is given to us those who are clothed in humility.

3.  Protection. The shepherd lays down his life for his sheep. The children of God have no need for “bargained-for exchanges”, where a weaker person lays claims on higher authorities through legal processes. The hairs on their heads are numbered, and they are fully entitled to all of the provision and protection of heaven.

I have been fortunate to have read William Strauss and Neil Howe’s seminal work Generations when it was first introduced in 1991. I was introduced to it when I read the authors’ preview article for this book in late 1990 in the Washington Post. As soon as their sequel book The Fourth Turning came out, I bought it and read it quickly from cover to cover.

The thesis of these two books is that the course of the history of the United States is not entirely linear but also cyclical in nature. There are regular patterns in the course of the life and times of the nation that are repeated usually once every four generations. The term used in Generations for this four-generation cycle is the Latin word saeculum. A saeculum usually lasts for about 88 years (the length of a relatively long lifetime), where each of four successive generations is about 22 years long.

The four types of generations come in the following order:

Idealistic, then
Reactive, then
Civic, then
Adaptive

As the generations move through time in four life-stages (childhood, young adulthood, midlife, elders), the eldest generation fades away from public life and is replaced shortly thereafter with a brand new generation of children of the same type.

The alignment of the types of generations specifies what is called a turning. A turning, which roughly corresponds to the length of time of a generation, strongly influences the events of the day and how the public at large reacts to those events. The eldest generation during a turning most strongly influences its events and reactions, whereas the youngest (child) geneation influences events the least.

The first turning is called a high. In this turning, a reactive generation is in charge and uses blunt-force to push through projects of national scale and scope. Society appears to be the most orderly during high turnings, yet witch hunts often occur during these times.

The second turning is called an awakening. This is where young adult idealists begin to criticize the perceived lack of spiritual depth of the society as a whole. They begin to confront the existing order of things by protest in the streets or by withdrawal to communes in the countryside. Religious questions and yearnings that were suppressed during the previous turnings are pursued with fervor, and religious revivals usually occur during such awakenings. The arts and music are usually at their most creative during this period.

The third turning is called an unraveling. This is when the spiritual fervor of the previous awakening burns out and people concentrate on individual pursuits and goals. Starting and growing businesses and the stock market takes a high degree of public focus. Civic-mindnesses deterioriates as the elder adaptive generation tries to patch over the fraying social contract with increasingly complex sets of rules and laws. Unresolved cultural disputes reach hard impasses, while show trials and silliness in the life of public figures are most likely to occur during such times.

The fourth and final turning is called a crisis. This is where the entire resources and energies of the nation are put towards resolving a crisis or series of crises. This is where society as a whole is at its greatest peril and the entire social contract and fabric is rewritten for future generations. Here, the elder idealistic generation pours out the spiritual zeal that it had found in its youth for the good or ill of society at its darkest hour. The no-nonsense reactive generation produces mid-life leaders to lead the civic-minded young adults into life and death situations. People want to see big actions taken to confront big challenges and are even willing to tolerate big mistakes along the way.

In the U.S., the latest first turning (high) came from 1945 to 1963. The second turning (awakening) lasted from 1963 to about 1984. The third turning (unraveling) started in 1984 and may now be giving way to the fourth and final turning of a saeculum, a crisis.

To give you a better idea of how serious crisis turnings are, consider previous crisis eras in U.S. history. According to these books, the periods of crisis in American history include the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and the Great Depression and World War II (which were twin crises).

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Are we now at the next fourth turning, the next crisis era in the United States? My honest answer is mixed: yes and no. Yes, as per the overall mood and state of the nation; no, as we have not necessarily seen the dramatic “catalyst” event that Strauss and Howe say must usher in each fourth turning. (For example, the catalyst event for the Great Depression was the stock market crash in 1929. The catalyst for the Civil War was Lincoln’s election.) A catalyst event is so significant that even people contemporaneous to that event can recognize in it a clear “watershed” moment in the affairs of the world.

We now see an idealist generation, the baby boomers about to enter their elder years of public and political influence. The adaptive, or “silent”, generation is starting to fade from public view and influence. An ice-cold and hardened “Generation X” is turning from its young adulthood as “slackers” into mid-life (as crisis managers?). And a young and eager generation is rising that is comfortable with moving in close step together with others in order to accomplish large-scale projects for the good of the whole society.

The recent financial disturbances can be seen as a classic harbinger of a crisis turning. We see here the careful compromises of the past thrown out for quick and decisive public action: for example, very large bailouts of failing financial institutions with very little forethought or debate. We observe the yearning for change and hope for a new civic-mindedness that is expressed in Senator Obama’s presidential campaign. We look at the possibility of divided government giving way to nearly one-party rule (we’ll see in one week after the election), which is something characteristic of a fourth turning. We notice popular movies starring teens like the High School Musical series, where all of the young adults are dancing and singing together in choregraphed steps. (This is something that would have been unthinkable in the previous young adult generation of so-called slackers.)

If this is not the start of the fourth turning, then it must be right around the proverbial corner.

Please also see:

http://www.shadowsandsymbols.org/?p=79

http://www.shadowsandsymbols.org/?p=85

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