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Prayer Is a Place: America's Religious Landscape Observed (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "All stories, even "Once upon a decade" ones, must continue with "and in a certain place" if they are to tell themselves completely..." (more)
Key Phrases: New York, Limestone Cove, Bob Abernethy (more...)
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Frequently Bought Together

Prayer Is a Place: America's Religious Landscape Observed + The Words of Jesus: A Gospel of the Sayings of Our Lord with Reflections by Phyllis Tickle + Great Emergence, The: How Christianity Is Changing and Why (emersion: Emergent Village resources for communities of faith)
Price For All Three: $41.08

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

With agility and amazing breadth, Tickle (The Divine Hours) recounts her journey as Publishers Weekly's founding religion editor. The book (whose title is perhaps inadequate) begins and ends with Tickle's own story—from her early days in academia to receiving the surprising call to head PW's new religion department to later physical trauma and illness that required a change of role. In between, Tickle gives readers a history of religion publishing since 1993, a decade which took the religion section from the "ill-lighted, back left corner" of most bookstores to prominence as one of the fastest-growing industry segments. Religion, as seen through the lens of publishing, is traced through what Tickle deems a modern-day reformation made possible, in part, by the "democratization of theology"—the availability and abundance of theological information. Tracking this reformation is a momentous undertaking, including myriad intellectual developments—gnosticism and New Age thinking, the spread of Buddhism, the mysticism and "noncontrarianism" of Gen-Xers—as well as populist forces, such as critiques of church doctrine, academic movements, autobiographies, popular fiction and even film. However, the subject matter is lightened by intimate glimpses of Tickle's life and faith—of spinning with Sufi dervishes, of finding release in the song of a Jewish cantor, of a poignant "ordination" moment in the Holocaust museum. In the end, the history of religion publishing and Tickle's own story intermingle, and readers may feel that neither tale is completely told. However, many are sure to embrace this often vulnerable recounting of the development of religion publishing from one of its most beloved figures. (June 21)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.


From The Washington Post

A former religion editor at Publisher's Weekly, Phyllis Tickle is well-suited to explore what she calls, in her book's subtitle, "America's religious landscape." Prayer Is a Place (Doubleday, $23.95) is a combination of memoir and state-of-the-faith analysis.

The book begins in 1977, when Tickle, her pulmonologist husband, and five of their six children left their home in Memphis to live on a working farm in Lucy, Tenn. "Our concern in the mid-1970s . . . was not with the place where we were," she writes, "but with who we were. . . . The dust of Vietnam was always on the mirror we looked at ourselves in; and there was the keening sigh, audible even in the city, of an earth being used, not tended." These sentiments evoke not only the counterculture of the '60s but also the embrace of traditional values that prefigured the revival of religious conservatism. Throughout Prayer Is a Place, the farm in Lucy provides a constant, nurturing backdrop to Tickle's travels.

The juxtaposition of lyrical passages about Tickle's spiritual insights with her accounts of wider cultural movements (like the growth of American Buddhism, the implications of Islamic immigration, and the publication of such books as Embraced by the Light and The Celestine Prophecy) gives the book a curious structure. But the author's genteel prose serves as a unifying element, matching her civilized tone, as when she notes that "there is in my heart great affection for many a conservative Christian with whom I differ intensely and frequently."

Some of the book's loveliest passages describe Tickle's 40-odd years of observing the Benedictine tradition of "praying the hours," which led to the publication of her popular series of prayer volumes, The Divine Hours. But because Tickle's primary interest is in religious culture -- the diversity of rituals, celebrations, and worship practices among world religions -- she often fails to consider how religion functions as ideology. Her earnest belief that religious understanding will promote tolerance keeps her from adequately addressing how various faiths -- sometimes violently at odds with one another -- will ever be harmonized. She pays little attention to the broad appeal of conservative religion, whether Jewish, Christian or Islamic. Nor does she say much about evangelicalism aside from references to an increasingly "Christianized" popular culture.

Despite its ultimately skewed portrait of American religion, Prayer Is a Place is to be recommended for its fascinating witness of Tickle's life. In the course of the events the book describes, she manages to withstand serious illness in herself and in her family while editing, writing books, praying the hours and sustaining the haven of the farm -- testimony to her astonishing energy and accomplishment. Ultimately, her conviction of the value of a loving family to the life of the spirit is the book's most compelling theme.

Very Rich Hours
Copyright 2005, The Washington Post Co. All Rights Reserved.

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Product Details

  • Hardcover: 352 pages
  • Publisher: Doubleday Religion (June 21, 2005)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0385504403
  • ISBN-13: 978-0385504409
  • Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 5.8 x 1.3 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #409,418 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Phyllis Tickle
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All stories, even "Once upon a decade" ones, must continue with "and in a certain place" if they are to tell themselves completely. Read the first page
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New York, Limestone Cove, Bob Abernethy, Jack Spong, Eric Major, Ground Zero, Holy Trinity, The Jesus Seminar, Tom Cahill, Daisy Maryles, Episcopal Church, Roman Catholic, Dalai Lama, Flamingo Hotel, Fred Ciporen, Los Angeles, Memphis International, San Francisco, Holy Spirit, Mike Leach, Nag Hammadi, New Age, Phyllis Tickle, Jesus of Nazareth, Marcus Borg
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars I just had to put it down ..., April 4, 2006
I just had to put it down ...

After it grabbed me, I had to break its hold so I could stop and contemplate what it said for a while before I could continue. It was much more than I expected.

I expected a handbook on prayer, but it was instead an autobiography on me. And you. And also -- the author. It was our story of faith through this part of the twentieth century into the new millennium. It was the remembering of all we have lived through together in the unconscious forgetting of daily life into the remembering of a storyteller recounting a shared adventure.

At first it was like a rich meal that I could only nibble. Then intrigued, I went back for ever more substantial and surprising feasts.

Here were all the confusing fragments I had struggled with and dropped in my life of blind labyrinthine faith now organized for me into an objective whole. Like a map from above to see where I had been.

All in a personal and very human story of the stuff of real life on this bizarre planet in this confusing time. A life of faith and questions through illness, death, love and loss. Of the wandering in the wilderness of faith to the knowing that God brings in his way, in his time.

But the author lied. A very big lie. She said she was no novelist. What is this book but a novel of the journey of shared lives and shared faiths in the greatest of adventures?
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars America's Religious Landscape Observed, February 15, 2007
By J Martin Jellinek (Memphis, TN United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
I had the pleasure and honor of hearing Ms. Tickle give a presentation to a small group here in Memphis. She won me over with her knowledge and grace, so I requested one of her books for Christmas. Much to my delight, I received Prayer is a Place.

For those who know Ms. Tickle through her meditational writing, this is a bit different. The book is autobiographical in nature, covering a period from 1992 through 2003. As religion editor for Publisher's Weekly, she was exposed to many of the trends that have rocked faith communities over the decade. She examines these trends and provides unexpected conclusions that leave the reader hopeful for the future. She is also frank in her journey, exposing hurt and fear that we all face in our daily lives. Her writing is truly about America's Religious Landscape Observed.

If you are interested in this religious and sociological subject, then this book is very highly recommended.
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5.0 out of 5 stars If You Like Phyllis Tickle's Approach to Writing on Faith, This Book Invites You to See the World Through Her Eyes, September 9, 2008
If you're attracted to Phyllis Tickle's work and you're staring at the long list of books with her name attached on an Amazon search screen -- let me help you by pointing out: This is the book to buy if you really want to get to know Phyllis herself.

Yes, it's a fairly in-depth interpretation of events in American religious life as she has explored them as a journalist and scholar. But, really, you should read this book to enjoy "meeting" Phyllis and learning about her way of seeing our spiritual landscape.

It's possible to study this book with a small group, but this one is designed more for individual reading, I think. It's rewarding and will unlock your understanding of the broad range of other projects Phyllis has undertaken over the past decade.
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