Cole Arthur Riley: The Call to Write

03/03/23 • 29 min

To kick off season four of the Sound of the Genuine, Dr. Patrick B. Reyes has a conversation with Cole Arthur Riley. She talks about being a shy, often non-verbal child and how her love of words, nurtured by her family, helped her express herself as a writer at a very young age.

Cole currently serves as the spiritual teacher in residence with Cornell University’s Office of Spirituality and Meaning Making. She is also the creator of Black Liturgies, a space that integrates spiritual practice with Black emotion. Her debut book, This Here Flesh is a New York Times bestseller and available wherever books are sold.
Portrait Illustration by: Triyas
Music by: @siryalibeats

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Puanani Calvillo: Moving Toward Possibility

In this special episode, Rose J. Percy speaks with Puanani Rosario Poti Calvillo from a live recording at FTE’s Christian Leadership Forum. Puanani talks about her identity as a partner, teacher, mother, and spiritual director and how wearing a lot of different hats helps her connect with people. She lives out her call and ministry by creating spaces for BIPOC folx to lean into the wisdom of their own bodies.

Puanani is a proud Samoan Ilocana from Southern California. She is a spiritual director, facilitator, educator and weight lifter. She is a former elementary school teacher and co-led El Puente Community Church with her husband Jonathan in their beloved city of Santa Ana, a bilingual neighborhood ministry centered on healing, mentorship, accompaniment and community care. You can find out more about Puanani’s spiritual practice at puananirosario.com.

Rose J. Percy is a womanist theopoet whose work engages theologies of imagination, critical pedagogy, and Black literature to birth spaces for rest, belonging, and community care. She is the creator and host of the podcast, Dear Soft Black Woman.

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Michaela O'Donnell: Contexts and Constraints: Integrating Life, Work, and Faith

This week, Dr. Reyes talks with Dr. Michaela O’Donnell about her journey from a small town in the Midwest, through the American South, out to Los Angeles, then returning home to the people and places that nurtured her. The foundational love of family coupled with extensive wandering allowed Michaela to find new experiences and perspectives that she carries with her in both family and work life.
Michaela’s current work as executive director of the Max De Pree Center for Leadership at Fuller Theological Seminary allows her to help leaders across industries think about how they can show up in their work in ways that graft onto God’s redemptive mission in the world. She believes that spiritually formed leaders can and do change the world. Michaela is the author of Make Work Matter: Your Guide to Meaningful Work in a Changing World.
Portrait Illustration by: Triyas
Music by: @siryalibeats

Rate, review, and subscribe to Sound of the Genuine on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Sound of the Genuine - Cole Arthur Riley: The Call to Write

Transcript

Patrick: Welcome to the Sound of the Genuine. I'm your host, Dr. Patrick Reyes. And today we have a very special guest and New York times bestselling writer and poet, Cole Arthur Riley. Her bestseller, This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation and the Stories that Make Us, is one of my favorite reads from last year. Her writing has been featured in the Atlantic, the Boston Globe and the Washington Post. And she serves as a spiritual teacher in residence with the Corne