Featured

Silhouette of a person blending into an abstract background of orange, pink, and white textures.
Hide and Seek with Providence
Suffering from intractable Lyme disease, I look for meaning and fear to find it.
Ross Douthat
Essay
Renaissance painting of Madonna in blue holding baby Jesus with halos against a gold patterned background.
Mary’s Song
My journey with disability taught me to trust a God who raises up the weak and brings down the mighty.
Victoria Reynolds Farmer
Essay
Abstract painting with earth tones and hints of blue, featuring organic shapes and textured brushstrokes.
How Funerals Differ
When the woman with the clown nose walked past us, I noticed that her eyes were wet with tears.
Eugene Vodolazkin
Personal History
Child with blond hair raising both hands sitting on a light-colored floor with shadows.
When Merit Drives Out Grace
Meritocracies assume that economic productiveness is the highest value. That’s why they fail.
Amy Julia Becker
Essay
Woman sitting on floor holding and engaging with child in colorful room with paintings on windowsill.
Unfinished Revolution
On the long road toward dignity for people with disabilities, we’ve gone far – but not nearly far enough.
Joe Keiderling
Essay

From the Editor

Close-up of a cracked stone sculpture's face showing eyes, nose, and lips in grayscale.
Made Perfect
Whose lives count as fully human? The answer matters for everyone, disabled or not.
Peter Mommsen
From the Editor

Insights

Abstract artwork with vertical stripes in green, blue, yellow, gray, red, and curved intersecting stripes.
Falling Down
When you’re challenged by your body, you must love as fiercely as you fight.
Molly McCully Brown
Reading
Black and white close-up of a newborn baby cradled gently in adult hands against a dark background.
The Hidden Costs of Prenatal Screening
Testing for fetal abnormalities is not a neutral practice. It sends a message.
Sarah C Williams
Viewpoint
Open photo album with a boy in a suit making a peace sign and a girl holding a model airplane.
The Baby We Kept
Our son Yusang has Down syndrome. He saved another child’s life.
Heonju Lee
Personal History
A lone tree reflected in calm water at sunrise with mountains and clouds in the background.
The World Turned Right-Side Up
Was Saint Paul’s famous “thorn in the flesh” a disability?
Isaac T Soon
Essay
Portrait painting of a smiling child wearing a yellow crown looking to the right against a soft background.
The Lion’s Mouth
Mass shootings have made violent death seem normal. It’s not.
Edwidge Danticat
Essay
Three women sitting at a sunlit bus stop shelter with glass panels and a tree nearby.
Stranger in a Strange Land
Even in Brooklyn, our Orthodox Jewish family feels alien. That’s not all bad.
Kelsey Osgood
Essay
Four angels in yellow robes with white wings fly around a glowing star on a blue starry background.
One Star above All Stars
A star shone forth in heaven brighter than all the stars; its light was indescribable and its strangeness caused amazement.
Ignatius of Antioch
Reading

Web Exclusives

The Teacher Who Never Spoke
A formidable young man stayed with our family on a summer break from the Ivy League. He had never, to anyone’s knowledge, lost an argument. Until he met my brother Duane, that is – my brother, who had never learned to speak...
Maureen Swinger
Essay
Silhouetted soldier holding rifle beside graphic of book cover titled 'Wounding Warriors' with American flag.
The Disability Ratings Game
An Army officer returns from Afghanistan as a double amputee.
Colored illustration of a fantastical elephant-like creature with exaggerated features and large tusks.
Calling from the Edge
Disability asks us questions that only more questions can answer.
Elderly woman in bed holding hands and smiling with a younger woman wearing glasses and a headscarf.
The Way Home
A daughter with Down syndrome comes to terms with her mother’s death.
Erna Albertz
Barbed wire fences and guard towers surrounding a brick prison building with turrets.
The Beginning of Understanding
Readers respond to Ashley Lucas’s report “The End of Rage” in Plough’s Autumn 2021 issue.
Monochrome image of a smiling woman holding and looking down at a baby on her lap.
The Island of Misfit Toys
There is a land where my baby son and I and all who are broken are welcomed and made whole.
Small boat with canopy on choppy water in heavy rain and foggy conditions.
A More Christian Approach to Mental Health Challenges
Plough’s Joy Clarkson speaks with John Swinton about discipleship and mental health.
John Swinton

Arts & Letters

Covers of two books: one on disability design with a woman in a wheelchair, the other on body and built world.
Spaces for Every Body
What would a world designed for humans with and without disabilities look like?
Leah Libresco Sargeant
Review
Dark silhouetted figure with green laced boot on twisted branch with red leaves in misty, colorful background.
Poem: “So Trued to a Roar”
So trued to a roar, / so accustomed to a grimace / of against, I hardly noticed / it was over.
Christian Wiman
Poetry
Stylized illustration of a sharp, angular mountain peak in dark and light blue shades.
Poem: “No Omen but Awe”
No diamond, no time, no omen but awe / that a whirlwind could in not cohering cohere. / Loss is my gift, bewilderment my bow.
Christian Wiman
Poetry
Abstract art with black and blue horizontal wavy lines resembling a landscape and water.
Poem: “Consider the Shiver”
Consider the shiver that goes through still water like a sound. / Who would we have to be to hear it?
Christian Wiman
Poetry
Book cover of Dirty Work by Eyal Press with black and white photos and orange title block.
Editors’ Picks: Dirty Work
Who are the people who do jobs we cannot imagine doing ourselves, and does their work trouble them?
Chris Zimmerman
Editors’ Pick
Book cover titled 'Millennial Nuns' with prayers illustration on pine needles background.
Editors’ Picks: Millennial Nuns
Eight millennial women tell why they ended up in a convent.
Sr. Carino Hodder, OP
Editors’ Pick
Book cover of Directorate S by Steve Coll about CIA secret wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Editors’ Picks: Directorate S
Why did the United States lose in Afghanistan?
Scott Beauchamp
Editors’ Pick