The book is set up as a series of essays on different topics: dignity, place, wonder, calling, body, belonging, fear, lament, rage, justice, repair, rest, joy, memory, and liberation. And, of course, we meet Cole Arthur Riley herself who is as shy and reserved as she is intelligent and wise beyond her years. Equally important is her father, a gentle and loving dad who taught her about dignity, but who is also a man with demons.

We meet Arthur Riley’s gramma, who endured both a traumatic childhood and an abusive marriage, to become a strong woman who guided her grandchildren with wisdom. This Here Flesh is her first book, and it’s a collection of spiritual reflections, which are entwined with family stories. If you are on Instagram, I strongly urge you to follow her at (She is also on Twitter and Facebook for anyone who doesn’t have Instagram.) I always find her words to be challenging, encouraging, and wise. We are expected to feel deeply lucky and even indebted to a society that allows us to work, even if that work cannot satisfy our most basic needs.Cole Arthur Riley is the founder of Black Liturgies. They appear as rescuers, demanding ceaseless labor from us but presenting it as a gift.

They distract us from this by dangling opportunity in the opposite direction.

Meanwhile, the powerful convince us that there is not enough while their pocket spill out in the open. You can work, as my gramma did in California, for a full month just to be able to finally move from the shelter into low-income housing. This is a grim human development, for no one wants to spend their days merely surviving.Īnd this transaction is nearly always incongruent with the amount of labor one does.

How could it be when one is withering from hunger? Labor instead becomes a means to an end, not an avenue for flourishing but a transaction for survival. In response to the risk and need around us, we have constructed systems around labor that leave even the hardest workers vulnerable, in deficit. When fear enters the story, something changes. “I have to believe that if we didn't need to protect ourselves, we wouldn't be so prone to avoiding rest.

This here flesh cole riley