Black Liturgies: Prayers, Poems, and Meditations for Staying Human

Cole Arthur Riley is a writer, poet, and author of the New York Times bestseller, This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories That Make Us. Her writing has been featured in The Atlantic, Guernica, The Boston Globe, and The Washington Post. She is the creator of Black Liturgies, a space that integrates spiritual practice with Black emotion, Black literature, and the Black body; and a project of The Center for Dignity and Contemplation, where she serves as Curator.

"Readers will be deeply moved by the beauty of Arthur Riley’s writing and her moral clarity, tenderness, and wisdom."—Imani Perry, National Book Award–winning author of South to America and columnist at The Atlantic

"[Arthur] Riley’s words remind us that liberation begins with coming home to oneself. . . . Readers will walk away from this book a little freer; even if the chains don’t break, maybe they’ll loosen enough for us to dance and clap."—Sojourners

"While a growing number of our political leaders are using Christianity to justify injustice, Black Liturgies is a compilation of prayers, letters, meditations and poems designed to help readers who are looking for a more inclusive spiritual space."—The Root, "Best Self-Help Reads for Black Resilience in Uncertain Times"

"Cole Arthur Riley is a spiritual guide and a gift in our lives. Restoring us to ourselves and reminding us of our humanness, our fragility, and the strength of faith, she calls us back to community, to breath, to our god-given selves. Black Liturgies is true spiritual balm for our troubled times."—Michael Eric Dyson, New York Times bestselling author of What Truth Sounds Like

"Black Liturgies is a garden for the soul. With rare wisdom, beautiful clarity, and generous vulnerability, Cole Riley brings her whole self to these letters, verses, and promptings, offering bright, deep truths about who we are and can be as Black women, Black people, and human beings. Hold these luminous words close and let them be your balm."—Tiya Miles, National Book Award winning author of All That She Carried

"This is a curation of musings that renders the Spirit accessibly real—not up in the ’heavens’ or beyond our reach, but right here within. In our hands, we hold a sacred Blackness. Black Liturgies will quiet you and guide you into the limitless space of your self."—Yaba Blay, PhD, cultural worker and author of One Drop: Shifting the Lens on Race

"Cole Arthur Riley continues to show that she is one of this time’s most powerful and potent writers on the body and spirit. What she shares is at once quiet and honest, intimate and profound. The prayers in this book seem to rise from our own cracks and breaks, from the deep well of Blackness itself."—Prentis Hemphill, author of What It Takes to Heal and founder of the Embodiment Institute