Pain is inevitable. Almost everyone is living with some kind of pain, whether the cause is physical, emotional, financial, social, or spiritual. A desire to escape it has led thousands of Canadians to seek euthanasia, and countless others into opioid addiction. What can we learn from people around the world for whom pain is a fact of life? How can we help others bear their pain? How might the wisdom of earlier eras help us? What answers does faith offer?

On this theme:

• Navid Kermani visits farming Madagascar battling drought caused by climate change.

• Benjamin Crosby asks why churches haven't spoken out against Canada's euthanasia experiment.

• Tom Holland sums up the history of pain in two artworks and three lives.

• Lisabeth Button shares correspondence with a friend succumbing to Alzheimer's.

• Rick Warren demonstrated how our own suffering can lead to our best ministry.

• Wang Yi, an imprisoned Chinese pastor, calls churches to face repression boldly.

• Leah Libresco Sargeant profiles nuns providing palliative care.

• Eleanor Parker considers an Anglo-Saxon poem, "The Dream of the Rood."

• Brewer Eberly tells what he learned from an insufferable patient.

• Randall Gauger, who lost his son to cancer, finds lessons in C. S. Lewis.

Also in the issue:

• A report on the resurgence of bison by Nathan Beacom

• Original poetry by Sofia M. Starnes and Julia Nemirovskaya

• An excerpt from a new graphic novel, By Water

• Reviews of Barbara Kingsolver's Demon Copperhead, James K. A. Smith's How to Inhabit Time, and Nick Cave's and Sean O'Hagan's Faith, Hope and Carnage.

• Readings from Eduardo Galeano, Felicity of Carthage, Anselm of Canterbury, Julian of Norwich, Martin Luther, and J. Heinrich Arnold

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.