Prayer is a Place
Long ago in a galaxy far, far away, I discovered Amazon.com had a place to enter one's wish list. I typed in some titles and then forgot about the list altogether. Imagine my delight, then, at Christmastime, when my friend Rhonda peeked at my list and sent me one of the books I'd selected. How fun to open a present and honestly exclaim, "I've been wanting this!" The book: Prayer is a Place by Phyllis Tickle.
It's the third "Tickle" book in my possession. (She has many others.) My introduction to her came via my position as editor-in-chief of Kindred Spirit, the magazine of Dallas Theological Seminary. Her publicist sent me a copy of The Divine Hours along with the usual PR materials that accompany such offerings. It's the only set of PR materials I've ever received that I held onto rather than tossing. Even the stuff that described the book, the summaries of stories and the idea behind the concept, moved me.
Most Christ-followers in most centuries have "kept the hours"--observed set times throughout the twenty-four-hour day when the observant draw aside for brief prayer and meditation. My late aunt, Joyce Grafe, learned and taught the craft of laying gold leaf on illuminated (decorated in color or gold) manuscripts--a craft put to good use illuminating books of hours. From her I learned that such treasures even existed.
I've belonged to churches mostly in the Revivalist tradition. Since age fourteen, I've been Charismatic, a Bible-churcher, and Baptist. But until then, I belonged to Methodist and Presbyterian churches. And today I try to make it to a worship service at the National Cathedral (Episcopal) whenever we visit family in the D.C. area, because from my childhood heritage I gained a deep appreciation for the church year (New Year's being the first Sunday in advent), with its corresponding colors and observances, sights and smells. I miss waving branches on Palm Sunday and singing, "Hosanna, Loud Hosannas." And lighting the advent wreath. And "Old 100th" (the Doxology) and the Gloria Patri.... An Episcopalian, Tickle possesses a rich familiarity with the place that will always in a part of me be home.
Revivalists claim we don't do ritual, but (sh-h-h!) really we do. Walk into most Revivalist churches today and you get a music set, offering, sermon, and prayer of response. The only "ritual" we cut out was the public reading of Scripture, the pastoral prayer, responsive reading (more Scripture), and recitation of the Lord's Prayer. In their place, we have longer sermons and less Holy Communion. Hm-m-m.
What? Youthinks I doth regress too much? Okay...focus. Back to the book I finished today...
I liked Tickle's survey of where we've been in religious book publishing for the past couple of decades. And though she and I fall fairly far apart theologically, I appreciate the wideness she sees in God's mercy. It drives me to pray for more openness to mystery.
And I like her storytelling. Though this her latest work draws on her experience at Publishers Weekly reporting on the religious book market, it's also an autobiography of a woman who can tell a story--oh, can she tell one!
And I love how her vocabulary stretches me. My agent, Chip MacGregor, says he likes an author who sends him to the dictionary once in a while. Me, too. I finally kept my dictionary open (online) nearby as I read. Today's words: lassitude and tesseract. (Ignoramus that I sometimes am, until today, I thought Madeleine L'Engle made up that last one for A Wrinkle in Time!)
And I adore Tickle's level of literary finesse. After spending my Ph.D. studies last summer with T. S. Eliot and last fall with Dante, I applaud her for a grand-slam ending--referencing Eliot's ending in "Little Gidding," with its eschatological vision of a time when "the fire and the rose are one."
"Even so..." (Rev. 22:20, KJV).