Peaceable kingdom

Isaiah 11:6–9 The wolf will live with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the goat. The calf, the young lion, and the fatling will be together, and a child will lead them. The cow and the bear will graze, their young ones will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like an ox. An infant will play beside the cobra's pit, and a toddler will put his hand into a snake's den. No one will harm or destroy on My entire holy mountain, for the land will be as full of the knowledge of the Lord as the sea is filled with water.

The original cover of the book The Peaceable Kingdom (hardback) by Jan de Hartog always comes to mind when I think of lions and lambs lying down together. The Quaker reference to anti-slavery and nonviolence is inevitable, but I think this reference must go far deeper than a novel … it is a spiritual connection for all Christ-followers to go out and proclaim the good news of the Gospel of Jesus of Nazareth … to practice nonviolence and make slaves of no man. And then to go even deeper: keep alive the theme of God’s original desire that we do not eat our warm-blooded (and cold-blooded) friends. Read the passage very closely. Not only do predators and prey comingle, but children pick up vipers and are not harmed. There was no fear or danger in God’s original plan.

Sublime as defined, “excellence, grandeur, and beauty,” is the Garden of Eden.