Christ is a humble sunset light who focuses not on himself, but on the beauty of the world thus illumined.

I experience the specific grace of Christ - the quiet, radiant warmth of divine love - most profoundly in the golden light of an autumn evening, especially when I'm out walking among the aspen trees.  It is then - as the Sun is just about to set - that my heart begins to glow, and all things, both inward and outward, start to melt together in a common golden Light.

Why, I wonder, do Jesus' disciples so often make him into an object to be endlessly gazed upon?  When we turn on a light, do we stare incessantly at the light itself, or do we look at the things it illumines? When Jesus called himself the "Light of the World," I don't think he wanted us to fixate on him as a separate individual.  Rather, he desired that we look at THE WORLD by means of the light of his quiet, self-emptying, humble, radiant love.

When we embody the mindset into which Jesus emptied himself, we too - as Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, agnostics, and everyone else -  will likewise empty ourselves in the task of lighting up the world with quiet divine love. As we do, we too - like the sun that is just about to disappear over the evening horizon - will lose consciousness of ourselves and focus instead on the beauty of this world that is thus illumined.  Are we up to the humility of such a task?

Photo: Sunset light illuminates an aspen leaf, with the Ruby Range as a backdrop; Oh-Be-Joyful Trail, Kebler Pass, near Crested Butte, CO; September 22, 2012