The Daily Briefing highlights the news of the day and research that reveals the spirit of the day.
The Daily Briefing is a newsletter sent straight to your inbox every morning that provides biblical insight on today's news.
Top News
6. Wendell Berry, writer who extolled America’s agrarian past, has died at age 92 (NY Times)
“Wendell Berry, a Kentucky farmer who plowed his fields behind Belgian draft horses and wrote lyrical poems, novels and essays — mostly in pencil and without electric light — that explored his elegiac visions of the life and death of agrarian America, died on Monday at his home in Port Royal, Ky. He was 92. His daughter, Mary Berry, confirmed the death.
“Lanky and rawboned in middle age, with melancholy eyes, a jutting chin and a widow’s peak reminiscent of Lincoln’s, Mr. Berry wrote more than 50 volumes of poetry, fiction and argument that championed small family farms, the environment, local foods and interdependent communities, and railed against chemicals, most technologies, agribusiness and distant government.
“Mr. Berry was once hailed by the author and historian Page Smith as “a prophetic American voice of our day.” He never became a household name but, as his oeuvre grew over a half-century, advocates of agrarian and ecological causes embraced his work as an eloquent, if sometimes didactic, expression of their own hopes. Some critics likened his landed exhortations to those of Thoreau or Thomas Jefferson.”
Good writers tell you what to look at; great writers, like Wendell Berry, name what you’re already looking at. With subtlety, he gently reminded you of what makes you human and what makes this world special. “It is easy for me to imagine that the next great division of the world will be between people who wish to live as creatures and people who wish to live as machines.”
Consider The Vacation. “Once there was a man who filmed his vacation. He went flying down the river in his boat with his video camera to his eye, making a moving picture of the moving river upon which his sleek boat moved swiftly toward the end of his vacation. He showed his vacation to his camera, which pictured it, preserving it forever: the river, the trees, the sky, the light, the bow of his rushing boat behind which he stood with his camera preserving his vacation even as he was having it so that after he had had it he would still have it. It would be there. With a flick of a switch, there it would be. But he would not be in it. He would never be in it.”
Between the loss of Dolly and now Wendell, we Southerners have been through it this past week. His death leaves a large hole in this world, but his life left a bigger impact on it. "So, friends, every day do something that won’t compute. Love the Lord. Love the world. Work for nothing. Take all that you have and be poor. Love someone who does not deserve it." (Mt. 25)
5. U.S. carries out new military strikes in Iran (WaPo)
“U.S. forces launched a new round of strikes inside Iran, military officials said Tuesday, an expansion of attacks that recently resumed after weeks of a tenuous ceasefire. The strikes were in response to attempted attacks by Iran on commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and U.S. service members in the Middle East, according to Central Command, which oversees operations in the region. The strikes targeted air defense sites, radars, equipment used to distribute mines and other systems, Central Command said.
“President Donald Trump warned Tuesday that any retaliation would see Iran “hit again at a much harder and higher level.” Iran responded with missiles and drones launched toward U.S. positions in the region. Many of the 50,000 U.S. troops in the region have focused on enforcing Trump’s naval blockade, designed to inflict economic pain on Iran and to protect commercial vessels from attacks.”
Is this the start of a forever war? Writing in the NY Times, Ali Vaez asserts that “both countries believe time is on their side.” He writes that Iran expects oil shocks and market turmoil “to exhaust Washington’s resolve.” The US expects “financial attrition and military degradation to exhaust Tehran’s. Neither has a path to victory.” He concludes: “That is the logic of a forever war: Each side uses violence to test the other’s endurance. War becomes negotiation by other means.”
War does test endurance, but it also requires epistemic humility. This refers to the idea of trying to be less wrong than more right. Avoiding ignorance is easier than achieving genius, and by beginning from a humble position that you don't know enough, you'll gain more awareness of your blindspots… especially in the fog of war.
History is littered with wars that began on a whim and ended on a plot twist. Confusion among the Moabites resulted in their defeat. An angel in the night brought unexpected defeat. And a phantom noise lead to triumph against Syria. Armies may march out with strategic calculation, but peace usually sneaks in through the side door. (2 Kings 7, 19, 2 Chron. 20)
4. House GOP censures one of its own over conduct with female staffers (WaPo)
“The House on Tuesday voted overwhelmingly to censure Rep. Chuck Edwards, the North Carolina Republican whom the House Ethics Committee found last month had engaged in “persistent unprofessional and inappropriate conduct” toward two female staffers.
“In a 413-2 vote, the chamber followed through on the House Ethics Committee’s recommendation that Edwards be censured after an investigation from the panel found that the congressman had partaken in “persistent unprofessional and inappropriate conduct” toward the two staffers. As the votes poured in, Edwards sat at the front of the floor, shoulders slumped as he spoke briefly with the House chaplain. He voted against his own censure, alongside Rep. Ralph Norman (R-South Carolina).
“I find it particularly interesting that on this very day we’re passing a bill to condemn communism and socialism,” Edwards said after the vote, referencing a measure denouncing socialism in the United States and promoting voting reforms. “Yet this ethics investigation is very much akin to a Russian show trial.”
Does deviance happen slowly or all at once? A recent study found that people are more likely to abruptly do something extremely unethical rather than slowly build up to it. The significant reward makes it easier to justify a "one-time" moral lapse.
As our societal morals decrease, the prevalence of deviance grows… Studies have shown that people’s moral standards may lower over time. What was once considered unethical could now be viewed as understandable considering the circumstances. This is how corruption becomes normalized.
Calvin Coolidge rightly noted that character is the only sure foundation of the state. We the people entrust certain individuals to lead us into a more perfect union. When their integrity evaporates, our trust falters and our collective progress screeches to a stop. No elected official is perfect, but we should expect them to have the type of character that pursues perfection (Rom. 3:23, Prov. 14:32, 1 Tim. 3:2).
Cultural News
3. Gen Z Is Beating Burnout by Joining Rest Clubs (Real Simple)
“Maaliyah Symoné, founder of Club Rest Stop, a social club for tired people, hosts monthly events where busy city dwellers get together to do nothing… Symoné was inspired to start the club from her experience as a Reiki practitioner. “People always have the same complaints about how they’re burnt out. They don’t know how to rest on their own,” she explains. “We were taught pretty much everything else in school except how to rest. We’re always taught how to be productive, how to do more, and how to achieve more. But how do we do that if we’re all burnt out?” So, she started a free initiative that has attracted Gen Zers in need of rest.
“Every meeting is a bit different, Symoné explains, though every event focuses on one of the seven types of rest: physical, mental, sensory, creative, emotional, social, and spiritual.”
Contrary to popular belief, Americans are sleeping more today than they did 20 years ago. We are sleeping more (28 minutes) today than we did in 2003. This includes sleep at night and naps during the day. This increase may be due to the increasing prevalence of taking PTO simply to sleep (37 percent).
Has sleep replaced exercise? A 2026 global survey of 30,000 people found that 53 percent ranked sleep above diet and exercise as the most important habit for living a long and healthy life. Some suggest this could be the case due to reward incentives, specifically, it is easier to sleep more than eat better.
In the biblical narrative, we read about a God who appreciates order, providing a rhythmic pattern for life (1 Cor. 14:33, Gen. 1). Rest stops us but also reminds us of the One who sustains us (Mark 2:27, 1 Pet. 5:7, Ps. 73:26). If you struggle with sleep, you can count sheep or you can claim a promise from God: “…for he gives to his beloved sleep. (Ps. 127:2)”
News You Can Use
2. This might be the coolest way to find out you got the full time job
Watch it here. “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news…” (Is. 52:7)
1. Why 'Oreogate' is sparking a parenting debate
Watch it here. "But avoid foolish controversies and genealogies and arguments and quarrels about the law, because these are unprofitable and useless." (Titus 3:9)
