Welcome to The Light, your quiet hour of reflection.
In Ohio, a shadow has fallen over a congregation. Pastor Israel Ford, who recently announced a second wife in a polygamous arrangement, now faces a grave allegation — his stepdaughter Kourtney Jones says he sexually abused her for years. It is a story about the misuse of trust, of sacred authority turned inward toward harm, and it asks us to sit with the painful truth that spiritual power can be weaponized against the very vulnerable it claims to protect.
From the intimate and devastating, we turn outward — far outward. Astronomers studying a dead star have found a ring of debris that may be the remains of orbiting planets, offering us a quiet preview of what our own solar system will one day become. There is something both humbling and strangely consoling in looking at an ending so vast, so unhurried, so indifferent to our small urgencies.
And yet meaning persists, even in small rooms. NFL offensive coordinator Nate Scheelhaase credits his years as a youth pastor and high school chaplain for the relational wisdom that shapes his coaching today. He learned, it seems, that leading well has always been less about strategy and more about presence.
That is this hour's reflection. Carry the light gently.
