Welcome to The Light, your quiet hour of reflection.
In Dallas, a lawsuit from two thousand nine has resurfaced around Pastor Frederick Haynes, who leads a congregation of thirteen thousand and is now seeking a seat in Congress. The suit alleges he wired two thousand dollars to a woman who had sent him a topless photograph — a reminder that public faith and private conduct do not always speak the same language.
From Kentucky comes a heavier silence. Scott Hughes, a Southern Baptist pastor, now faces multiple charges of child sex abuse. There are no careful words that soften this. There is only the weight of it, and the communities left holding that weight, wondering what trust means after it has been broken in the most sacred of spaces.
And then, reaching toward something brighter — the Artemis Two crew, orbiting the moon with instruments of extraordinary power, chose also to carry pencils. Their handwritten notes documenting the lunar surface remind us that even at the frontier of human capability, something in us still reaches for the slow, deliberate act of writing things down by hand, as though permanence requires touch.
That is this hour's reflection. Carry the light gently.
