Daniel 4 – This
part of the book is written by Nebuchadnezzar in the first person. He tells of
a dream he has that terrified him. He dreamed that he saw a tree in the middle
of the world. Its top reached the sky and it could be seen from everywhere. It
provided food and shelter for all the birds and animals. A “watcher” [messenger/angel]
came down and shouted, “Cut down the tree and lop off its branches. Shake off
its leaves and scatter its fruit. Chase the wild animals from its shade and the
birds from its branches. But leave the stump and the roots in the ground, bound
with a band of iron and bronze and surrounded by tender grass” (4:14-15).
He asks Daniel what it means, and Daniel tells him the tree
was him (the king). ‘You are to be driven from human society, and live with the
wild animals. . .seven times [periods of time] will pass over you until you
have learnt that the Most High rules over the kingship of men and confers it on
whom he pleases.’ Daniel urges the king to “break from your wicked past and be
merciful to the poor. Perhaps then you will continue to prosper” (4:24). Things
do not change, however.
A year later, as Nebuchadnezzar walks “on the flat roof of
the royal palace in Babylon,” he looks out across the city and says, “‘Look at
this great city of Babylon. By my own mighty power, I have built this beautiful
city as my royal residence to display my majestic splendor’” (4:29). Just as he boasts of his majesty, a
voice from heaven calls to him and tells him he is no longer the ruler. “You
will be driven from human society. You will live in the fields with the wild
animals, and you will eat grass like a cow. Seven periods of time will pass
while you live this way, until you learn that the Most High rules over the
kingdoms of the world and gives them to anyone he chooses” (4:32).
The king’s sovereignty is taken from him, and he is driven
away. His time of madness or whatever it was passes, and through his repentance
and acknowledgement of God, he comes to reassume his powers and he praises God.
It’s hard to read this and not to
speculate that this Jewish notion of God’s ultimate supremacy over all worldly
powers was not in some way the foundation of our very different notion of
monarchical/governmental rule – that it was not utterly absolute the way it was in most eastern civilizations.
From Leadings: A Catholic’s Journey Through
Quakerism
Part 4
For me, God was not in church so much as he was in “the
place”. He was in my room at night when I went to sleep, in the physical
features of my environment, in the air around me. I felt I could breathe him in
when I was sad or upset, and he would strengthen me physically. He opened my
eyes to the beauties of nature. One morning, in the middle of winter, I set out
for the rocks and caves that I often roamed behind the estate on the hill that
led up to another old estate where there was a small lake and swans. There had
been an ice storm the night before, and everything—trees, rocks, even frail
brown leaves that still clung tenaciously to dry branches—was coated with a
paper-thin film of ice. The breeze clicked the branches together, and
everything sparked like diamonds in the morning sun. It was the first time
something beautiful made me cry.
Church was good, but not in the same way. It was beautiful
at St. Barnabas Episcopal Church, and I continued somehow to go even though I was the ONLY Episcopalian now in
the house. No one had to prod me. I enjoyed church—the stained glass, the
dark, candle-lit interior, the flowers, the music, the sixteenth-century
language of the liturgy. I joined the choir. I went to confirmation classes in
the eighth grade and received my confirmation on the third Sunday after Easter
in 1958. Everyone confirmed received a copy of the Book of Common Prayer. I still have mine.
Maybe it was the beauty of the psalms we read in church
every Sunday that made me want to read the Bible, or maybe it was the
importance it had to my other grandmother, my Christian Science grandmother.
She was my father’s mother, the one who had tried so hard to adopt his
political radicalism in the ‘30s and ‘40s. By the ‘50s, however, health
problems had caused her to abandon politics and look back to her faith. In the
years I knew her, her daily routine always included sitting down to May Baker
Eddy’s Science and Health with a Key to the Scriptures and the King James
Bible. She was really the only person I knew who read the Bible. Whenever I
visited with her, she would share verses with me and impress on me the
importance of reading the Bible for its spiritual truths rather than its
literal words. Whatever the cause, sometime in the late ‘50s, I asked my
grandfather to buy me a Bible for my birthday. We shopped for it together and
got a beautiful King James Version with black and white etchings on thick,
silky paper. I read it as I would have read a novel—straight through—or almost
straight through. I think I bogged down around Daniel [funny
that I’m on that book now on the blog!].
Something about the Bible impressed me. I remember telling a
friend, in one of those adolescent kinds of conversations about what one book
you would take if you were stranded on a desert island and could only have one
book for your whole life, that I would take the Bible, not because I attached
such great religious importance to it, but because it had been so important to
so many people throughout human history. I felt it had to be pretty rich in
content to be popular so long.
