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"The Peaceable Kingdom"
Conceived, born, and bred a Presbyterian, my only detour along the way was a short journey with the Society of Friends. I was in seminary, at a point where preparing for the ministry of the Word had too many words and Sunday worship was just one more sermon critique. So I sought refuge with the Quakers for a while, fed by their Sabbath silence and challenged by their weekday activism.

It was there I met 19th century artist, Edward Hicks, and began a life long journey with “the Peaceable Kingdom.”

Edward Hicks was trained as a carriage maker, and got acquainted with paint only as a necessary step to a finished product. Then he started to do what was called “ornamental painting,” things like tavern signs. He’d seen quite a few of those, evidently. And then he got religion. After a winter’s night of following tavern signs he saw the light. He felt the Inner Light of the Quakers and became an ardent member of the Society of Friends. He gave up drinking but not painting. The Quakers frowned on ornamental art, certainly tavern signs. But they winked. Brother Hicks needed to make a living to support his family and his other newfound vocation: that of preacher.

The man history remembers as an artist was known by his contemporaries as an eloquent preacher, a master of metaphor, and a not quite Quaker-like adversary in a conflict that eventually divided Quakerism. No peaceable kingdom there. The man who died painting the peaceable kingdom lived in an unpeaceable one, in the place you should most expect some semblance of peaceable: in the church. In his case, the Society of Friends, known as Quakers, known as pacifists, were deeply divided and finally broken apart over some of the same issues that have us quaking and dividing and unpeaceable today.

Somewhere in all of that, Hicks’ imagination was caught by Isaiah’s prophetic vision. It expressed a longing for reconciliation and unity. It acknowledged that every person had animal propensities and passions. So with carriage paint and signboards he created “The Peaceable Kingdom.”

It was a visual call for peace. The children and the animals were mild; no tension visible in postures or expressions. An ideal to make real. He painted over sixty variations on this theme over a period of thirty-some years.

Hicks had a kind of holy obsession with the peaceable kingdom. Or perhaps the kingdom had a hold on him. No mere curiosity about how a world at peace might look, but a passionate pursuit of an ideal that was as elusive—and as essential—to his world as it is to ours. He continued to bring the peaceable kingdom into sight the rest of his life, painting the subject until the very eve of his death. Moving through a chronological sequence of the kingdom paintings you start to see more than variations on composition and color. You see explorations of the meanings of Isaiah’s prophesy and their relevance to a possible reconciliation between the Quaker factions. The animals’ expressions change, as do their positions with one another. After the opposing Quaker groups actually separated, he painted tightly unified groups of animals with tense, fearful expressions as if gathered in uncomfortable and tentative peace. You wonder if Hicks kept painting that image more because he saw it less.

In one particular painting from 1834, all of Isaiah’s animals are there, some at home in the Pennsylvanian woods, and others, a little exotic and out of place, let alone proportion. Check the scale of the lion and the ox! A sermon Hicks preached during the winter of 1837 paints the lamb, the kid, the cow, and the ox as “good men and women”; the wolf, leopard, bear, and lion as “figures of the wicked” who would “cruelly destroy each other.” Interesting personality profile! All of the kingdom paintings from this period on have in the upper left a depiction of William Penn’s treaty with the Leni-Lenapi Indians, a statement about human predators and the peace needed in our political kingdoms. Isaiah’s children are there, too. Hicks painted his own children into the scene, as if to give that ancient vision a future face. A hopeful, human face.

In the prophet Isaiah’s vision of the peaceable kingdom the distinctions between predator and prey collapse. Instinct bows to a higher calling. Creatures great and small go beyond co-existence to community. They live together, sleep together, eat together, play together. The lion need not control and the lamb need not fear. The bear eats corn. The wolf looks mellow. Little children pet wild beasts. The world is a safe place even for the most vulnerable ones.

The Peaceable Kingdom. Where is it? How to love the animals in it? How to hold it and unfold it as God’s vision for us? Who are the lions, who are the lambs? Someone like Edward Hicks gives us an image, but the story of his image gives us pause, as well. It is always difficult for our vision to be clear, because we look through human experience and personal need and prejudice, and the expression of an ideal easily becomes a reflection of what is real. The animals still line up as predators and prey, good guys and bad guys. Our peace is still tentative and tense. God’s promised peace is always confident and joyful.

“The Peaceable Kingdom” hangs peacefully over our mantel at church, the child patting the nose of a languid leopard, the bear and the ox nose to nose, sharing a meal; eight Native Americans and eight new arrivals, negotiating a deal. I see in it something of Jesus’ prayer that we may all be one. I see in it something of Isaiah’s prophesy that creatures and children may be at peace, even in a new time and a strange place.

In his last painting of the Peaceable Kingdom, just before he died, Hicks portrayed a child leading a young lion off, beyond the canvas. As if to say, “Not here, not yet, but on the way. It will come. To the wolves and the lambs and all the rest. The Peaceable Kingdom. As promised.”

 

Conversation with Deborah Block

Lydia Talbot: Deborah, that was a powerful, powerful expression of the metaphor conveyed by the Edward Hicks painting, “A Peaceable Kingdom.” I have a feeling it’s just a part of who you are.

Deborah Block: That painting has been in my imagination and in my heart for over 30 years. And I think, like Hicks, as we see peace less, we need to envision it more. I just saw Pablo Picasso’s paintings, “Dove of Peace,” “The Face of Peace,” “Dance of Peace.” I think those would be good images to have in schools, as well as churches and synagogues.

Talbot: And what a wonderful teaching devise for all people of faith. The church, the arts, using art forms as a way to convey an authentic sense of faith. How is that being lived out in Immanuel Presbyterian Church on the east side of Milwaukee?

Block: Well, one of the reasons that the painting has become special to me, and I think to many of us at Immanuel, is because one of those versions was done the year our congregation was founded in 1837. And in that year when our congregation organized—the first congregation in the city of Milwaukee, in fact—Presbyterianism in this country was coming apart and much like the split that happened among the Quakers, this old school, new school, old light, new light division happened. And so that picture represents part of our story, part of our unfortunate story, as well as holding before us the promise of peace and a vision of all these creatures living together.

Daniel Pawlus: I wanted to pick up on that a little bit. You’ve chosen to bring it into the church as an example. What have you encountered in your time at Immanuel in terms of challenges around peace and justice issues in the city of Milwaukee, for instance?

Block: Well, Milwaukee, like many cities, is not a peaceable kingdom. We have significant trouble in our schools, and on our city streets, with violence, particularly hand gun violence. Also, in our church more immediately, our Presbyterian congregations have been challenged, as many Protestant congregations have been, to be inclusive of all God’s children regardless of age, gender, or sexual orientation in the life of our communities.

Pawlus: But you’ve done that. You’ve been recognized for that. So in what ways have you specifically implemented some of these ideas that you talk about here? How have you reached out to the community in a more inclusive way?

Block: I think you take seriously the Biblical promise, the vision of predators and prey, powerful and powerless, and put everybody together in the place that God has given us to live together.

Talbot: Talk about the Jewish-Presbyterian dialogue that you’re so active in there.

Block: We have had some difficulties in the Presbyterian church in our long-time, good relationships with the Jewish community over some issues of divestment in the Middle East. And coming out of that has been the very hopeful, helpful, productive dialogue—new dialog—between the Jewish community and Presbyterians. This is happening on local levels here in Chicago, as well as up in Milwaukee. And it’s happening at a national level with the Jewish-Presbyterian consultation. Jewish leaders from all over the country.

Talbot: So is there a chance for a peaceable kingdom coming out of that dialogue?

Block: There is a peaceable kingdom. I think we’ve gone through a period where, if our friend Edward Hicks were painting it, we all moved apart a little bit and our postures got a little tense and perhaps our expressions even got a little wary and weary. But I would say we’re coming back together again in the promise and the reality of peace.

Talbot: This was really a life changing journey for you, although short, to experience the images of faith and action through the Quaker church. Who are some of the other heroes, heroines, people of faith who have inspired you along your own personal journey, in the context of justice issues?

Block: Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton—one of the most powerful partnerships, I think, in the American story, certainly in women’s story—who had a real, passionate conviction about justice and who drew their convictions from their faith traditions. One a Quaker and one a staunch, Scotch Presbyterian.

Pawlus: I wanted to ask you, too, how can we long for peace a little bit more as faith communities? We talk about being active in social justice, but with this example of a peaceable kingdom, it is kind of a longing through our faith to have that come about, isn’t it?

Block: It is. And I think immediately, in your comment, of the Amish community that we have recently become acquainted or reacquainted with and the importance of teaching peace to children. The questions, how can you do this, how can you be so forgiving after such a tragedy, made us realize that it wasn’t a one time response but a lifetime discipline of living in peaceful, reconciling relationships that often have forgiveness at the heart.

Talbot: You’re talking about the murder victims’ families for reconciliation.

Block: Yes.

Talbot: Of course, forgiveness is a basic tenet of the Christian faith. You are a trustee of McCormick Seminary in Chicago and you were recently recognized with a Distinguished Ministry Award by McCormick Seminary. You’ve also been known as one who has grace under pressure. How do you manage that when you are in the middle of so much divisiveness in the church, in the pew, in the community?

Block: Keep an image of peace always in your mind and your heart. It’s always there to get to. The high road is the only place to travel. And I really believe that in our hearts, that’s what everybody feels called to and called to make happen. If you keep the doors open and the arguments de-escalated, you can sometimes get there.

Pawlus: I bet you look to inspiration from some of the women in ministry in the past, too. I know you’re very interested in that. You mentioned some of your inspirations before. Do you call on that historic example of moving forward in that way?

Block: Absolutely. It’s my pleasure to know, for instance, the first woman who was ordained in the Presbyterian Church, Margaret Towner, and in her own way for 50 years she has been a peacemaker and a change maker in our faith community.

Pawlus: Thank you so much for joining us, Deborah.

Block: Thank you

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