Welcome to The Light, your quiet hour of reflection.
Somewhere beneath the feet of ancient dinosaurs, a small otterlike creature was already reshaping the future of intelligence. Scientists have identified a new mammal ancestor whose distinctive throat structure laid the anatomical groundwork for the larger brains that would eventually give rise to us. In the shadow of giants, something quiet was becoming.
That tension between smallness and something larger runs through the work of Skillet as well. Frontman John Cooper speaks of the band's new EP, After the Storm, as an act of honest vulnerability, channeling personal heartache into music that reaches toward hope. He calls it an answer to what he names the silent screams, those interior sufferings we rarely speak aloud but carry nonetheless.
And perhaps that impulse to name what we carry is what animates a recent reflection on a Christian bucket list, fifty meaningful acts a believer might undertake before heaven. Forgiveness, service, prayer, purpose. Not destinations so much as orientations, ways of moving through a life with intention and open hands.
That's this hour's reflection. Carry the light gently.
