Or maybe you never even HAD those things. You were born with just about zero, and have gone steadily downhill from there. And yet, during his long and incredible career of service, Daniel just kept hanging onto his TRUE identity, which was to be a servant of the living God in heaven. Nebuchadnezzar could call him whatever he liked, and Daniel answered respectfully. But he still served the true God.
Nobody can take that away.
In this newspaper article describing the center where they warehouse and debrief these would-be witness protection participants, Robert Sabbag, who first reported on this for the New York Times Magazine, marvels at how thorough this stripping process really is. I mean, they really do a job on a person s brain, ripping away every shred of the past, all the former links. When it s over, you hardly know if you re coming or going. It s not like a military base, it s not like a hospital, it s not like a jail, he says. It s almost like a space station in a science-fiction movie there s absolutely no frame of reference.