Ramadan 2025 Day Eighteen: Holy Light

“Allah is the Light of the heavens and earth.
God’s Light is like this: there is a niche, and in it there is a lamp,
the lamp is inside a glass,
the glass like a glittering star,
fueled from a blessed olive tree -
from neither the East or West -
whose oil gives light even when no fire touches it.”
-Sura Al-Noor (The Light)

Our child, not-coincidentally named Noor, was recently gifted a moon flashlight. About every other day, they point frantically at the top of their dresser and exclaim “Nommy! Noom! Moom! Bo! Moom!” And so we turn off the lights in their room and/or pull down the shade, and turn on the Moon.

This child is like a cat with a laser pointer when the Moon shines on their wall (then their floor, on their belly, on their parents, etc). They chase it, trying to capture it in their hands. We were even semi-successful in getting them to chant “Come down, moon!” when it’s on the ceiling and they want to make it come down to within their reach. Eventually, they inevitably demand to hold the moon flashlight themself, unsuccessfully tracking it now that they’re shining it into their palm because they have no idea what a flashlight is.

But they hold on tight to it. They know that the moon is there shining, even if it’s not quite visible to them in that moment. Even when it is turned off and tucked away behind a lotion bottle because Nommy is done with chasing the moon after 7 rounds, they know that Moom is there (::sigh::). Even when, after crawling all over the floor and standing on tippy toes to “touch” the moon, they never really hold it, they are thrilled to see the moon. To know that it’s there.

What would it feel like to regularly get in touch with a gratitude for something so intangible yet so ever present? Something that, even when it’s “tucked away,” or someone tries to hide it from us, we know exactly where it is when the time comes? That even if we do not understand it, being able to interact with it brings us such exhilaration and joy?

Perhaps that is one way to understand and return to God / the Divine / Love / the Sacred. A light that needs no tending to remain always present. A light that need only be called upon to shine. A light that we may share ourselves at times, sometimes clumsily, but still available for others to “see.”