Welcome to The Light.
On the fourth of July, floodwaters swept through Camp Mystic in Hunt, Texas, taking twenty-eight lives from a Christian summer camp for girls along the Guadalupe River. Now the camp has filed for bankruptcy as wrongful death lawsuits mount from more than a dozen grieving families, leaving a community to reckon with grief, accountability, and the silence that follows sudden loss.
From that human darkness, we turn skyward. Astronomers have released an image of the Milky Way's galactic bulge in unprecedented detail, capturing sixty million stars in a single frame. It is the kind of image that quietly rearranges your sense of scale, reminding us that what we call the universe is not a backdrop but a living, luminous presence we are somehow part of.
And in the realm of conscience and expression, Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred confirmed that San Francisco Giants players who quietly inscribed Bible verses on their pride night caps will face no discipline. It is a small moment, but it opens a larger question about how institutions hold space for both celebration and conviction, and whether those two things must always be in conflict.
That is this hour's reflection. Carry the light gently.
