Welcome to The Light, your quiet hour of reflection.
John Cooper, the frontman of Skillet, has spoken openly about enduring what he calls absolutely brutal abuse within a church he served for thirty years. He describes a high-control, cultish environment that wounded him deeply over two years, and says that pain became the foundation of his new album, turning suffering into something offered back to the world.
From the wounds of community, we turn outward to the cosmos. After an eight-year journey through the dark between worlds, the BepiColombo twin orbiters are approaching Mercury, our solar system's smallest and least understood planet. What they find may quietly rewrite what we thought we knew about rocky worlds and the forces that shape them.
And as the week draws toward rest, an older wisdom asks us to pause. Reflections on scripture and Labor Day remind us that the soul was never designed for relentless striving. Rest, in this framing, is not a reward earned but a truth built into the rhythm of being human, something we return to rather than arrive at.
That is this hour's reflection. Carry the light gently.
