Cole Arthur Riley: embodiment and memory

About this episode

Sister Julia Walsh interviews Cole Arthur Riley about embodiment, memory, and various themes related to spirituality and resistance.

Episode 94 of Messy Jesus Business podcast, with Sister Julia Walsh. In this episode of Messy Jesus Business podcast, Sister Julia Walsh, FSPA talks with author and poet Cole Arthur Riley. They explore embodiment, resisting meritocracy, story, collective memory, letter writing, resistance, the tension between practice and belief, interiority, and much more. Podcast: Play in new window | Download Subscribe: Email | RSS | More A transcript of the show is available. "I think we can ask ourselves, who benefits from us being disembodied in this country? Government leaders, the ultra wealthy who need us to work more and more and more for less and less wages. And I think you can ask a similar question about memory. Who in this country benefits from our forgetting? There are systems that have everything to gain from our disembodiment, just as there are systems that have everything to gain from this willful amnesia." -Cole Arthur Riley Cole Arthur Riley You can find more of Cole Arthur Riley on Instagram @blackliturgies, on Facebook @blackliturgist, and at her website, colearthurriley.com. ABOUT THE GUEST Cole Arthur Riley is a writer and poet. She is the author of the NYT bestsellers…

People in this episode

Host: Sister Julia Walsh

Guest: Cole Arthur Riley

Topics covered

• embodiment
• memory
• resisting meritocracy
• collective memory
• letter writing
• interiority

Keywords

• embodiment
• memory
• resistance
• spirituality
• collective memory
• letter writing
• interiority

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: The Atlantic, Guernica, The Washington Post

Books & works: This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories that Make Us, Black Liturgies: Prayers, Poems, and Meditations for Staying Human

More episodes of Messy Jesus Business

• Episode 100: A last look back, and a grand finale · December 18, 2025 · 1h 7m
• Kaitlin Curtice: story and cyclical spirituality · December 11, 2025 · 40 min
• The waiting soul gives: hope-filled resistance to tyranny · December 4, 2025 · 1 min
• timone davis: peace and paradox · November 20, 2025 · 47 min
• Vincent Noth: food and kinship · November 6, 2025 · 44 min
• Michele Dunne, OFS: kinship and conversion · October 23, 2025 · 41 min