The Shaping of a Life: A Spiritual Landscape [Hardcover]

Phyllis Tickle (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 17, 2001

Lively, entertaining, and inspiring, THE SHAPING OF A LIFE is in the tradition of the beloved bestsellers by Kathleen Norris and Anne Lamott, an intimate, lyrical, and thought-provoking memoir from one of the most respected and admired writers on religion in America today.

In THE SHAPING OF A LIFE, Phyllis Tickle recounts her life with honesty and humor, richly conveying both the external events and the internal insights and emotions. 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 marriage, family, and 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. Within a very personal story, Tickle reveals the keys that will help readers of all faiths find the path that leads from the everyday world of "doing" to the special place of simply "being."

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Phyllis Tickle's exquisite memoir Shaping a Life ranges across a sweeping Southern landscape where we see the events--highly dramatic and tenderly simple--that shaped her esteemed spiritual life. (Tickle, author of The Divine Hours, is a contributing editor on religion for Publisher's Weekly and is one of America's most respected authorities on religion.) When we first meet Tickle, she is a highly imaginative only child growing up in the mountains of eastern Tennessee in the 1930s. By the end of the book we have followed her through the formative days of college, her migration into the Episcopal Church, and into some of her most riveting moments as a young wife and public school teacher in the 1950s.

Tickle has the wisdom of a mature storyteller as well as the humility of a spiritual seeker. She makes meaning out of the smallest details, showing us how a backyard forsythia bush became a sacred hiding place, foreshadowing her lifelong compulsion to find private sanctuaries. We meet her gentle mother, who made a daily ritual out of reading a magazine, manicuring her nails and studying the Bible. This, she concludes, influenced Tickle's adult attraction to the daily psalms. Even the way she sneaked cigarettes in her college dorm offers insight into the nature of her Christian yearnings.

Some of her scenes are utterly gripping, like her near-death experience after having an adverse reaction to an anti-miscarriage drug. "Without a care for anything that had ever been or ever was or ever might be, I lifted toward the light as lithely as if I had been a sparrow upon the courses of the early morning wind." Throughout the memoir we are held in this kind of lilting narration. Like a feminine version of Pat Conroy, Tickle is a strong, descriptive author who thoroughly appreciates how Southern landscapes, family, marriage, and death can shape a character as well as a spirit. --Gail Hudson

From 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.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 400 pages
• Publisher: Doubleday; 1st edition (April 17, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385497555
• ISBN-13: 978-0385497558
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.2 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,978,887 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Phyllis Tickle, founding editor of the religion department at Publishers Weekly, is one of the most highly respected authorities and popular speakers on religion in America today. She is the author of more than two dozen books including the Divine Hours series of prayer manuals. A lector and lay eucharistic minister in the Episcopal Church, Tickle is a senior fellow of the Cathedral College of Washington National Cathedral. For more information go to www.phyllistickle.com and www.allthewordsofjesus.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars BEST SPIRITUAL MEMOIR OF 2001, May 24, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: The Shaping of a Life: A Spiritual Landscape (Hardcover)

Phyllis Tickle has written the most astounding and moving spiritual biography I've read in years. In beautifully detailed prose she recounts her earliest childhood memories when she was first awakened by the sacred. I knew I was in for treat when, early in the book, I felt the immediacy of her experience--she had a spiritual epiphany while crouched in a forsythia hedge during a game of hide-and-seek.

As I followed her developing spiritual hunger through her high school and college years, I recognized so many parallels from my own life. But here's what I liked most about this book: the wonderful, thought-provoking meditative reflections on the everyday occurrences of life that, if one approaches life with an open heart, are imbued with spiritual meaning.

And the other thing I liked? Just plain, good, old-fashioned story-telling. No one tells a great story like Phyllis Tickle. I loved it!

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely must read!, May 25, 2001

By 

Carol A. Durepos (Clovis, NM USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Shaping of a Life: A Spiritual Landscape (Hardcover)

Phyllis Tickle is an enthralling, unique, transmuted specimen of the homo sapien species that I wouldn't have known existed or believed in if I hadn't read her book, The Shaping of A Life. The book made a believer out of me, she is truly a kindred spirit. Reading Shaping of A Life was both a struggle and a delight. I have spent almost as much time with the dictionary as with the book. It is one of the most well-written, intelligent, entertaining, inspiring, sensitive books I have ever read. I absolutely know she has worked very hard all her life and what an extraordinary life it is. Amazing! I am so grateful that she was willing to share parts of it with us. I feel privileged in having had the opportunity to meet her in this incredible book. The Shaping of A Life is a unique experience that must not be missed. Now I want more.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Invitation..., August 23, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: The Shaping of a Life: A Spiritual Landscape (Hardcover)

Through one woman's story, we are invited to draw closer to the One who loves us the most. The beauty of Tickle's writing is that her tone is one of invitation to a life of prayer, rather than being preachy or self-congratulatory. By turns poignant and humorous, Tickle kept my attention through the very last page. My only disappointment was that her story ended much too soon. More, please!