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

Scruples of Conscience The Quaker John Woolman kept a journal containing his thoughts on the Christian attitude toward military service, payment of war taxes, and billeting troops

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
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Perfectly Human Why did Sarah Williams decide to carry her baby to term after she found out that the child had a lethal deformity? When she realized that Cerian was perfectly human.

“I am so sorry, there is something wrong with the baby. We need to fetch the consultant.”
Sarah C. Williams
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Georges Simenon writes with such heart.

Thirteen False and Debilitating Ideas Over fifty years ago, two dozen theologians met in Hartford and identified thirteen heresies threatening the church. You may find them familiar.

The article’s title, “The Hartford Heresies,” became a popular moniker of dismissal by its progressive critics. But Neuhaus would note with satisfaction that the response from many laypeople was “an enormous sense of relief”
Nathaniel Peters
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Fret Not, Only Believe The people to whom you minister will be full of frettings, and you will be leading them from frettings into Christian peace.

"We live in a fretting world, and the gospel can be paraphrased, “Fret not, only believe.” More particularly, the people to whom you minister will be full of frettings, and you will be leading them from frettings into Christian peace."

Michael Ramsey
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Elegy for Sammy Basso The life of a young man with a rare genetic condition stretches our understanding of what it means to be human.

I’m grateful to Rosemarie Garland-Thomson for reminding us in this essay of the humanity we share (and perhaps even discover) across perceived differences. @plough.bsky.social www.plough.com/en/topics/ju...

In the mail, today @plough.bsky.social

The Fight Against Mammon In the febrile atmosphere of the Weimar Republic, Plough's founding editor sets Jesus' gospel against the gods of wealth and war.

"Mammon is money ruling over people. Subjected to the dominion of money ourselves, we lack the strength to rebel against its rule.”

🔥Eberhard Arnold

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"She is the angel that rushes in where fools get a club on the head...in fact she is the cat's whiskers."

Lord Peter on Miss Alexandra Kathleen Climpson.

I love listening to Golden Age murder mysteries as I quilt! what could be more delightful?

One of the most beautiful choral pieces I've had the privilege to sing.

Featured Book. The story of a Jewish convert to Catholicism, and her trust in Christ, even in the Holocaust. @plough.bsky.social

A good Easter read here. Well, ok, anytime is a good time to read Dorothy Sayers, love her. And @plough.bsky.social

Holy Saturday and the Journey to Emmaus Joel Clarkson introduces Josef Rheinberger’s motet Abendlied, which sets to music the disciples’ words from the day after Jesus’ death.

Josef Rheinberger’s motet “Abendlied” juxtaposes sorrow and joy.
@joelclarkson.bsky.social

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A Dirty Piece of Work, Tell the Bishop In her introduction to The Man Born to be King, Dorothy L. Sayers explains why she refused to whitewash the story of Good Friday, which has become so familiar in dignified archaic language that it no ...

We ought to be shocked at the crucifixion.
By Dorothy L. Sayers

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"The counsel of Palm Sunday is that Christians are free to enter into the depths of the world’s existence with nothing to offer the world but their own lives."
William Stringfellow
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"Distress teaches some to pray; it hardens others. Hardness is a defense mechanism which had at times its temptations for me also."
Corrie ten Boom
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Make Me an Instrument In an excerpt from Instrument of Thy Peace, Alan Paton writes about the Prayer of Saint Francis, and what it means to be God’s disciple in the world.

"God moves in his own mysterious ways, but a great deal of the time he moves through us. And it is because we are not there that so many do not believe in God’s love."
Alan Paton
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Devastating in its depth.

Unto Death J. E. McBride reviews Terrence Malick’s A Hidden Life, a story told in soundscapes: Cattle lowing, church bells ringing, children laughing in a bucolic alpine village. Aircraft droning, soldiers shout...

They think faith is a big electric blanket, when of course it is the cross.
—Flannery O’Connor

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The Moral Beauty of Middlemarch George Eliot's masterpiece teaches us to live faithfully a hidden life.

I read (listened to) Middlemarch for 1st time last fall/winter, and wish I'd done so earlier.

"In Eliot’s moral philosophy, our original sin is not malice or any other positive evil but our deafness and short-sightedness about the needs and feelings of others."

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It’s Not All Good, Man Churches are in decline. How should Christians respond?

"How else might we go about thinking about decline in our churches? I’d like to propose that reflection on death as we meet it in the lives of ordinary individuals might prove helpful."

Karen Kilby

An uplifting read about a sad subject.
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"Volcanic eruptions of inordinate bloodlust, followed by merciless countermeasures, have intensified in certain quarters and spread to such an extent that it is necessary to say a clear word here." Eberhard Arnold

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Today @plough.bsky.social 47 is out, featuring my short story 'Sieidi' - which has been beautifully illustrated

Summer City In this Sunday Source, Madeleine L’Engle retells the story of Eutychus’s resurrection, as recorded in Acts 20:19.

Summer City

and I ate, and drank some wine
and someone talked about the other men, the one
I’d jeered about, and then another guy called Lazarus,
and I didn’t understand. I only knew
there was a difference in the room

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I have a soft spot for both Thérèse of Lisieux and Friedrich Nietzsche, but this Karl Stern article is wonderful:

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