January 11

Kailash Satyarthi, William James, and Miep Gies

Author

David Barnhart
January 11, 2026

Altiplano in Bolivia, 2006. Own photo.

Today is the birthday, in 1954, of Kailash Satyarthi, Indian child labor activist and 2014 Nobel Peace Prize winner. He continues to work to abolish child slavery and human trafficking. 

Today is also the birthday, in 1842, of Willam James, pragmatic philosopher and one of the “fathers of psychology.” His influence is part of why I’m writing this devotional on saints. 

Today marks the death, in 2010, of Miep Gies, who helped hide Anne Frank’s family from Nazis and preserved her writings after they were captured. 

Reflection: 

"If things are ever to move upward, some one must take the first step, and assume the risk of it. No one who is not willing to try charity, to try non-resistance as the saint is always willing, can tell whether these methods will or will not succeed."

William James’s pragmatism also affects my own approach to religion: it is only good as long as it is good for something:

“If theological ideas prove to have a value for concrete life, they will be true, for pragmatism, in the sense of being good for so much. For how much more they are true, will depend entirely on their relations to the other truths that also have to be acknowledged.”

Kailash Satyarthi said: 

“I ask – Whose children are they who stitch footballs, yet never played with one?
Whose children are they who harvest cocoa, yet have never tasted chocolate?Whose children are they who are dying of Ebola?
Whose children are they who are kidnapped and held hostage?
They are all our children.

Prayer: God of Justice and Peace, may we only create policies that treat all children as our children, and the world as their world. Amen.