Rest & Repair

Or resistance and reconnection

With my lovely Big Questions Book Club members I’ve been reading and reflecting on This Here Flesh by Cole Arthur Riley and, my goodness, does it provoke a response in me.

It is a visceral reflection on her own life with faith, chronic unexplained illness, and disability. She tells us not only her own story but that of her family and her people.

Not since reading Rachel Held Evams have I felt so seen and challenged all at once.

It being a book club, we are going through it slowly, two chapters a month, which is just as well, or I’d be stuck somewhere around the Fear and Lament chapters. Cole Arthur Riley leaves everything on the page, not pulling any punches, not apologising for the pain and heartache that underscores it all. The reader does not have their fragile sensibilities pandered to, nor are they given any warning for the sucker punches that keep landing. And yet, there is a breathtaking poetry and a familiar yearning, the keening that so often accompanies grief.

I came across a meme today, 6th November 2024, the day when America showed its true colours, which simply said something along the lines of

Anyone want to get together and scream?

We could get dinner after.

This book is a scream, a howl at the moon and its creator, which invites the reader to cry, gasp and howl right alongside each other.

This month we’ve reached chapters Repair and Rest. They are immediately after Rage and Despair, and could not be more apposite to life right now.

I’ve written before about rest, and make no apology for revisiting this. We are all so mired in busyness and striving. And despite all I have learned and leant into about rest in recent years, I still find myself frustrated and wanting to be ‘more’ able. Accepting the need to rest is still very hard.

Cole Arthur Riley writes from a point of view not unique, but not often heard, of a black woman with disability whose recovery story is not linear or remotely complete in the way that so many are presented (something else I read this week was this article on the trouble with recovery stories, which is well worth a read for those who wrestle with chronic pain or illness). Here is a woman who knows this world, who navigates the result of trauma and abuse survival and is still here to tell her story. And her view on rest?

Rest is resistance. Against the busyness demanded by so much of society. Against the accumulation of money, status or even ‘stuff’. Against our own sense of self worth whih is often tied up with productivity or the saving of others.

Rest is resistance and absolutely vital to living a life not ruled by adrenaline and cortisol, not directed by reactions, knee jerk or otherwise, to external events.

VITAL.

Repair is an interesting word to use, Cole Arthur Riley uses it deliberately as she speaks about the ways our bodies repair themselves, or not, as the case maybe. She also talks about repairing relationships or connections with people or systems. Her assertion that

Reconciliation cannot be forced if it is to last. And unity should not come at the expense of the vulnerable. Its integrity depends on the ability to make the union safe and honorable. How can you become one with a person or system who will not acknowledge or relent in their torment of you? This is not unity; it’s annihilation.

is so profound it stopped me in my tracks.

Repair then means reconnection, not in a toxic glossing over of wrongs, but in deeply moving recognition of harm done and the desire to restore dignity with that connection. Forgiveness is a word bandied about in the circles I’ve moved in and it is key to our own sense of wellbeing; but repair or reconnecting is on another level. To forgive is to release ourselves from a relationship that has been unhelpful or downright toxic. It cannot be demanded, and it cannot always be offered immediately. Repair though, requires genuine humility, a willingness to be wrong and a desire to be forgiven.

We are only two chapters from the end of this book, but I know this one will stay with me.

The Big Questions Book Club meets every 1st Thursday on the month at 1.30pm (UK time) on Skype. We read books that challenge our way of looking at the world and faith. It is a safe space for those with big questions, we don’t have the answers, but we love to learn from each other!

If you’d like to join us for the next book, do let me know! You can reach me by leaving a comment on this post or replying to the email.