This Here Flesh
by Cole Arthur Riley
I just finished reading this book for the third time in the last two years. This is one of the best books I’ve ever read, by one of the best writers I’ve ever read. It’s beautiful. As I sat holding the book, closed, a sacred artifact in my hands, it struck me how significant a collection of words on paper can be. It’s one of the miracles of our shared human existence. Words. And stories. In seven years of being a father that’s been working on me. I marvel at it. Kids start to communicate and it’s miraculous. At some point they won’t stop speaking 😅. In our case, Adileen and Kinney are doing this in two languages, which is its own brand of beautiful.
I’m trying to embrace what Cole Arthur Riley’s words are doing to me and for me. The book is inspiring, challenging, devastating, and beautiful. She shows a sacred attentiveness to life and shares her story as a liturgy. She takes fifteen chapters (Dignity. Place. Wonder. Calling. Body. Belonging. Fear. Lament. Rage. Justice. Repair. Rest. Joy. Memory. Liberation.) and weaves stories and questions and truth into a tapestry of humanity and depth. She combines personal stories and those of her family origins with selective passages from the Bible, brilliantly interpreted (e.g. God as the first mathematician and artist). She gives a voice to inanimate entities: [the ground says] “Yes, you were made in the image of God, but God made you of me” (7). She draws on the work of other authors sparingly but when she does it’s gold: Dr. King, Howard Thurman, Simone Weil, Toni Morrison. There are only 27 entries in the bibliography—each worthy of attention.
This books helps me to see more deeply and to feel more acutely.