Sarah Clarkson

What should we do with enemies?Jesus challenges us to love our enemies. In today’s swirl of hatemongering, political polarization, and online nastiness, even Christians have skirted this command or given it up as impossible or foolish. What does it really mean to love our enemies? And how might our lives and our world change if we did? In this issue we apply these tough questions to real situations, and hear from people who have put this command into practice in some of the toughest circumstances.On this theme: - Can we afford to love our enemies in a cancel culture?- What sort of enemies did Jesus expect us to love? - The problem with "love the sinner, hate the sin"- Channeling outrage while working with children displaced by war- What Coptic Christians know about praying for their persecutors- Two incarcerated friends defy a racist prison culture.- What about mental illness, when your mind becomes your enemy? - Students find ways to debate tough issues constructively.- A Russian Christian speaks out against the war in Ukraine.Also in the issue:- Maria Novella De Luca photographs Algerian women demining the Sahara.- Dana Wiser remembers civil rights activist Staughton Lynd.- Zena Hitz asks what we’d do with our time if we weren’t so busy.- Kathleen A. Mulhern gives advice for keeping the faith afterhours.- Susannah Black Roberts celebrates the life and example of Tim Keller.- Nathan Beacom call for reestablishing Lyceums in working-class towns.- Maureen swinger recounts the exploits of Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty.Plough Quarterly features stories, ideas, and culture for people eager to apply their faith to the challenges we face. Each issue includes in-depth articles, interviews, poetry, book reviews, and art.

In a noisy world, the cultivation of quiet may feel like a luxury you do not have. But it is also vital to your spiritual life. When we spend our days distracted by social media, news, entertainment, and jam-packed schedules, we make it nearly impossible to experience the kind of thought life that allows us to grow into the people God created us to be--to become more and more like Jesus. We're too busy and distracted to notice the people and situations God has placed in our path for our spiritual benefit.Reclaiming Quiet is your invitation to discover the profound joy of resisting our cultural obsession with distraction and instead cultivating a life of holy attention. With practical strategies to add stillness, listening, and rest into your daily rhythms, this book shows you how to · care for your inner life· listen to the voice of God in the everyday· stay grounded in the now while looking with hope and expectation to the futureYou're more than a viewer, a user, or a consumer. You are a child of God, a recipient of his grace, a disciple who is seeking to follow him more closely. It's time to reclaim all that. It's time to seek out some holy quiet.

We live in a broken world. Amid the daily realities of sickness and isolation, disappointment and pain, it can be profoundly difficult to grasp the real goodness of God. But this is where God breaks into our darkness with beauty. In the wonder of creation, in art or film, story or song, in the kindness of his people and the good they create, God breaks into our pain in a tangible way, teaching us to trust his kindness and hope for his healing. Beauty is a voice singing into our suffering, beckoning us toward restoration.In This Beautiful Truth, Sarah Clarkson shares her own encounters with beauty in the midst of her decade-long struggle with mental illness, depression, and doubt. In a voice both vulnerable and reflective, she paints a compelling picture of the God who reaches out to us in a real and powerful way through the "taste and see" goodness of what he has made and what he continues to create amid our darkness. "To recognize and trust God's gift in pain," she writes, "empowers us to create and love as powerful witnesses to God's healing love in a hopeless world."If you want to renew your capacity to recognize and encounter God's beauty in your life, this hope-filled book will show you the way.

We live in a broken world. Amid the daily realities of sickness and isolation, disappointment and pain, it can be profoundly difficult to grasp the real goodness of God. But this is where God breaks into our darkness with beauty. In the wonder of creation, in art or film, story or song, in the kindness of his people and the good they create, God breaks into our pain in a tangible way, teaching us to trust his kindness and hope for his healing. Beauty is a voice singing into our suffering, beckoning us toward restoration.In This Beautiful Truth, Sarah Clarkson shares her own encounters with beauty in the midst of her decade-long struggle with mental illness, depression, and doubt. In a voice both vulnerable and reflective, she paints a compelling picture of the God who reaches out to us in a real and powerful way through the "taste and see" goodness of what he has made and what he continues to create amid our darkness. "To recognize and trust God's gift in pain," she writes, "empowers us to create and love as powerful witnesses to God's healing love in a hopeless world."If you want to renew your capacity to recognize and encounter God's beauty in your life, this hope-filled book will show you the way.

Discover the gift of friendship In an era when many women struggle with feelings of isolation and deep loneliness, Girls' Club calls us to embrace the delight and joy that can be found in life-giving female friendships-relationships that not only offer emotional affirmation and acceptance but also inspire, educate, and stretch us to live out our God-given potential.Girls' Club is a book of stories and encouragement based on the experiences of the authors: a middle-aged mom, her newly married oldest daughter, and her youngest daughter, a single woman in graduate school.While there are many books on women's friendships that tout the message of meeting each other in the mess, Girls' Club will speak to the value and satisfaction found through friendships in which women not only support each other emotionally but also encourage each other to become more excellent women.Girls' Club will encourage women to take the initiative to seek out other women with whom to share life and to be blessed with the gift of deep friendship.

Discover the gift of friendship In an era when many women struggle with feelings of isolation and deep loneliness, Girls' Club calls us to embrace the delight and joy that can be found in life-giving female friendships-relationships that not only offer emotional affirmation and acceptance but also inspire, educate, and stretch us to live out our God-given potential.Girls' Club is a book of stories and encouragement based on the experiences of the authors: a middle-aged mom, her newly married oldest daughter, and her youngest daughter, a single woman in graduate school.While there are many books on women's friendships that tout the message of meeting each other in the mess, Girls' Club will speak to the value and satisfaction found through friendships in which women not only support each other emotionally but also encourage each other to become more excellent women.Girls' Club will encourage women to take the initiative to seek out other women with whom to share life and to be blessed with the gift of deep friendship.

When you hear a riveting story, does it thrill your heart and stir your soul? Do you hunger for truth and goodness? Do you secretly relate to Belle's delight in the library in Beauty and the Beast? If so, you may be on your way to being a book girl. Books were always Sarah Clarkson's delight. Raised in the company of the lively Anne of Green Gables, the brave Pevensie children of Narnia, and the wise Austen heroines, she discovered reading early on as a daily gift, a way of encountering the world in all its wonder. But what she came to realize as an adult was just how powerfully books had shaped her as a woman to live a story within that world, to be a lifelong learner, to grasp hope in struggle, and to create and act with courage. She's convinced that books can do the same for you. Join Sarah in exploring the reading life as a gift and an adventure, one meant to enrich, broaden, and delight you in each season of your life as a woman. In Book Girl, you'll discover: how reading can strengthen your spiritual life and deepen your faith, why a journey through classic literature might be just what you need (and where to begin), how stories form your sense of identity, how Sarah's parents raised her to be a reader--and what you can do to cultivate a love of reading in the growing readers around you, and 20+ annotated book lists, including some old favorites and many new discoveries.Whether you've long considered yourself a reader or have dreams of becoming one, Book Girl will draw you into the life-giving journey of becoming a woman who reads and lives well.