Plough Quarterly

Our Winter issue, WHAT IS A PERSON?, went to press yesterday! Copies to subscribers will be in the mail soon. About this issue: What does it mean to be human? What sets us apart from animals and machines? This issue explores the infinite worth of human life. Essays range from the development of the concept of human dignity in ancient Judaism and Christianity, to discussions of why AI is not, and will never be, conscious. Readers will travel with one author to the Arizona-Mexico border to search for remains of migrants, and understand how another author struggled to see the humanity of the people chasing her from her childhood home in Sarajevo. They will see the beautiful dignity of people living with disability and dementia, and grieve with their friends and caregivers over losses both hidden and apparent. The last word is given to Jewish philosopher Martin Buber who asserted that, in truly beholding another person, we come to know God. New subscribers get 50% off their first year! Subscribe here: subscribe.plough.com/flex/PP…

“Since entering Gatesville, five of the incarcerated women have converted to the Catholic Church. Since 2021, six of them have become oblates of the Sisters of Mary Morning Star, lay members of the order. The women call each other ‘the sisters in white and the sisters in gray.’ They have rechristened the Patrick L. O’Daniel Unit ‘Light Row.’” —Lauren Spohn plough.com/articles/the-sist…

“With every wave of tightening or persecution, the Chinese church has learned to adapt and grow in faith – so much so that they don’t rely on the West. They don’t need outside churches to support their spiritual lives; they’ve found ways to support and grow with each other.” —Easten Law plough.com/articles/the-chur…

“Very moving ... Emmy Arnold's story is a simple and direct account of a Christian life stripped to the essentials.” —Thomas Merton Plough Subscribers can access this week’s free ebook, *A Joyful Pilgrimage* by Emmy Arnold, in the Downloads section of their account. plough.com/books/a-joyful-pi…

A Christian outlook helps us to weather the technological society. @frjoshTX share.google/CgaudRgXJJLtnDH…

"Many Christian celebrities say that Christians don’t have to be “successful” as defined by our culture, but their priorities and pocketbooks say something very different." @AndyHenry10 share.google/vRVnTjVnA77Xuj0…

“Maybe it is my love of monsters, but I wish to see the world as the grotesques do. They do not seek out the ugly as we do. They do not examine themselves in the mirror. They do not lament their body shape. They do not bemoan the state of their clothes or nitpick flaws.” —Sergio Bermudez plough.com/articles/those-hi…

“For Stein, empathy is ‘a kind of act of perceiving sui generis.’ In other words, empathy is perception, not imagination. But empathy is a special kind of perception, not the kind appealed to in the easy view. Empathy is, specifically, a kind of perception of persons, and involves a perceptual perspective-taking, in which one sees some aspect of the world through another person’s perspective. When we see the world as other people do, we can be sure of the existence of other minds because new ways of looking are afforded to us which we would not have if not for their existence. We know there is another, because we see, at least in part, through his eyes.” —Melina Garibovic plough.com/articles/edith-st…

“The girl with the pearl earring turning to face you, the light in her eye. The illusion of actual presence is so intense. And the intensity with which the illusion has been achieved by the painter, the degree of concentration in each image, the meditative quality. The people in them look as if they might be meditating, but the paintings themselves seem to invite you in to meditate on what it is that they show and to wonder about the significance of what that might be.” —Andrew Graham-Dixon plough.com/articles/hidden-m…