Join us for an evening of conversation and community with NY Times bestselling author, Cole Arthur Riley. Cole will discuss her new book, Black Liturgies, and topics like prayer, faith, art, and justice with Executive Director of the Center for Faith and Justice, Peter Choi. They will explore questions like, What is the point of prayer in a world that is burning and at war? How can we hold on to hope when tragedies continue to mount? Why has the Christian faith so often been at odds with the work peace and justice? And what does authentic spirituality look like in a time such as this? Come for the conversation with Cole and stay for the conversation with others over dinner!
SCHEDULE
4:30 Doors open, refreshments
5:00 Conversation
6:00 Dinner
COST
Early Bird: $15 (until January 10, 2024)
Regular Price: $25 (after January 10, 2024)
Ticket sale ends on January 22, 2024
Sponsored by: Center for Faith and Justice | First Presbyterian Church Berkeley
More about Black Liturgies, from the publisher’s website
A collection of prayer, poetry, and spiritual practice centering the Black interior world, from the New York Times bestselling author of This Here Flesh and creator of Black Liturgies
“A true spiritual balm for our troubled times.”—Michael Eric Dyson, author of What Truth Sounds Like
For years, Cole Arthur Riley was desperate for a spirituality she could trust. Amid ongoing national racial violence, the isolation of the pandemic, and a surge of anti-Black rhetoric in many Christian spaces, she began dreaming of a more human, more liberating expression of faith. She went on to create Black Liturgies, a digital project that connects spiritual practice with Black emotion, Black memory, and the Black body.
In this book, she brings together hundreds of new prayers, along with letters, poems, meditation questions, breath practices, scriptures, and the writings of Black literary ancestors to offer forty-three liturgies that can be practiced individually or as a community. Inviting readers to reflect on their shared experiences of wonder, rest, rage, and repair, and creating rituals for holidays like Lent and Juneteenth, Arthur Riley writes with a poet’s touch and a sensitivity that has made her one of the most important spiritual voices at work today.
For anyone healing from communities that were more violent than loving; for anyone who has escaped the trauma of white Christian nationalism, religious homophobia, or transphobia; for anyone asking what it means to be human in a world of both beauty and terror, Black Liturgies is a work of healing and empowerment, and a vision for what might be.
LOCATION
First Presbyterian Church Berkeley, 94704