The Peaceable Kingdom

We need unity not uniformity. Keep talking about what matters.

The Peaceable Kingdom

The wolf will live with the lamb,
    the leopard will lie down with the goat,
the calf and the lion and the yearling together;
    and a little child will lead them.
The cow will feed with the bear,
    their young will lie down together,
    and the lion will eat straw like the ox.

The infant will play near the cobra’s den,
    and the young child will put its hand into the viper’s nest.
They will neither harm nor destroy
    on all my holy mountain,
for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord
    as the waters cover the sea.

Isaiah 11:6-9

I don't return regularly to most of the books in the Bible, some of them barely need reading more than once, but a constant source of inspiration and intrigue is the book of Isaiah. And out of all the prophetic images in that book, this is perhaps my favorite.

It is a depiction of what has been called 'The Peaceable Kingdom'. It takes the imagery of pairs of animals from the story of Noah but makes them between apparent enemies. Wolf & lamb. Leopard & goat. Calf & Lion. Cow & bear. Lion & ox. Infant & cobra. Child & viper. No harm. No destruction.

It is often presented as a utopian afterlife fantasy. But it isn't. It is meant to be more instructive than that. The only thing required to live in a peaceable kingdom is a commitment to one principle: We don't eat each other.

The Future is Alliance & Coalition 

The French election gave us an insight into what can be achieved in a very short space of time if we decide to form alliances and coalitions around something we believe in. A common goal for the common good. Stopping fascist authoritarianism is a good place to start.

This silly post is now officially the most popular thing I've ever written on the internet. Over a million people saw it and 100k clicked the like button. It's not particularly funny or profound (at all) but it seems to have tapped into a deep feeling - we want to be allied with people very different than ourselves for the purpose of stopping evil.

As I explained last week, the violent police state will continue to oppress no matter who is in charge. The chance to change that isn't on the ballot in the November. But the opportunity to stop it's most authoritarian, racist, queerphobic and anti-environmental manifestation is something we can achieve. I am of the opinion it will be easier to for a rebellion of care under a Harris government rather than a Trump one. And we just aren't ready for it right now.

The hard part is aligning with people who have views we despise. But we don't have to be friends. We don't have to agree. We just have to not eat each other. Something the church taught me, can be very hard to do...