FROM THE PUBLISHER

In The Shaping of a Life, Phyllis Tickle recounts her life and her spiritual journey with honesty and humor, richly conveying both the external events and the internal insights and emotions that drew her to a life of prayer and contemplation. She shares stories of her childhood in eastern Tennessee as the only child of the dean at the local college—including her first inkling of the power and comfort of prayer, and her realization that prayer required a disciplined routine, that it is "best practiced by a composed mind and spirit." She writes of the sense of freedom and independence she discovered at college, where she fell in love with the language and the teachings of The Book of Common Prayer and decided to leave the Presbyterianism of her childhood and join the Episcopal Church.

As Tickle chronicles her deepening understanding of prayer and the rewards of a spiritual life, she reaches across the boundaries that separate one denomination from another and presents a portrait of spiritual growth and transformation that will appeal to devout practitioners and their less religious neighbors as well.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Tickle (PW's contributing editor in religion and author of The Divine Hours) offers an enthralling spiritual memoir of her early life in Tennessee, recording academic and religious awakenings and her evolving understanding of prayer. Though her mind is numinous, Tickle's life has never been ascetic. Always the demands of the spirit competed with and were complemented by teaching duties, marriage to a country doctor and the needs of her children. (Although the memoir closes when Tickle is pregnant with her third child, she went on to have four more.) Because of this, Tickle's memoir is reminiscent of the best writing of Madeleine L'Engle, in that the business of spirituality is conducted while stirring the sauce. Several of Tickle's most holy realizations occurred while she engaged in domestic tasks: sorting the china after her wedding or scrubbing out smelly socks in the bathtub. Tickle is quite simply a marvelous writer, continually delighting the reader by her facility not only with the English language but with the human character. In recounting her own life, she pauses to appreciate the mentors, both in the flesh and on the printed page, who assisted in her spiritual formation. Many laugh-out-loud moments balance the frank acknowledgments of dark times, as when she struggled through depression or miscarriage. Even when discussing the more painful memories of her early life, Tickle's writing shines with a joy that is transcendent of circumstance. (Apr.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

In this deeply personal, ten-part autobiography, Tickle (contributing editor, religion, Publishers Weekly) relates how she prepared to become a practicing Episcopalian and a religion journalist/publisher. She starts by citing two dominant themes in her life learned from her parents: the love of words and discipline in prayer. Most of the book examines her experiences as an undergraduate, the early years after college graduation, and her subsequent marriage. The author introduces many influential individuals, such the college professor who helped her connect linguistics and theology, and weaves together events that both informed her spirituality and honed skills of observation, including a near-death experience following a miscarriage. Although the detailed discussion sometimes becomes verbose, Tickle effectively combines humor with honest, serious reflection. In the tradition of Anne Lamott and Kathleen Norris, her work also recalls two quite different spiritual autobiographies that have recently been released: Brother Benet Tvedten's View from a Monastery (Riverhead, 1999) and Marsha Mason's Journey: A Personal Odyssey (LJ 9/15/00). Recommended for larger public libraries and religion collections.--Marianne Orme, West Lafayette, IN Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Citing encounters with seminal individuals, transforming experiences, and enlightening epiphanies, noted religious authority Tickle (God-Talk in America, 1997) relates how she came to live a life shaped by prayer and spirituality. As much a primer on how to pray as an autobiographical account of the journey Tickle took from her original Presbyterianism to Episcopalianism, the book opens in Johnson City, Tennessee, where she was raised. Tickle was an only child of intelligent and loving parents. Her father, who taught at the local university, encouraged her to read widely. Mother set her alarm early so she could pray before rising, and each afternoon she would spend time alone in the living room devoted to the same purpose. This solitary, uninterrupted ritual taught Tickle from early childhood"the first two basic principles of prayer: It requires a disciplined routine and is . . . best practiced by a composed mind and spirit." At college, a mentor introduced her to the Book of Common Prayer; in Memphis in 1955, newly married to medical student Sam Tickle, she found that reading T.S Eliot rescued her from"the cultural mindset of Christianized theism" and revealed"the highly personal role of a confessing Christian." Her faith was further transformed by teaching high school, a summer job at the local Jewish Community Center, and a near-death experience after one of the many miscarriages she endured before bearing seven children. In the South Carolina mill town where Sam was the local doctor, an encounter with a retired missionary who spoke of the mysterious workings of the spirit completed Tickle's road map for the life she would lead. She ends her account back home in Memphis inthemid-1960s. Thoughtful and instructive, but Tickle makes the faith she practices seem awfully easy, and in her depiction reality is almost uniformly sunny and inspiring.