A Prayer Book That I Could Not Put Down

COLE ARTHUR RILEY never wanted to write a prayer book. But when she went looking for liturgical practices that centered Black emotion, Black literature, and Black bodies, she couldn’t find much. Now, for nearly four years, Riley has been curating the Instagram page @blackliturgies, which integrates the truths of dignity, lament, rage, justice, and rest into written prayers. Her new book, Black Liturgies: Prayers, Poems, and Meditations for Staying Human, expands on that work. Typically, prayer books are not page-turners, but once I started reading this one, I couldn’t put it 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.”

Notably, she puts the voices of Black women front and center. Between these general prayers, which include liturgies for Juneteenth and Kwanzaa, Riley weaves wide-ranging meditations. “For Black People Who Had to Smile Through It” offers consolation, “For Black Women Who Were Taught They Were Responsible For Saving the World” provides exhale, and “For Black Twitter” makes space for gratitude.

Riley is intentional about bringing in the voices of her ancestors, from influences such as writers Toni Morrison and Octavia Butler, to her own family. Riley writes that her grandmother “had a lone poem published in an anthology that I sleep next to like its own altar.” She continues, “when I told [my gramma] that the poem in the anthology changed me, she smirked softly, dipped her head, and said, It changed me first.” Riley concludes, “Whatever audacity my gramma’s artistry possessed, I hope someday it is found in me.” I found myself hoping for some audacity myself. In this sense, Riley has recreated the communal liturgical experience, even for readers encountering these words in solitude.

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.