Welcome to The Light, your quiet hour of reflection.
A grief has settled over one corner of the church this week. Pastor Mike Stone of the Southern Baptist Convention has announced the passing of his daughter Sarah Ellington Stone, just nineteen years old, after a long and difficult battle with illness. There are no words adequate to that kind of loss, only the willingness to sit near it.
From grief, we turn to a question Ruth Haley Barton has been asking quietly but persistently: why does regular church attendance so often leave us unchanged? She invites congregations to examine whether the forms of worship they've inherited are actually creating space for genuine transformation, or simply reinforcing familiar patterns that ask little of the soul.
And in the state of Florida, a federal judge has ruled that Iowa officials must permit a local chapter of The Satanic Temple to hold an event in the state Capitol this holiday season. The ruling rests on the principle that government spaces opened to religious expression must remain open to all, a reminder that the freedom protecting one tradition ultimately protects every tradition.
That's this hour's reflection. Carry the light gently.
