I'll be Home for Kwanzaa

Too often in our material society we propose material remedies for spiritual and emotional problems. Our solution to ecological alienation, for instance, is locally-grown food. Our solution to cultural pathologies is an abstract “sense of place”. I certainly affirm material remedies as necessary: Without looking at the real, empirical, physical conditions, you can end up with impotent ideology.

Unfortunately, material remedies are rarely sufficient to cure our emotional needs. Most of our alienation has multiple roots, including material, cultural, social, psychological and more.

As important as "sense of place" may be in Home-making, spiritual belonging is even bigger. African American culture knows a few things about creating a spiritual Home in the absence of a material Home.

This is something all Diaspora peoples - which ultimately includes all humans in the world, in one way or another, can learn from the African American peoples. Here is a group of people whose home was stolen from them in more ways than geographically, but who were able to find themselves a spiritual home. By creating a tender balance between being an ethnic club, a transcendent spiritual well, and a worldly activist tank, the black church has been able to foster the level of spiritual power that can turn a foreign land - a land of exile - into a home. It's a radical church, not an otherworldly church.

So while others may have gained greater sense of place in the cities where they live, African American churches have learned how to create community among the exiles. They create a social Home where others struggle to lay down roots. This Home is drawn on a tight canvas: a paradoxical here-but-not-yet-here duality. African Americans, especially African American Christians, teach their children that Home is beyond this place. At the same time, they teach a far deeper sense of community than mainstream America.

Kwanzaa is an invented holiday, Afro-centric and a little cheesy, but it's a holiday that attempts to systemetize these lessons. For the week after Christmas, Kwanzaa highlights a communal virtue each day:

These principles are umoja (unity), kujichagulia (self-determination), ujima (collective work and responsibility), ujamaa (cooperative economics), nia (purpose), kuumba (creativity), and imani (faith). Each day of Kwanzaa is dedicated to one of the principles and is organized around activities and discussion to emphasize that principle.

Together these values create a spiritual Home that all of us Homeless types can celebrate. It’s an invitation to neighbor-ness.