Imani is Kiswahili for faith. The eighteen imani rituals in this book are intended for individual, family, congregational, and community practice. The individual rituals include meditations to promote a sense of spiritual possession, transcendence, and acceptance of change. The family rituals focus on, among other topics, remembering ancestors and honoring elders. Congregational and community rituals include prayer, feasting, and celebrations of freedom and Kwanzaa. In many instances, the language of the rituals can be modified for different settings so that each can be flexibly adapted to meet multiple needs. Options for varying each ritual are included, but even these should be considered points of departure that may stimulate the reader’s own ideas for ritual variations. The rituals are intended to address real human needs in ways that are meaningful, emotionally engaging, and culturally inclusive.
While the rituals in this book are written from a Unitarian Universalist perspective, none of the rituals is exclusively the province of UUs. They are theologically inclusive and widely adaptable to liberal faith and humanist settings. Many of the rituals are appropriate for family and secular community contexts. Hence, Imani Rituals is applicable to any context in which diversity and the inclusion of African Diasporan-inspired cultural practices are valued.
This leads us to our final set of questions. How inclusive are the rituals intended to be? Are they only intended for use by African Americans? Can White people participate without it becoming an instance of cultural appropriation? The answer is again more complicated than simply yes or no. For example, the Karamu ritual celebrates African American heritage and unity. It uses a table divided into color-coded sections representing different times in the African American experience in the United States. The ritual includes the words: Let us gather around our communal table. Each area symbolizes an era of African American history. The black area of our table reminds us of our time before slavery when we lived in peace and freedom in Africa. I pour a libation to our African Ancestors, known and unknown, from that era. These words would obviously ring hollow if not spoken by an African American. People of other ethnicities and backgrounds can be welcome guests at the table, bringing food with them to the feast, but the ritual is for African Americans.
Contrastingly, prayer, spiritual transcendence, ancestorship, ancestor remembrance, and other rituals do not include language or practices that are appropriate only for people of color. While inspired by African and African Diasporan cultures, they are universal rituals. UUs seek the universal within the particular. There are universals within the particularities of African-inspired spirituality. It is those universals that are Africa’s contribution to the canon of human spirituality and which are, through these rituals, our contributions to Unitarian Universalism and other liberal faiths. If permission is needed, then permission is given to practice what is universal within our heritage. To do so honors that heritage and affirms that Unitarian Universalism values it as part of the “Earth-centered traditions which celebrate the sacred circle of life and instruct us to live in harmony with the rhythms of nature.” The earth includes Africa, its offspring living around the world, and the traditions they bring or create. If we fail to broaden the tapestry of UU faith to include the vitality of Africa’s descendants, then Unitarian Universalism will be poorer for it.