In her stunning debut, the creator of Black Liturgies braids stories from three generations of her family alongside contemplative reflections to discover the necessary rituals that connect us with our belonging, dignity, and liberation. "From the womb, we must repeat with regularity that to love ourselves is to survive. I believe that is what my father wanted for me and knew I would so desperately need: a tool for survival, the truth of my dignity named like a mercy new each morning."

So writes Cole Arthur Riley in her unforgettable book of stories and reflections on discovering the sacred in her skin. In these deeply transporting pages, Arthur Riley reflects on the stories of her grandmother and father and encounters of enfleshed, embodied spirituality. As she also writes memorably of her own lived experiences of childhood and selfhood, Arthur Riley boldly explores some of the most urgent questions of life and faith: How can spirituality not silence the body, but instead allow it to come alive? How do we honor, lament, and heal from the stories we inherit? In this indelible work of contemplative storytelling, Arthur Riley invites us to ponder the site of soul by examining our capacity to rest, wonder, joy, rage, and repair, and finding that our humanity is not an enemy to faith but evidence of it.

At once a compelling spiritual meditation and a tender coming-of-age narrative, This Here Flesh speaks potently to anyone who suspects that our spirit and stories might have something to say to us.
In her stunning debut, the creator of Black Liturgies braids stories from three generations of her family alongside contemplative reflections to discover the necessary rituals that connect us with our belonging, dignity, and liberation. "From the womb, we must repeat with regularity that to love ourselves is to survive. I believe that is what my father wanted for me and knew I would so desperately need: a tool for survival, the truth of my dignity named like a mercy new each morning." So writes Cole Arthur Riley in her unforgettable book of stories and reflections on discovering the sacred in her skin. In these deeply transporting pages, Arthur Riley reflects on the stories of her grandmother and father and encounters of enfleshed, embodied spirituality. As she also writes memorably of her own lived experiences of childhood and selfhood, Arthur Riley boldly explores some of the most urgent questions of life and faith: How can spirituality not si