Welcome to The Light, your quiet hour of reflection.
New research asks a question worth sitting with: does an expanding waistline age the brain the way time does? Scientists studying obesity and memory loss are finding troubling overlaps, suggesting that what we carry in the body may quietly reshape what we can hold in the mind.
From the body to the borders of belonging — the Supreme Court ruled this week that asylum seekers turned away before crossing into the United States cannot be considered to have legally arrived, and that temporary protected status for Haitians and Syrians may be ended. Thousands of lives now rest in the space between a legal threshold and a human one.
And in Louisiana, a pastor named Tony Spell says he acted in the spirit of scripture when he physically confronted a man who had threatened his family and congregation with violence. He cites the gospel of Mark as his warrant. It raises an old and unresolved question about where protection ends and vengeance begins, and who gets to decide.
These are the questions we carry into the evening. That is this hour's reflection. Carry the light gently.
