I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being, with an independent will🕊️Jane Eyre "The words...are bold...but within the context of the narrative, the words – are even more astonishing." @karenswallowprior.bsky.social www.plough.com/articles/jan...

Some good reading here, as usual from @plough.bsky.social. David Bentley Hart’s article is a worthwhile read, even for non-baseball fans.

"The tendency of the church is perpetually to be covering up its own naked simplicity, forgetting that the truth is never so beautiful as when it stands in its own unadorned, God-given glory." Charles Spurgeon www.plough.com/articles/pra...

I have a soft spot for both Thérèse of Lisieux and Friedrich Nietzsche, but this Karl Stern article is wonderful: www.plough.com/en/topics/li...

"Oh, you may think I am being hyperbolic, but I am convinced I am right. To be clear, I am talking about baseball in particular, not sport in general." #DBH www.plough.com/articles/run...

A marvelous little essay on history, transcendence, & perhaps a bit of faith. www.plough.com/articles/hal...

"Without being forgiven, released from the consequences of what we have done, our capacity to act would, as it were, be confined to one single deed from which we could never recover;" Hannah Arendt www.plough.com/articles/the...

My poem "tohu va-vohu" is published in @plough.bsky.social www.plough.com/articles/toh...

“At the very least, [baseball] offers us a glimpse into paradise – into childhood’s innocence, into Eden, into what Nicholas of Cusa called the walled garden of the divine essence – all under the aspect of play; and that is a great blessing.”— David Bentley Hart, for @plough.bsky.social

"The disciples were, so to speak, pretty much like the rest of us after all – a collection of no-good cowards and weaklings." Shusaku Endo www.plough.com/articles/fol...

"Do not, therefore, close your eyes before the sufferings of your neighbors. Do not fear that it will destroy your happiness if you live in sympathy with them." Emil Fuchs www.plough.com/articles/suf...

I am honored to have my review of a new introduction to modern martyr Edith Stein published at Mere Orthodoxy mereorthodoxy.com/the-sure-way... @plough.bsky.social

"...stupidity in [Arnold's] sense is a vice of complacency that particularly afflicts the educated bourgeoisie – the very people who make up the bulk of the readership of any small magazine." Peter Mommsen www.plough.com/articles/stu...

"Robert takes us to the place where there are no answers. He allows those he touches to feel love." www.plough.com/articles/the...

I'm working this summer on digital accessibility for my courses. One of the best treatments of accessibility I know of is this piece a few years ago in @plough.bsky.social: www.plough.com/articles/spa...

Coincidental timing -- this @bbcnews-world-rss.bsky.social piece was published around the same time as my @plough.bsky.social piece on Dickens's work vs. his life! www.plough.com/en/topics/cu... #booksky #literaturesky

Sometimes I’ll read something, or hear something, or experience something that draws from me the response, “There is a balm in Gilead.” This article drew that response from me. Thank you Stephen White and @plough.bsky.social

Where do I stand? I stand with Stanley. @plough.bsky.social youtu.be/3h0CKJ8Uq4M?...

Featured Book. Enjoying reading an early copy of this forthcoming book. Thurman writes of the inward transformation that must precede our efforts to transform the world. @plough.bsky.social

"Sooner or later we are confronted with the painful truth of our inadequacy and insufficiency. Our security is shattered and our bootstraps are cut." Brennan Manning www.plough.com/articles/the...

"For a couple of reasons I find myself suspicious of calls for ecclesial kenosis." Karen Kilby www.plough.com/articles/its...

Plough is thrilled to announce its inaugural annual short fiction contest, open to writers anywhere in the world. First prize = $2,000. www.plough.com/en/contact-u...

Nice piece, @ginadalfonzo.bsky.social!

Can we still appreciate great novels when we know their author behaved despicably? @ginadalfonzo.bsky.social www.plough.com/en/topics/cu...

In Schubert’s piece, you can positively feel and smell the breezes and scents and hear the birds and the whole of creation shouting for joy. www.plough.com/en/topics/cu...

"Karl Barth’s notion of preaching as an exposition of the Word of God is a helpful counterweight to these plans for LM-generated sermons." @arliecoles.bsky.social www.plough.com/en/topics/li...

I love this essay because it relates how two novels changed the course of the author's life. Keep reading everyone! -The novel *Quo Vadis* converts a disillusioned Communist to Christianity.- By Ignace Lepp www.plough.com/en/topics/fa...

God is a God incognito who does not manifest in great organ music or sublime ceremonies but who hides in the surprising face of the poor, in suffering (as in Jesus Christ), in the neighbor I meet, in fragility. Jacques Ellul www.plough.com/en/topics/fa...

If salvation is now, what do we do with time? By Charles Williams www.plough.com/en/topics/fa...

My favourite #Blumhardt (the elder) reading of all time--always true; always hopeful! "We are dehydrated people; the thirst is almost killing us..." www.plough.com/en/topics/cu...

"If we see solitude and stillness primarily as a means to more productivity, we will try to get by with just enough... But if these practices are essential to our very being [then] we will orient our work and our days, our weeks and our years, around them." @plough.bsky.social

It is criminal that I am only now discovering Georges Simenon at this point in my life. How is it possible that I knew of Tintin, but not Maigret?!

War and Christianity are like the opposite ends of a balance, of which one is depressed by the elevation of the other. By Jonathan Dymond www.plough.com/en/topics/ju...

Reflections on the Ascension and Pentecost by St. Óscar Romero Ascension Sunday will have a Pentecostal flavor in our family this year — our fourteen-year-old (along with ninety-seven others in the parish) is receiving Confirmation on Saturday evening, the vigil of the Ascension 🔥

"All has been created by God, but humans have subjected it to sin. And so Christ’s ascension proclaims that the whole creation will also be redeemed in him" Oscar Romero www.plough.com/en/topics/cu...

The fertility industry pushes IVF as an answer to the pain of childlessness. But at what cost? @mattleeanderson.bsky.social www.plough.com/en/topics/li...

"The true adversary was the machinery of fashionable cynicism sweeping through modern culture. Beneath its cloak of anonymity and its pretense of commentary, the magazine’s writers had turned what we now know as rage-bait into a profitable art." www.plough.com/en/topics/fa...

My latest @plough.bsky.social article.

"Alas, joys are not what he has been sending us for some time, it is the cross and only the cross that he gives us to rest upon…." Thérèse Martin, a fifteen-year-old postulant in the Carmelite convent at Lisieux: www.plough.com/en/topics/li...

War and Peace and Cabbage

"The way that I grew up even after the Berlin Wall came down, people just weren’t religious, it just wasn’t there." Katja Hoyerin a fascinating interview w Joy Clarkson www.plough.com/en/topics/fa...

"Ours is a tragic century where men are faced with tremendous decisions....This is also the age of neuroses, of euphoriants – all symbols of man’s desire to escape from reality, responsibility and decision-making." Catherine de Hueck Doherty www.plough.com/en/topics/fa...

Living faithfully a hidden life: "The Moral Beauty of Middlemarch" @plough.bsky.social (Plus- The Mill on the Floss) Valuing virtue: roughlydaily.com/2026/03/21/t...

"Post-religious conservatism is producing its own successor ideology. It manifests in divergent forms – from technological maximalism, to a primitivism fixated on physical strength, imputed statistical differences between races, and phrenology." @plough.bsky.social www.plough.com/en/topics/ju...

“When I asked him about it, the student replied that his draft was hard to wrangle. He couldn’t get the flow right. He didn’t like some of his transitions. So ChatGPT smoothed it out. Made it cleaner. Made it better. It wasn’t better.” —Anna Jordan

Some exciting post today - the latest @plough.bsky.social and from @beehivebooks.bsky.social a really beautiful edition of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s ‘Wonder Book’ illustrated by the marvellous Das Pastoras.

Bold petitioners: Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milkah and Tirzah!

A Quaker in colonial America works through questions of conscience in his journal: Can a Christian pay war taxes? Can a Christian join the military when drafted? Can a Christian billet active troops? By John Woolman www.plough.com/en/topics/ju...

“I am so sorry, there is something wrong with the baby. We need to fetch the consultant.” Sarah C. Williams www.plough.com/en/topics/ju...