NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A collection of prayer, poetry, and spiritual practice centering the Black interior world, from the author of This Here Flesh and creator of Black Liturgies “A true spiritual balm for our troubled times.”—Michael Eric Dyson, author of What Truth Sounds LikeFor years, Cole Arthur Riley was desperate for a spirituality she could trust. Amid ongoing national racial violence, the isolation of the pandemic, and a surge of anti-Black rhetoric in many Christian spaces, she began dreaming of a more human, more liberating expression of faith. She went on to create Black Liturgies, a digital project that connects spiritual practice with Black emotion, Black memory, and the Black body.
In this book, she brings together hundreds of new prayers, along with letters, poems, meditation questions, breath practices, scriptures, and the writings of Black literary ancestors to offer forty-three liturgies that can be practiced individually or as a community. Inviting readers to reflect on their shared experiences of wonder, rest, rage, and repair, and creating rituals for holidays like Lent and Juneteenth, Arthur Riley writes with a poet’s touch and a sensitivity that has made her one of the most important spiritual voices at work today.
For anyone healing from communities that were more violent than loving; for anyone who has escaped the trauma of white Christian nationalism, religious homophobia, or transphobia; for anyone asking what it means to be human in a world of both beauty and terror,
Black Liturgies is a work of healing and empowerment, and a vision for what might be.
"In the summer of 2020, Cole Arthur Riley was desperate for a spirituality she could trust. Amidst ongoing national racial violence, the isolation of the pandemic, and a surge of anti-Black rhetoric in many Christian spaces, she began dreaming of a harbor for a more human, more liberating expression of faith. She went on to create Black Liturgies, a digital project that connects spiritual practice with Black emotion, memory, and the Black body. In this book, she deepens the work of that project, bringing together new prayers, letters, poetry, meditation questions, breath practice, and the writings of Black literary ancestors to offer 43 liturgies that can be practiced individually or as a community. With a poet's touch and a sensitivity that has made her one of the most important spiritual voices at work today, Riley invites readers to reflect on their own experiences of wonder, rest, rage, and repair, while also including liturgies for holidays like Lent, Advent, Juneteenth, and Mother's Day. For those healing from spiritual spaces that were more violent than loving; for those who have escaped the trauma of white Christian nationalism, religious homophobia, and transphobia; for anyone asking what it means to be human in a world of both beauty and terror; Black Liturgies is a work of healing and liberation, and a vision for what might be"--
