Welcome to The Light, your quiet hour of reflection.
We begin with a question older than most institutions: what does it mean for the divine to be jealous? A new reflection in Relevant Magazine sits with Exodus thirty-four, where God names himself jealous, and asks whether that word carries something we've too quickly dismissed — not the smallness of envy, but the depth of a love that refuses indifference. It is worth pausing there.
From that ancient text, we turn to a life recently completed. Robert B. Sloan Jr., president of Houston Christian University and a transformative figure in faith-based higher education, died suddenly at seventy-seven. He leaves behind an institution reshaped by his vision, and a community now sitting with the particular silence that follows an unexpected farewell.
And then there is the heat — one hundred sixty-five million Americans under extreme heat warnings this past Fourth of July weekend. Half a nation celebrating its two hundred fiftieth year while also sharing fans and ice. Climate anxiety, as one writer names it plainly, is real. The future has a way of arriving uninvited, even into our celebrations.
That's this hour's reflection. Carry the light gently.
