Welcome to The Light, your quiet hour of reflection.
Kevin Rideout, a missionary pilot held captive for ten months in Niger, has returned home. He and his wife Krista met with President Trump at the White House, offering gratitude to the many Christians who prayed through the long uncertainty of his absence. There is something quietly remarkable about a story that moves through darkness and arrives, finally, at a room full of light.
From there, we turn to a question that has occupied theologians and peacemakers for centuries. Senate candidate James Talarico has drawn renewed attention for his claim that Christians, Muslims, and Jews worship the same God. It is a statement that some receive as a bridge and others as a wound, and perhaps that tension itself is worth sitting with rather than quickly resolving.
And in Norfolk, Virginia, a female police officer has filed a fifteen million dollar lawsuit after her department allowed a male transgender recruit to use the women's locker room and required colleagues to use his chosen pronouns. The case surfaces the deep and unresolved questions our institutions are still learning to hold, about dignity, safety, and who gets to define both.
That is this hour's reflection. Carry the light gently.
