Welcome to The Light, your quiet hour of reflection.
In the eastern Indian state of West Bengal, Christians have faced mob attacks on churches, prayer meetings, and homes following a Hindu nationalist election victory. A new campaign has emerged to counter fabricated claims of mass conversion, raising old and urgent questions about how power, fear, and faith collide in the world's largest democracy.
From violence born of political victory, we turn to a story of violence born of something deeper — a child named Daniel, raised in a Romanian orphanage, who spent seven years confined to a crib. Adopted at age eight, he slowly learned trust, then erupted in rages his family could barely contain. His story asks what it means to love someone whose wounds make them dangerous, and whether love itself can hold.
And in the American political landscape, the death of Senator Lindsey Graham has prompted reflection on what it means to be a politician of this particular era — a man whose patriotism was genuine, whose contradictions were many, and whose career became a kind of mirror held up to a nation still searching for its own reflection.
That's this hour's reflection. Carry the light gently.
