Phyllis Tickle: Divine Hours
“Prayer is a nonlocative, non-geographic space that one enters at one’s own peril, for it houses God during those few moments of one’s presence there, and what is there will most surely change everything that comes into it.” —Jon Sweeney, ed., Phyllis Tickle in Phyllis Tickle: Essential Spiritual Writings (Church Publishing, 2018), p. 93.
Phyllis Tickle’s birthday is March 12th. She died in September 2015. Every year, I try to remember this outstanding writer who took time out of her amazing schedule to help me with my writing for so many years.
Phyllis Tickle, founding religion editor of Publishers Weekly, was a prolific writer and incredible lecturer, rarely speaking from notes. She was also a great mentor and friend. My thank-yous to her are feeble attempts to continue the kindness and encouragement she showed me.
She is remembered for her analysis of the Emergent Christian Church, but I most treasure her Divine Hours, a series of books that observe the fixed hours of prayer for spring, summer, fall, and winter.
I know she not only wrote about it, but she also practiced it. I remember seeing her slipping away at meetings for a few minutes to pray at one of the fixed hours: morning, midday, vespers, or compline. Phyllis’s books allow us to follow a set prayer time, no matter where we are in time or place. She brought an ancient rule of life into the modern world and reminded us how this would change our lives. She taught us that we would never be the same after experiencing the practice.
I am not as faithful as Phyllis, but I practice the fixed hours of prayer at certain seasons of the year, sometimes for only a week or a month, and sometimes for a whole season.
