Welcome to The Light, your quiet hour of reflection.
In Gaza City, two Palestinian Christian women — a mother and her daughter — were killed when an Israeli airstrike struck the apartment building where they lived. Israel says it targeted a Hamas leader in the same building. Their church mourns them. The world receives another reminder that war does not pause for the innocent.
From the chambers of law to the questions of conscience, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito has reflected on the two thousand twenty two abortion ruling, calling it the leading example of a decision that demanded courage. He also suggested the court is unlikely to revisit the two thousand fifteen ruling establishing same-sex marriage as a national right. What endures, and what remains contested, is never simple.
And from the realm of early human experience, new research suggests that babies may feel shame far sooner than we ever imagined — that the architecture of self-conscious emotion begins forming before we have words for it. What does it mean that the capacity for shame arrives so early, before language, before reason, before we can even ask whether we deserve to carry it.
That is this hour's reflection. Carry the light gently.
