Welcome to The Light, your quiet hour for reflection.
There is something quietly profound about the books we press into small hands. Jen Wilkin reminds us that children's literature is not merely entertainment but formation, that the stories we read aloud shape the interior lives of those still learning what it means to be human.
And yet formation is not only tender, it can also be sharp. A recent reflection on Christian women and the long habit of blame asks us to consider how gossip, dressed in familiarity and laughter, has always found its way into our gatherings, just as it did in Lucy and Ethel's bridge club, moving through community like a current beneath still water.
What holds us together when that current pulls? Perhaps it is precisely the thing so many are now stepping away from. When we say we are spiritual but not religious, we may be choosing a freedom that quietly hollows us out, for faith without community, as Brad Edwards gently argues, tends to become a mirror rather than a window.
That is this hour's reflection. Carry the light gently.
