Cole Arthur Riley
@blackliturgist
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Author of THIS HERE FLESH | IG: blackliturgies
Joined August 2020
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“I am often struck by the dangerous narcissism fostered by spiritual rhetoric that pays so much attention to individual self-improvement and so little to the practice of love within the context of community.” -bell hooks
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I take so much delight in the silence of the men in the Christmas story.
Zechariah can't speak. Joseph doesn't speak. While the words and emotions of Mary and Elizabeth are unapologetically centered. The sound of Advent is the voice of women.
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Inhale: This body is good.
Exhale: I won’t abandon it.
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Inhale: I am not who I was.
Exhale: I will honor my becoming.
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I'm not congratulating white people in power for saying precisely the same things that Black people in their midst have been saying for years.
They are not brave, they are echoes.
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Inhale: I don't owe them all of me.
Exhale: My boundaries are holy ground.
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Inhale: I am not who I was.
Exhale: I will honor my becoming.
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People used to tell me "You are Christian before you're Black." Took time to realize that it was more about demanding my loyalty to white Christianity over my Blackness. What is there to gain in divorcing a bodily reality from the spiritual? The subjugation of those bodies.
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Inhale: I am scared to hope.
Exhale: Hope is my inheritance.
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“You must be unintimidated by your own thoughts because if you write with someone looking over you shoulder, you'll never write.”
―Nikki Giovanni
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Having the capacity to do something doesn’t make it a calling. Go easy, go slow. Limits are sacred.
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"No more apologies for a bleeding heart when the opposite is no heart at all. Danger of losing our humanity must be met with more humanity." -Toni Morrison
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Inhale: This body is sacred.
Exhale: I will not turn against myself.
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Inhale— I can be alone with myself.
Exhale— I'm not waiting to be whole.
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Inhale:
I will no longer prove my pain.
Exhale:
Rest is a form of justice.
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“Don’t ever think I fell for you or fell over you. I didn’t fall in love, I rose in it. I saw you and made up my mind. ” —Toni Morrison
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Inhale: I am free to say no.
Exhale: My boundaries don’t need a reason.
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Inhale: God, I miss them.
Exhale: Protect my grief from despair.
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Inhale: My “no” is holy.
Exhale: I will protect this breath.
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Inhale: I have nothing to prove.
Exhale: In this stillness, I'm still loved.
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Inhale: This body is good.
Exhale: I will not abandon it.
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INHALE: I was meant for love.
EXHALE: God, help me to receive it.
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Inhale: I have nothing to prove.
Exhale: I can rest from giving.
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We don’t owe the system our gratitude. We don't owe the system our thanks. But if you feel relief, feel it. Don’t suppress the hope of the moment. Joy and sorrow can coexist.
#JusticeForGeorgeFloyd
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Inhale: This too will pass.
Exhale: But I can be held as I wait.
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Inhale: God, I’m not okay.
Exhale: With you that is okay.
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Inhale: I know who I am.
Exhale: Shame is a liar.
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Inhale: We will not be rushed from grieving.
Exhale: God, wait with us in the pain.
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Inhale: God, help me to be still.
Exhale: Put my shaking soul at rest.
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Celebrating the woman who was so attuned to the voice of God that she recognized him by the sound of her own name. Such a beautiful mystery. Happy feast of St. Mary Magdalene.
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THIS HERE FLESH is officially in the world today. Everything I think to say sounds cliché, but these are the truest things: I'm proud. I'm terrified. And I really would love for you to buy this book and share about it.
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If your voice has historically taken up far too much space, maybe this Advent practice a sacred silence. The silence of solidarity.
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The idea that I can only experience an embodied spirituality by attending a church service in person is the laziest argument I've heard in a long time. Especially coming from the woman who wrote an entire book about the divine in the ordinary/everyday.
“Online church, while it was necessary for a season, diminishes worship and us as people,” says
@Tish_H_Warren
, an Anglican priest. “We seek to worship wholly — with heart, soul, mind and strength — and embodiment is an irreducible part of that wholeness.”
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A breath prayer for my Asian friends today—
Inhale: My story belongs.
Exhale: My pain will not be erased.
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Listen. I am feeling deeply loved. I can no longer access my IG page (due to a warning notice that will not go away), which has been admittedly stressful. But I was UNPREPARED for the amount of love and strategizing from all of you.
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“Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them.” ―Assata Shakur
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There are two questions that we have to ask ourselves. The 1st is "Where am I going?" and the 2nd is "Who will go with me?" If you ever get these questions in the wrong order , you are in trouble.
― Howard Thurman
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Inhale: I was meant for love.
Exhale: God, help me to receive it.
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Always reminding myself that in the midst of despair, God doesn’t demand Elijah’s belief or even his hope; God rises to meet his physical needs. God says eat, drink, rest. This journey is long.
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Reminder: It's okay to distance yourself from spiritual spaces that are more concerned with what doctrine you believe than protecting you.
It's okay to find a place to exhale.
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Inhale: I can be alone with myself.
Exhale: I’m not waiting to be whole.
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Inhale: I was not made to be perfect.
Exhale: I was made to be whole.
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"To encounter oneself is to encounter the other: and this is love. If I know that my soul trembles, I know that yours does, too: and, if I can respect this, both of us can live." ―James Baldwin
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Palm Sunday reminds us that if Jesus didn't have a savior complex, neither should you. White heroism is anti-God.
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Inhale: I am known and loved.
Exhale: I have nothing to prove.
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Black History Month except all the white progressives aren't allowed to write any articles or tweet anything about it. Retweets permitted. Just spitballin here.
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Inhale: My "no" is sacred.
Exhale: My boundaries are holy ground.
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“Mary's song, like other songs by women in sacred scripture, is not a song of pious submission but one of righteous judgment and vindication for all who, like Mary and her son, are born poor and oppressed and unjustly victimized.
― M. Shawn Copeland
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Inhale: I have nothing to prove.
Exhale: In freedom, I lie down.
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Inhale: I am not a burden.
Exhale: I will accept the love I was meant for.
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Grief is feeling too familiar lately. Like when you say a word over and over again until it no longer sounds recognizable. Until you begin to forget its meaning at all.
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It's getting really real. Less than 3 months away from publication day.
Privilege to get an advanced copy of
@blackliturgist
's upcoming book. It's just breathtaking.
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Presence is not solidarity. Knowledge is not solidarity.
Solidarity is the kind of unity that costs you something.
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Everybody think I’m real holy but if you only saw my tweet drafts.
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"Women’s liberationists, white and black, will always be at odds with one another as long as our idea of liberation is based on having the power white men have." —bell hooks
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And if you're Black and were shocked by the Rittenhouse verdict, do not let yourself be shamed for hoping. Never that. Whatever that is in you, protect it fiercely.
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“The Gospel of liberation is bad news to all oppressors because they have defined their "freedom" in terms of slavery of others.” — James Cone
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Inhale: I don't owe them all of me.
Exhale: My boundaries are sacred.
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Finally, I'm forever chuckling at white Christians who think they hold some supreme wisdom on embodiment. You are some of the most disembodied, physically and emotionally numb people on the globe. Please, stop.
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Let’s not compare George Floyd to the thieves Christ was crucified in between. In death, Floyd was innocent. His memory should not be criminalized. If you compare him to anyone, let it be Christ.
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Inhale: I am not who I was.
Exhale: Change can be freedom.
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I hate waking up to find that a golden statue of a tyrant is trending, but the 300 schoolgirls abducted in Nigeria isn't. I truly hate it here.
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Exhausting watching white people expand their platforms out of Black trauma and story. Whatever you are thinking of tweeting for
#BlackHistoryMonth
, I promise you a Black person has already thought it. Go find them and amplify their voice.
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Inhale: I am not who I once was.
Exhale: I am known and forgiven.
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Inhale: I am doing my best.
Exhale: I can honor the now.
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Inhale: I don’t have to save this.
Exhale: My limits are sacred.
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"No person is your friend who demands your silence or denies your right to grow." —Alice Walker
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"What they call you is one thing. What you answer to is something else." — Lucille Clifton
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THIS HERE FLESH is out in paperback today. A calm and grateful morning.
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Tracee Ellis Ross keeps sharing my posts on Instagram and I’m trying to play it cool over there, but over here I just need everyone to know that I’ve watched The High Note three times this past week.
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Thinking of St. Shiphrah and St. Puah this morning and how they had the holy audacity to rebel against the murderous systems of the empire to protect the lives of little boys. Adam Toledo was a child and he was hunted. God, make ours a holy rebellion.
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Today is surreal and beautiful. Preordering books is an invaluable act of systemic justice for Black authors. Help your girl out and preorder today!
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Be careful of the voices telling you to remain neutral. Do not shackle your soul to the middle when you know which way is freedom.
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I take so much delight in the silence of the men in the Advent story. Zechariah can't speak. Joseph doesn't speak. While the words and emotions of Mary and Elizabeth take their rightful place. The sound of Advent is the voice of women.
#Advent
#holysilence
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“You must be unintimidated by your own thoughts because if you write with someone looking over you shoulder, you'll never write.”―Nikki Giovanni
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This Lent can we please reexamine our language in order to care for those of us with disordered eating habits. Do not ask "what food are you giving up?". Instead ask if they are "practicing anything in solidarity with the suffering of Christ and the world this Lent".
#edrecovery
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Inhale: Scarcity is a lie.
Exhale: There is enough for me.
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"Men who are afraid to feel must keep women around to do their feeling for them while dismissing us for the same supposedly “inferior” capacity to feel deeply. But in this way also, men deny themselves their own essential humanity." ―Audre Lorde
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“No more apologies for a bleeding heart when the opposite is no heart at all. Danger of losing our humanity must be met with more humanity.” —Toni Morrison
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Inhale: I can be alone with myself.
Exhale: I’m not waiting to be whole.
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“My responsibility is to speak the truth as I feel it, and to attempt to speak it with as much precision and beauty as possible.” —Audre Lorde
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“People get used to anything. The less you think about your oppression, the more your tolerance for it grows. After a while, people just think oppression is the normal state of things. But to become free, you have to be acutely aware of being a slave.”
― Assata Shakur
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I know this seems small, but now is the time for daily journaling. We can’t rely on governments and institutions to keep a truthful memory. We keep our own memories. Remember, write it, save it all.
#CeasefireNOW
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Inhale: I am free to change.
Exhale: But I have compassion on my now.
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“The white fathers told us: I think, therefore I am. The Black goddess within each of us - the poet - whispers in our dreams: I feel, therefore I can be free.”
—Audre Lorde
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"Knowing how to be solitary is central to the art of loving. When we can be alone, we can be with others without using them as a means of escape." -bell hooks
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She said it nicer than I would. White people cannot be trusted as credible experts on whiteness. Stop writing books and stealing space from POC who actually are experts and have written these books ALREADY. I'm tired of white women taking up space and profiting off of my pain.
I think it’s important for white people to talk to white people about racism. AND there are SO MANY BOOKS BY BLACK PEOPLE EXPLAINING THIS. If you get Diangelo’s, buy one by a person of color too. Believe us when we talk about the harm perpetuated by nice white ppl.
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What do I just evaporate when I leave the church walls? Tish makes the (white) mistake of thinking that my body exists only in relation to her. I know many many Black people who are leaving their bodies at home every week in order to belong to churches like hers. The delusion...
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This woman is Black
so her blood is shed into silence
this woman is Black
so her death falls to earth
like the drippings of birds
to be washed away with silence and rain.
—Audre Lorde
#BreonnaTaylor
#justiceforBreonna
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Black women, if being online today brings more anxiety and helplessness than community and comfort, walk away. Audre Lorde reminded me this morning, our survival doesn't look like theirs. Do what your body needs to survive. Stay attuned. Don't forget yourself.
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Inhale: I can be present to sadness
Exhale: Without being enslaved by it.
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"[This] will unfortunately mean those who are homebound or sick will not be able to participate in a service..For centuries, churches have handled this inevitability by visiting these people at home in person." YOU CANT VISIT ME IF YOU'RE BREATHING SOMEONE ELSE'S AIR EVERY SUNDAY
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Inhale: I am free to pause.
Exhale: I can rest in the silence.
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Inhale: I am not who I was.
Exhale: I forgive myself.
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Inhale: I am known and loved.
Exhale: I release the unlove.
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Inhale: God, meet me in the fear.
Exhale: Bring rest to my restless mind.
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