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Quote by Cole Arthur Riley

“Lament is not anti-hope. It's not even a stepping-stone to hope. Lament itself is a form of hope. It's an innate awareness that what is should not be. As if something is written on our hearts that tells us exactly what we are meant for, and whenever confronted with something contrary to this, we experience a crumbling. And in the rubble, we say, God, you promised. We ask, Why?”

Quote by Cole Arthur Riley

Book:This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories That Make Us
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This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories That Make Us

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Cole Arthur Riley

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“Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition! Our chief weapon is surprise... surprise and fear... fear and surprise... Our two weapons are fear and surprise... and ruthless efficiency.... Our three weapons are fear, and surprise, and ruthless efficiency... and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope... Our four... no... Amongst our weapons... Amongst our weaponry... are such elements as fear, surprise... I'll come in again.”

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Author:Monty Python
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“You might think justice is a form of choosing sides, choosing whom to stand behind. In a way, maybe it is. But justice doesn't choose whose dignity is superior. It upholds the dignity of all those involved, no matter whom it offends or what it costs. Even when demanding retribution, justice does not demean the offender's dignity; it affirms it. It communicates that what has been done is not what the offender was made for. They, too, were made for beauty. In justice, everyone becomes more human, everyone bears the image of the divine. Justice does not ask us to choose.”

ActivismBelovedBlack Lives MatterBlack AuthorsToni MorrisonCole Arthur RileyBlack LiturgiesThis Here Flesh
Book:This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories That Make Us
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“The freedom of God's people did not occur in a vacuum. There were consequences. There was truth-telling. And there was a disturbingly costly justice. There could be no liberation without it. You might ask yourself if you can ever really be free if you have not received justice for your bondage. But as Bayard Rustin said, "When an individual is protesting society's refusal to acknowledge his dignity as a human being, his very act of protest confers dignity on him." Justice does not always come in the manner we long for, but there is always a path to it.”

ActivismBelovedBlack Lives MatterBlack AuthorsToni MorrisonCole Arthur RileyBlack LiturgiesThis Here Flesh
Book:This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories That Make Us
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“What is the worth of a woman plagued by sadness? When people demand joy always, it makes the world seem incompatible with those of us whose happiest days are still anguished. In this way, joy was one of my earliest alienators.”

ActivismBelovedBlack Lives MatterBlack AuthorsToni MorrisonCole Arthur RileyBlack LiturgiesThis Here Flesh
Book:This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories That Make Us
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“Joy situates every emotion within itself. It grounds them so that one isn’t overindulged while the others lie starving. Joy doesn’t replace any emotion; it holds them all and keeps them from swallowing us whole. Society has failed to understand this. When it tells us to find joy in suffering, it is telling us to let it go, to move on, to smile through it. But joy says, Hold on to your sorrow. It can rest safely here.”

ActivismBelovedBlack Lives MatterBlack AuthorsToni MorrisonCole Arthur RileyBlack LiturgiesThis Here Flesh
Book:This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories That Make Us
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“You may think we are called to holy things that involve praying on your knees and going to church, and maybe we are. But I haven't known God to regulate holiness. I think they injected it into every bit of everything. And I imagine they are very concerned with every element of life, including our work. And why wouldn't they be?”

ActivismBelovedBlack Lives MatterBlack AuthorsToni MorrisonCole Arthur RileyBlack LiturgiesThis Here Flesh
Book:This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories That Make Us
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“Memory is meant to be given. It isn’t held well alone. It is meant to be held in a collective and across generations. Memories that remain exclusive to a particular individual or even community are at risk of becoming false. The smell of lavender becomes the smell of grass. The abduction of Black bodies becomes their “migration.” When memory endures no scrutiny or curiosity or challenge from the exterior, it can lead to a profound loneliness at best; at worst, individual or collective delusion.”

ActivismBelovedBlack Lives MatterBlack AuthorsToni MorrisonCole Arthur RileyBlack LiturgiesThis Here Flesh
Book:This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories That Make Us
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“This is a society that will very rarely demand justice in favour of the desperate but will always demand it in favour of the judge, the powerful. In the company of these tainted moral authorities, the most significant wrong will never be the one that caused all the others. This is a world that demonizes those who transgress the system but has great sympathy for the system itself. You can ask my father why he, who cradled the head of his best friend's father on the bathroom floor that day, lived to hustle. But will you also question the system, which demanded his hustle in order to live? His justice has been denied since birth, so before you fault him, you must first fault this.”

ActivismBelovedBlack Lives MatterBlack AuthorsToni MorrisonCole Arthur RileyBlack LiturgiesThis Here Flesh
Book:This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories That Make Us
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