Light in the Darkness

When I step outside, under the full moon, I find Nalene, Isaac and Meh Jenah carefully lighting dozens of tiny candles and melting their bottoms to secure them to our front gate. Strangers are welcomed tonight. The children play with sparklers and firecrackers in wild abandonment. It is the night before the Buddhist “Boat Festival”, and everywhere I look, the world is lit up in celebration. Just when I think the beauty of the night has reached its pinnacle, relatives from next door, a young couple and their eight year old daughter pull up in their truck and open the door to me. This is my invitation to the riverside festivities.

We park as close to the river as we can and then, pushing through throngs of people, we stop to purchase little arrangements of candles on top of banana leaf rafts, one for each of us. And then it’s time to slide and scramble, down the slippery bank. My friend firmly takes hold of one hand so I don’t get lost in the crowd, and with our other hands we hold our candles high above our heads. As we reach the water’s edge, I cannot help but gasp audibly. Drifting southward down the river are thousands of tiny candles. So many prayers light up the darkness. Across the river in Thailand are many more flickering candles, backed by a sky full of fireworks. We are not alone.

But we don’t send our candles to float on the river just yet. Instead, I find myself pulled into a tiny boat. And suddenly we are out on the river, speeding among these luminous prayers, a cool breeze playing with our hair. Just as suddenly we reach a barge in the middle of the river, lit up with flickering green and orange lights, perfectly synchronized to look like a boat and its rowers. We clamber up the side of the barge (which reaches past my shoulders when I stand up in our wobbling little boat), to find a feast spread out before us, behind the curtain of festive lights. Here we are far from the crowds, with only a handful of people seated here, gathered to eat, drink and celebrate. Our laughter too adds to the brilliance of this night.

When we’ve eaten our fill and basked in the glow the moonlight and candlelight long enough, we go to the edge of the barge, slide onto our stomachs and reach far, far down to the water below, to release our newly lit candles. This festival is held in honour of a religion not my own, but its beauty has moved me. As I watch my candle float around the barge and out of sight, I pray passionately to the Creator God I know, thankful for and inspired by the radiance of this night.

It’s after midnight when we arrive home and for once I am the one who must call through the window of the sleeping house for the door to be opened.