In her stunning debut, the creator of Black Liturgies weaves stories from three generations of her family alongside contemplative reflections to discover the “necessary rituals” that connect us with our belonging, dignity, and liberation.

“From the womb, we must repeat with regularity that to love ourselves is to survive. I believe that is what my father wanted for me and knew I would so desperately need: a tool for survival, the truth of my dignity named like a mercy new each morning.”

So writes Cole Arthur Riley in her unforgettable book of stories and reflections on discovering the sacred in her skin. In these deeply transporting pages, Arthur Riley reflects on the stories of her grandmother and father, and how they revealed to her an embodied, dignity-affirming spirituality, not only in what they believed but in the act of living itself. Writing memorably of her own childhood and coming to self, Arthur Riley boldly explores some of the most urgent questions of life and faith: How can spirituality not silence the body, but instead allow it to come alive? How do we honor, lament, and heal from the stories we inherit? How can we find peace in a world overtaken with dislocation, noise, and unrest? In this indelible work of contemplative storytelling, Arthur Riley invites us to descend into our own stories, examine our capacity to rest, wonder, joy, rage, and repair, and find that our humanity is not an enemy to faith but evidence of it.

At once a compelling spiritual meditation, a powerful intergenerational account, and a tender coming-of-age narrative, This Here Flesh speaks potently to anyone who suspects that our stories might have something to say to us.

This book is about the misguided obsession with the management of sin that cripples too many Christians. It's about the view that religion is all about sin...about how to hide side sin or how to stop sinning all together.
In the Introduction, the author toys good-naturedly with an agitated caller on his radio program, teasing him in a segment where he offers three free sins. The offer is real. Not that Steve has the power to forgive sins, but he wants to make the point that Jesus has made the offer to cover all of our sins - not just three.
Chapter one, " "titled "Teaching Frogs to Fly," is even better. The gist of this chapter is that you can't teach frogs to fly, just like you can't teach people not to sin. Steve tells a story about a guy who has a frog, and he's convinced he can teach the frog how to fly. The man keeps throwing the frog up in the air or up against walls - all to the poor frog's demise. The message is that even though people can be better, they can never not sin--just like a frog can never learn to fly, no matter how much pressure is put on it.
Steve continues" "through the book to show readers that while they can never manage sin, they can relax in knowing that they are completely forgiven--not just of three, but of all.