In my home tradition of Quakerism, one of the most enduring symbols of faith is the Light. Accompanying the Light – what is also known as “that of God” – is a belief that Light exists within all people. This can sometimes be treated as more of a “sound bite” than a deep commitment, but in spaces where the teaching is honored it can be a truly transformational gateway to the dignified treatment of all.
What I have been surprised by in my interfaith journey and work is how present the Light is across a variety of traditions. Sometimes this manifests very physically, tangibly – with the lighting of candles, lanterns, and other fire/light bearing objects. This is true of Judaism, many pagan traditions, and Islam among others. In Islam, light is used to illustrate the holiness of a sacred time, like Ramadan, when the Fanoos, or Fanoos Ramadan, is used to light up homes, mosques, and streets. Sometimes it is a more metaphorical light, as in Quakerism. In researching to write this post I was lucky and grateful to learn more about Diwali, the Hindu Festival of Lights. I found it incredibly fascinating that even across India, there are differing ways of understanding and celebrating Diwali. However, all regions are unified by the lighting of lamps “symboliz[ing] the victory of light over darkness”. This understanding of Diwali as celebrated in India, differing regionally in specific practices but unified by a value in the lighting of lamps, helped me to better understand interfaith work as a whole. It served as a kind of microcosm for the macro of interfaith; we may each be lighting candles or lamps or lanterns in our own cultures, and we may be lighting them for wildly different purposes. But in the end we all return to the Light, and that is what can be seen from up above us when all our differences shift and blur.
Yet our differences still matter, and demand acknowledgement. In a quote oft-used by the American Friends Service Committee and one that I have used for QLSP worship at Guilford College, John O’Donohue has this to say about community and Light:
“Perhaps community is a constellation. Each one of us is a light in the emerging collective brightness. A constellation of light has the greater power of illumination than any single light would have on its own. Together we increase brightness.”
Constellations are made up of unique, individual stars, much like how a community is made up of unique people who bring their own approach and beauty to their tradition. My participation in the BILI Launchpad fellowship has certainly strengthened that star-like idea of individuals and groups in my mind, as I saw in Chicago at the Interfaith Leadership Summit and in our monthly meetings, where each person brought a dazzling variety of perspectives, practices, and gifts. And following O’Donohue’s analogy, interfaith work itself is something like a night sky made up of many brilliant and differing constellations. Thus the uniqueness and difference of each tradition must be acknowledged, as a sky full of the same repeating constellation would be boring at best, off-putting at worst. The stars, as many things in nature do, impart their wisdom to us and caution us against boiling ourselves and others down to the most universal or easily-digestible, or least challenging parts. What is left over from that approach may be easy to swallow, it may even be sweet, but it is still poison. We must instead live authentically in our own fullness, which in turn will allow others to live in their authentic fullness, and we must hold each other in that sacred wholeness. Only then will we all shine together, different but unified, a night sky of shifting, dancing, twinkling stars.
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Image: courtesy of James Glenn. Light is a symbol of resilience, commemoration, and hope common to many religious and spiritual traditions.