Lenten Parish Read & Book Forum 3

During Lent, please join us in reading Black Liturgies: Prayers, Poems, and Meditations for Staying Human. In this evocative collection, New York Times bestselling author Cole Arthur Riley offers creative prayers, poems, and liturgies which center Black lives, and invite us to reflect on love, lament, healing, hope, and wonder in our world of both beauty and brokenness. Black Liturgies is available for purchase wherever books are sold. If you need help acquiring a copy, please contact our clergy.  Throughout Lent, we will share our thoughts and responses to the book during our Sunday forums.

For our forum discussion on March 8, please read “Fear,” “Rage,” “Secrets,” & “Power” (96-134)

Future readings:

For March 15th (Lent 4):
“Justice,” “Repair,” “Rest,” & “Joy” (135-170)

For March 22nd (Lent 5):
“Love,” “Memory,” & “Mortality” (171-202)
“Palm Sunday,” “Maundy Thursday,” “Good Friday,” “Silent Saturday,” & Easter (256-263)

Reading Tips from Rev. Debie

Black Liturgies invites a slow, meditative approach.  We are reading not to glean information, but rather to reflect on our journeys with God and with each other through images, metaphors, questions, and prayers designed to both console and provoke.  Here are some suggestions to guide your engagement with this multi-layered text:

• Read slowly: Don’t feel pressured to rush through each week’s readings.  Allow Cole Arthur Riley’s letters, prayers, and poems to wash over you.  If a particular line or section captures your attention, linger over it for as many days as you need.
• Read aloud or with others: Liturgies are meant to be voiced in community.  Choose a prayer or poem each week, and read it aloud to enhance its communal quality. You might find a reading partner, and share a call-and-response experience with sections of the book you find compelling.
• Use the breath prayers: Choose one breath prayer for each day or week.  Memorize it, and then incorporate it into your daily routine.  Allow the rhythms of inhaling and exhaling in prayer to guide you into a state of rest whenever you feel harried, anxious, or overwhelmed.
• Notice the author’s names for God: Cole Arthur Riley begins each prayer with a specific name or invocation of God: “God of forgotten things,” “God of the night,” “Fluid God,” “Defiant God,” etc.  Which names particularly resonate for you? Why? What would it be like to pray using some of these names?  Are there names missing that you’d like to add?
• Allow yourself to be de-centered: Consider what it means to read a text that is not white-centric.  Notice and embrace what you feel as the author centers Black emotion, ancestry, memory, and embodiment.  How might you hold a posture of curiosity, humility, and grace as you encounter experiences that don’t necessarily relate to you?
• Attend to your resistance: There might be sections of the book that are hard for you to get through.  Go gently, pausing as needed. When you can, approach your resistance with compassion and curiosity. Is there an invitation at the heart of what you find most challenging?
• Keep a reading journal: Jot down your reactions and questions as you read.  If a particular section inspires you to compose your own poem, prayer, or letter, allow your creativity to flow. Write out an answer to at least one of the author’s “Contemplation” questions each week.  At some point during Lent, use Cole Arthur Riley’s “Liturgical Template for Alternative Occasions” (282-285) to compose your own liturgy.