Welcome to The Light, your quiet hour of reflection.
The Pentagon has released its fourth collection of files on unidentified anomalous phenomena, forty documents deep, including a military witness account describing something quote unlike anything I had seen. Whatever these encounters are, they press against the edges of what we think we know, and perhaps that pressure is itself worth sitting with.
From the skies to the soil of history, a pastor recently argued that America cannot rightly be called a Christian nation given the weight of its moral failures. A response pushes back, suggesting that founding ideals and imperfect practice are not the same thing. Nations, like people, may be defined by their aspirations as much as their wounds.
And closer still, to the words we hold sacred, two recent events are raising quiet alarm about biblical literacy, and about whether the version of scripture we read shapes what we actually hear. Translation is never neutral. Every word chosen is a door opened or gently closed.
That is this hour's reflection. Carry the light gently.
