Ramadan is upon us and even if fasting all of the daylight hours required in our northwestern corner of the world may prove to be a significant challenge for me, I cherish the journey of this month, both into the future and the past, and the beautiful complications in introduces into my life.

On Wednesday morning, my 8-year-old daughter Renda was excited to share some of our traditions with her classmates at school. She asked, “How do I explain why we fast?” and I shared the answer I have given for years. It’s a time to feel with those have less, to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes. And it’s true, we are surrounded everywhere by hunger and thirst, and in this month we are called to embrace the hunger and the thirst, the conditions of our humanity and frailty, to step outside of our privileges — material and otherwise.

Most of what Renda wanted to share with her friends had to do with celebration, another beautiful human complication of this holy month. We abstain from the pleasures of the world during daylight hours, and we are supposed to devote a greater share of the night to acts of worship. But even as we make a space for the spiritual, we are moved to celebrate the space we make and the people with whom we share it. So Ramadan comes with its own delicacies, to sate and to quench after a day of fasting. And for our children, it comes with its own decorations, stories, trinkets and delights.

Renda took her lantern to class to tell the story of lighting the night sky so that the khalifa could sight the newborn crescent moon and tell his people Ramadan had begun. I remembered as I unpacked the lantern, carefully lifting it out of our box of holiday treasures, how we would drive around our neighborhood in Amman, Jordan, when the girls were younger and point out the houses that had decorated their front doors and balconies with Ramadan lights. Everywhere there were gold crescent moons and tiny stars winking at us, and strings of red and green lanterns crowded the awnings of market stalls.

Driving through my Redmond neighborhood on Wednesday morning, a local church, Faith Lutheran, posted a greeting on their readerboard, nestled among pines and blooming dogwoods: “Ramadan Mubarak to our Muslim Neighbors.” I am amazed at how much joy this brought to my heart, a grownup, too old to need holiday lights and trinkets, I thought. Maybe the intensity of this election year, and the variety of hatreds it has unearthed. Maybe it’s the way it has us all walking on eggshells, wondering what our neighbors really think, how we see each other or don’t actually see each other at all.

The greeting is a lovely gesture, an acknowledgment of neighbors for whom the days are altered and a celebration is taking place, but it is so much more. It speaks to the child in me, who wants to drive by again, and take in the joy and festivity of the lights. Thank you to the community of Faith Lutheran Church for this thoughtful and unexpected gift, and this particular year, for lighting the darkness.

Lena Khalaf Tuffaha is a Redmond resident. She blogs at www.lenakhalaf tuffaha.com.