Phyllis Tickle

In her acclaimed trilogy, The Divine Hours, Phyllis Tickle introduced modern Christians to the time-honored practice of praying the hours. In this exquisite new volume, she provides a vibrant program of prayer dedicated to the anticipation of Christ's resurrection. Beginning with Ash Wednesday and moving through Lent and on to Easter Sunday, Eastertide provides the daily prayers that bring practitioners into the full spirit of this season. Each day is filled with psalms, readings from the Bible, and hymns of praise and worship, just as they appear in the larger volume, The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime. Newcomers to this beloved tradition will find that Eastertide is the perfect introduction to joining the ancients in the tradition of fixed-hour prayer. A wise rabbi once told me that it is not how many prayers we don't say that matters to God, but rather how many we do. That is important to all of us, but especially for beginners. If this is your first attempt to return to this most ancient of Christian practices, it is wise to remember that you are entering into a discipline and, like all disciplines, this one sits hard and heavy upon one at times. There are hours you will miss and/or some that you can't even begin to figure out how to observe. That is all right, for either the joy will carry you into greater joy and transmute the discipline into privilege, or you will find yourself simply the wiser and the richer for such experience as you have had. As the rabbi said, that is what matters ultimately.

In the second book from Tickle's Stories from the Farm in Lucy series, Tickle celebrates the "luminous beauty that burst forth in spring," and offers heartwarming reflections about the sacrifice of Lent, the darkness of Good Friday, the rebirth of Easter, and the reminder of eternal life.

The third and final volume in a trilogy of prayer manuals compiled by Publishers Weekly religion editor Phyllis Tickle as a contemporary Book of Hours to guide Christians gently yet authoritatively through the daily offices. The Divine Hours is the first major literary and liturgical reworking of the sixth-century Benedictine Rule of fixed-hour prayer. This beautifully conceived and thoroughly modern three-volume guide will appeal to the theological novice as well as to the ecclesiastical sophisticate. Making primary use of the Book of Common Prayer and the writings of the Church Fathers, The Divine Hours is also a companion to the New Jerusalem Bible, from which it draws its Scripture readings. The trilogy blends prayer and praise in a way that, while extraordinarily fresh, respects and builds upon the ancient wisdom of Christianity. The third and final book in the set, Prayers for Springtime, provides prayers, psalms, and readings for this season associated with rebirth. Compact, it is perfect for those seeking greater spiritual depth. As a contemporary Book of Hours, The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime heralds a renewal of the tradition of disciplined daily prayer, and gives those already using the first two volumes the completion they are seeking. With this volume, the series culminates with three prayer manuals encompassing the liturgical and calendar year with the offices for every day.

This anthology, arriving in Tennessee's bicentennial year, is a bountiful showcase of the state's rich literary output. Like its predecessor, the widely read Homewords, published in 1986 for Tennessee's Homecoming, this new volume feature fiction, poetry, and nonfiction by living writers - from senior literati such as Shelby Foote, John Egerton, and Nikki Giovanni to numerous newly emerging talents, including Ann Patchett, Steve Womack, and Jerome Wilson. The writings contained here are of such rich and marvelous variety that they elude easy reduction to a set of common themes or concerns. Readers of this book, says editor Phyllis Tickle in her preface, will discover the pervasive influence of Native American culture upon Tennessee's worldview - "not so much overt and politically correct as inherent and incorporated." Beyond that, however, the selections are, if anything, characterized by the relative absence of those qualities usually associated with southern literature: the legacy of the Civil War, dialect and colloquialisms, and, most notably, "a sense of place." Yet, however much the posture of Tennessee writers may have shifted from regionalist to citizen of the moment, something essential remains. Throughout these pages, Tickle notes, "there resides the kind of dry, wise humor that is born of endurance and the secured perspective of those who know where and what home is ... which is why, in the end, we settled upon our title, HomeWorks - that is, works of the heart and mind, done from and for home."