Phyllis Tickle: Divine Hours
“Prayer is a nonlocative, nongeographic 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.” —Phyllis Tickle in Phyllis Tickle: Essential Spiritual Writings (Jon Sweeney, ed., Church Publishing, 2018), p. 93.
Phyllis Tickle, founding religion editor of Publishers Weekly, was a prolific writer and an amazing lecturer, rarely speaking from notes. She was also a great mentor and friend. My thank-you to her would be to attempt to continue the kindness and encouragement she showed to me.
She may be remembered for her analysis of the Emergent Christian Church; but I most treasure her Divine Hours, a series of books of observance of the fixed-hour of prayer for spring, summer, fall, and winter.
I know she not only wrote about it, she practiced it. I remember seeing her slipping away at meetings for a few minutes to pray at one of the fixed hours of morning, midday, vespers, or compline. Phyllis’ books allow us to follow a set time of prayer no matter where we are in time or place. She brought back an ancient rule of life to modern times and reminded us how this would change our lives, teaching that we would never be the same after experiencing the practice.
I am not as faithful as Phyllis, but instead practice the fixed hours of prayer at certain seasons of the year, sometimes for only a week or a month, sometimes for a whole season.
Holy Week is a good time to start.
Joanna joannaseiber.com