Cole Arthur Riley's Black Liturgies and the Beauty of Unanswered Questions

The Optimist Project with Yara Shahidi

✨ Writers, Seekers, and Tender Truth-Tellers—This One’s for You.

This week on The Optimist Project, we’re joined by writer, poet, and spiritual curator Cole Arthur Riley, author of This Here Flesh and creator of the transcendent digital space Black Liturgies.

Cole’s wisdom invites us to consider optimism not as loud hope but as sacred stillness—a quiet, rooted stance that makes room for contradiction, wonder, and doubt. In this profound conversation, she speaks with reverence and clarity about the spiritual life as one of complexity: where skepticism meets faith, and silence becomes presence.

We explore the birth of Black Liturgies, the discipline of noticing beauty in the mundane, and the delicate dance between public witness and private becoming. Cole shares stories of her ancestors, the role of ritual, and what it means to create from a place of embodied truth.

✨ Cole reminds us that optimism doesn’t erase despair—it sits beside it, breathes through it, and dares to imagine a world where our questions are held, not silenced.

What questions allow you to embrace the unknown? What beauty are you making space to witness?

📩 We want to hear from you—DM us, send a voice note, or leave us a message and share your version of optimism.

📲 @optimistprojectpod // The Optimist Project Podcast

✨ Executive Producer: @yarashahidi // Yara Shahidi

✨ Executive Producer: @chocolatemommyluv // Keri Salter-Shahidi

🎙 Guest: @colearthurriley //Cole Arthur Riley

📖 Book & Online Community: @blackliturgies // black liturgies

📞 Voicemail: [phone]

🎧 Tap in—because optimism, like ritual, is an act of return.