Stephanie Bennett

Stressful. Overwhelming. Too much. If these words describe the tone of your everyday life, it's time for a change. Amidst a fast-paced world we need strong friends and family relationships more than ever. The digital devices used to connect us often inhibit even the best efforts to communicate effectively, pulling us into more remote exchanges that isolate us rather than bring us together. This book addresses these challenges head-on. With stories from Scripture and real life, the author helps readers find inspiration for love and friendship that flourish rather than simply survive.

Silence, Civility, and Sanity addresses the reclamation of civil communication and healthy public conversation at a time when people are very divided. Throughout this book, Stephanie Bennett focuses on the importance of silence to temper speech and embrace the art of listening to foster a more positive dialogue and civil society. Throughout this book, the author addresses the place of silence as a communicational good, intrapersonal silence in the history of contemplative prayer, the importance of attentive silence, the reflective use of silence, the ethical dimensions of silence, and the abuses of silence. This book also delves into the layers of technological advancement that obscure perception and act as noise that poses as silence, phantom silence. Bennett offers readers an alternative to the false binaries of culture-warring that plague our relationships, institutions, and public sphere. Scholars of communication, rhetoric, and media studies will find this book of particular interest.

Silence, Civility, and Sanity addresses the reclamation of civil communication and healthy public conversation at a time when people are very divided. Throughout this book, Stephanie Bennett focuses on the importance of silence to temper speech and embrace the art of listening to foster a more positive dialogue and civil society. Throughout this book, the author addresses the place of silence as a communicational good, intrapersonal silence in the history of contemplative prayer, the importance of attentive silence, the reflective use of silence, the ethnical dimensions of silence, and the abuses of silence. This book also delves into the layers of technological advancement that obscure perception and act as noise that poses as silence, phantom silence. Bennett offers readers an alternative to the false binaries of culture-warring that plague our relationships, institutions, and public sphere. Scholars of communication, rhetoric, and media studies will find this book of particular interest.

Sexual abuse can have devastating effects on a person's life. This story chronicles my forty-two year journey. It began when I was only nine and tells how I dealt with the abuse at different stages of my life. I have been told that God never gives you more than you can handle, but that doesn't mean He won't push you to the very limits of what you can take. Read how God used this to raise up a spiritual warrior!

This issue of Plough Quarterly explores the effects of technology on human flourishing. Whether its artificial intelligence, genome editing, Big Tech monopolies, or social media–induced depression, we live in a world that is being reshaped by technology from the ground up. How do we stay human? This issue of Plough Quarterly addresses challenges ranging from the lure of transhumanism to the erosion of silence by the smartphone. Technophobia is no answer, our contributors agree, but neither is a refusal to tackle real dangers. They ask: Why not try living without a computer or a television? Why give tablets to children when Steve Jobs refused to give them to his kids? Why write using a keyboard when you could wield a fountain pen? Technological asceticism of this kind won’t solve society-wide dilemmas. But it can help us maintain the spiritual independence needed to respond to them rightly. Also in this issue: original poetry by Jacob Stratman; reviews of new books by Ian Johnson, Steve Roud, and Markus Rathey; insights from Wendell Berry, Viktor Frankl, Ivan Illich, Carl Sandburg, C. S. Lewis, Alfred Delp, and Christoph Blumhardt; and art by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Jack Baumgartner, Nicholas Roerich, Rachel Newling, Kay Polk, Suellen McCrary, Stephen Scott Young, Jie Wei Zhou, Kiéra Malone, Torkel Pettersson, Mari Rast, Albrecht Dürer, René Magritte, and Kyle T. Webster. Plough Quarterly features stories, ideas, and culture for people eager to put their faith into action. Each issue brings you in-depth articles, interviews, poetry, book reviews, and art to help you put Jesus’ message into practice and find common cause with others.