Michael Eric Dyson

Michael Eric Dyson Instagram – Sojourners Magazine is right. This is a prayer book you can’t put down.
“By interpolating corporeal language into her prayers, Riley offers a refreshingly accessible entry into contemplative literature. She has a gentle way of encouraging readers to engage with her prayers. ‘Turn them over in your hand. Take a deep breath,’ she writes. ‘There is no demand I will make of you, apart from staying near to yourself, your body, your own soul, and the stories that dwell there.’
Riley organizes Black Liturgies around the “shared questions and longings of the human experience,” such as dignity, rage, and joy. Her reflections are nuanced, complicating the categories in which we often place certain emotions. For example, in her liturgy titled “For Joy That Had to Be Hidden,” she makes space for lament and exaltation to coexist. In “For Those Who Doomscroll,” Riley asks God to “remind us that there is much the world needs, including our attention to atrocity — but if we watch the world burn for long enough, the fire will become our only reality.”
Riley’s work has always been about the liberation that comes when we pause and reclaim our rest and dignity from a world that will, as is attributed to Zora Neale Hurston, “kill you and say you enjoyed it.” Riley’s words remind us that liberation begins with coming home to oneself. In one of my favorite liturgies, “For Those Who’ve Forgotten How to Play,” Riley writes ‘Show us what forms of entertainment and what hobbies lead us into peace. And protect us from the lie that if we are awake, we should be working.” 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.’”
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@blackliturgies | Posted on 22/Jan/2024 05:21:53