“Would you believe I have known seasons in which even the cadence of my voice has changed so that I might belong to a group of people whose stories and thoughts and ways were never anything like mine? But each year I know love and belonging—a love that doesn’t require sacrifice at the door of acceptance–I become more of who I already am. I am liberated into what Merton calls my “true self.” I believe this is my deepest calling.”
–Cole Arthur Riley, This Here Flesh, p. 46
