I don’t know if it was my two-week stint in the United States last month that made me think about my homeland a little more, but last week as I taught about the artistic impulses (or lack thereof, really) in the early days of the US of A, I spent a little more time than I ever had discussing and deconstructing the art work found on the dollar bill, specifically, on the back, with The Great Seal of the United States.
You don’t even need to run and get your wallet—just look below at the image on the back of the poor, hardly-worth-anything-anymore dollar bill.
Have you ever studied the dollar bill? There is so much Latin on it, and so many little codes and clues. It is an interesting story exploring how this seal came to be.
In 1776 the Continental Congress authorized a committee to develop a seal, which came to be called, “The Great Seal of the United States of America.” This committee proposed several designs yet it took several years—ahhh…committee work—and no design was actually acceptable, but one motto stuck, the Latin words, E Pluribus Unum, in English, “from many, one.”
Later in 1782 the Continental Congress asked Charles Thomson, who was its secretary, to develop a design for the Seal of the United States. Thomson, a man nearly forgotten today from among all the founding fathers, was believed to be such a man of integrity that the Delaware Indian nation adopted him as an honorary member and trusted him in regard to translating and assisting them in negotiations with the United States government. So great was this man’s integrity that a common saying in that era to verify a fact or transaction was, “This is as true as if Charles Thomson’s name was on it.” Thomson took the motto, E Pluribus Unum, that had been approved by Congress in 1776, and incorporated it into the Great American Seal which is the bald eagle with an olive branch in one talon and arrows in the other, symbolizing ours as a nation of peace on the one hand with a willingness to defend itself on the other. Guess how many olive leaves are in one talon? Guess how many arrows are in the other? 13 each…I am sure you know why 13!
Charles Thomson used the inscription E Pluribus Unum as the written articulation on the ribbon coming out of the eagle’s mouth. Initially referring to the peoples of European stock and the 13 colonies that they populated, E Pluribus Unum was a call to societal unity.
When Thomson presented his design to the Continental Congress he also read a passage from Genesis 37:6-7. He read the words, “And he said unto them, Hear, I pray you, this dream which I have dreamed, for behold we were binding sheaves in the field and low my sheaf arose and also stood upright and behold your sheaves stood around about and made obeisance to my sheaf.”
Again, “And he said unto them, Hear, I pray you, this dream which I have dreamed.” As I taught this little snippet of early American History last week, I emphasized how the founders combined two visions, two dreams in creating the United States, the realization of “The Promised Land,” and the hope of a “Republic of Virtue.” As Thomson read those words, no doubt many of those brave representatives thought about the power and role of dreams in transmitting spiritual understanding. This role of dreams in conveying guidance and illumination is documented and substantiated throughout the history of religious and spiritual communities the world over. Whether it is the dreams that transmitted revelation and guidance to Abraham, Moses, Buddha, Krishna, Jesus Christ, Mohammed, or the visionary dreams bestowed to the major and minor prophets, Kings and disciples in the Holy Bible or the dreams in the modern era of men like Martin Luther King, Jr., dreams are one means that God has employed to warn, inform and instruct mankind. Dreams are a way not only for telling events but instructing them as well.
On the other side of the back of the dollar, across from that eagle, is an incomplete pyramid, a nod to the fact that the founders believed that the building process was incomplete. It is monitored by the all-seeing eye of knowledge. Down below that unfinished pyramid is the Latin phrase, "Novus Ordo Secclorum," hailing the “new order of the ages.” Up above is another Latin phrase, "Annuit Coeptis," which translates to “Providence favors our undertakings.”
Let’s go back to Jacob’s dream in Genesis, the dream of the gathering of sheaves to inform how Thomson proceeded in realizing another dream, another vision, the vision of E Pluribus Unum. Here we are, some 230 years after Thomson relayed this to the Continental Congress, with the motive of making this world a better place, a more unified society for all to live in. We are now at a point where we should gather these sheaves of good acts and kindly deeds together and lift them up in obeisance to the sheaf of racial and cultural unity with diversity, or as our national motto cries out from the mouth of the eagle on our basic unit of paper currency, the dollar bill, E Pluribus Unum. The seal on the back of the dollar is a wonderful reminder of where we originated and provides a healthy check as to how we are doing in bringing in the moral sheaves.
There is the old hymn, “Bringing in the Sheaves,” which announces that we come rejoicing when we bring in the sheaves. Somehow this little lesson last week provided an interesting meditation to me about the founding of the United States, and of course, to me, the founding of KA in 2007. This is a school where many, many come together. Thirty nations are represented among the students and faculty. It is certainly not as if the school, or the USA, comes together as one mind or one voice, but certainly as one community, one human family in that dream of E Pluribus Unum. Just a nice little reminder of the dreams and the visions we find in the trees of history.
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