The Importance of Wonder in Spirituality

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Cole: I'm English and we have a very awkward relationship with talking about spirituality in the UK. She says it's hard to publish books about any kind of spiritual issue in my country because even religious folk don't tend to engage in that conversation. "I feel like Americans are much better at this than us," she adds. Do you take a listen and I'll see you again in a little while.

Welcome to the Wintering Sessions with Katherine May.

This week Katherine chats to writer and poet Cole Arthur Riley, author of This Here Flesh and creator of Black Liturgies.

Unable to speak up as a child, Cole talks about how she learned to find her voice amid a family of gifted talkers and storytellers. Cole describes her father and grandmother as inspirational figures who nevertheless were marked by the generational trauma experienced by so many African Americans. But from this emerges Cole’s own, unique spiritual account of the world, overseen by a God who lives in our hurting, imperfect bodies, and who sees us as we are.

Cole is one of the most lyrical, perceptive and moving writers of her generation, at once cerebral and earthly, and always rooted in the body. We talk about Cole’s hair turning grey as a child, her wise grandmother and inspirational father, and the moments when she came to realise that both of them needed her care.

COLE LINKS

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This Here Flesh

Black Liturgies

All other Cole links HERE

KATHERINE LINKS

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