Radiance

(2025-05-19)

Radiant is a wonderful word that evokes images of light and even sensations of the warm, constant energy of the sun. I want to highlight two meanings of the word radiant:

• radiating rays or reflecting beams of light, and
• marked by or expressive of love, confidence, or happiness

(Merriam-Webster). These two meanings, of course, are metaphorically connected. Real love, confidence, and happiness can only be expressed when radiating out from some inner core which is inherently capable of those actions.

One can consider how a radiant lights fills all that room with light. The idea of being radiant is contrasted with the idea of being vacuous. One definition of vacuous is emptied of or lacking content (Merriam-Webster). Imagine a black hole - a former star which is collapsed under its own weight and rather than radiating light, it absorbs light and any nearby matter. The radiant star and the vacuous black hole serve as cosmic metaphors that can be applied to the extremes of human existence.

The following are three thoughts on how radiance applies to human life: dignity, self-talk, and tapering influence. I will finally conclude with the relationship of radiance and God.

Dignity

What is the inner core that radiance emanates from? A radiant attitude stems from an inner sense of inherent value and dignity, simply based on the fact that one is a human. This is the idea that all humans have a precious innate worth by nature. This means that one's past, present, or future status has no effect upon one's worth as a dignified human.

Most people accept a version of this idea in theory, and assent to it mentally. And, Americans get a sense of dignity when they read [...] all men are created equal [...] in the Declaration of Independence. Yet, many Americans also seem to act in a way that this is not true: namely, in a sort of vacuous idea. This is where someone ties their sense of dignity to their status, whether it be social, moral, monetary, appearance, or sexual status. The vacuous thought is that one's dignity comes from one's status in something, rather than being independent of it. An example is thought that I am a more/less valuable person because I am more/less moral, or I am a more/less valuable person because I earn more/less money. This is vacuous because at the core, one believes that one has no real inherent value and that value must be acquired through status. One is acting as if one starts as empty of real value and must acquire value through the pursuit of status, filling the void.

In contrast, a radiant attitude comes from unrevokable dignity. This means a person is valuable as a person regardless of status. In this mindset, one will perform an action not because they feel the need to acquire value through status, but rather one does an action in order to express one's dignity in an action which is a gift to themselves and to the world.

Self-talk

Basically, one's inner voice and attitude towards life generally leans towards a more radiant or more vacuous manner of speaking. Both can be effective for gaining status in life, and the vacuous way more directly approaches status because that is all there is to worth, but that comes with a cost. The cost is ...?

See this video about Radiant vs Vacuous Self-talk (21 minutes) which was my inspiration for this article.

Radius

The idea of radiating light comes with this idea of radius. Once light passes out of the boundary radius of a star and gets further and further away, the light is more spread out and dimmer by virtue of distance.

Of course brighter stars and lights have more light, which means it can reach futher, but it also means that being close to such a bright object is very bright indeed

We can say also, that a person's radiant influence tends to diminish with decreased proximity

God

The Christian church would say, from God, of course, and the idea is basically that humans have a divine core. What could be possibly more radiant than God's creative action? A vivid example of divine radiance is depicted in Christian iconography. The icon of the Transfiguration depicts a revelation of God's radiance (at least as much as the disciples present could bear). The revelation is not just meant to serve as showing the glory of God, but that when humans allow it, then humans will be able to shine in just such a way.

By Unknown author - http://www.icon-art.info/masterpiece.php?mst_id=1123&where=library, Public Domain, Link