At 81 you figure you’re going to die of something, and sooner rather than later,” she says, sitting at her kitchen table for her first interview about her diagnosis. “I could almost embrace this, that, OK, now I know what it’s probably going to be, and probably how much time there is. So you can clean up some of the mess you’ve made and tie up some of the loose ends.”
“I am no more afraid of dying than I am of, I don’t know, drinking this coffee,” she continues, pointing to her mug. (It’s actually filled with Postum since she’s had to give up caffeine. She remains, thankful, though, that she can still drink a nightly whiskey. “Jack Daniels, of course!” she says, shocked at the suggestion that a Tennessee native would drink anything else.)
— Spiritual writer Phyllis Tickle (“the world’s worst, most devout evangelical Episcopalian”) on her end times
Phyllis Tickle is a southern born and bred, mother of seven and a doyenne of religion writers. She is now 81, and a widow living on a small farm in Lucy, Tennessee just outside of Memphis. The land where her cows once roamed, stray dogs she has adopted and some family surround her. She is being treated for Stage IV cancer.( Religion News Service photo by )Karen Pulfer Focht
The list of Great American Christian and Spiritual Writers has become a long one indeed in recent decades–there’s Anne Lamott (the most popular ever, and for good reason), Kathleen Norris, Karen Armstrong, Annie Dillard and more, like the young and talented and up-and-rising and fearless Rachel Held Evans.
And then there’s Phyllis Tickle, who ranks right up there with the best of the best.
Here’s an excerpt from a Religion News Service report on her eminent death:
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LUCY, Tenn. (RNS) Over the past generation, no one has written more deeply and spoken more widely about the contours of American faith and spirituality than Phyllis Tickle.
And now, at 81, she’s working on her final chapter: her own.
On Jan. 2, the very day her husband, Sam, succumbed to a long and debilitating illness, Tickle found herself flat on her back with a high fever, “as sick as I’ve ever been” and racked by “the cough from hell.”
The fever eventually subsided, but the cough wouldn’t let go. When she finally visited the doctor last month, the diagnosis was quick, and grim: Stage IV lung cancer that had already spread to her spine. The doctors told her she has four months to live, maybe six.
“And then they added: ‘But you’re very healthy so it may take longer.’ Which I just loved!” she says with her characteristic sharp laugh.
Indeed, that’s the kind of irony that delights Tickle, even in sober moments like this, and it embodies the sort of dry humor and frank approach that leaven even her most poignant, personal reflections. It’s also central to the distinctive style, delivered in a rich Southern register, that has won her innumerable fans and friends who will be hard-hit by the news of her illness.
And now click here if you want to know more about this woman, God bless her, of amazing grace.
Pretty lady with a beautiful smile. I need a good Christian book to read.
Need a few suggestions.
Well homegirl, since you asked for it:
I’d recommend anything by Ann Lamott, who’s known for her gut-wrenching honesty oftener peppered with a lot of, uh, salty language. But her honesty about her endless wrestling with God and the challenges of loving other we people she despises–her own family sometimes as when she was a single mom raising her now-grown son Sam–makes her the big best-seller.
Despite her earthy grit she is on a deep faith journey that saved her from alcohol and drug abuse and a very wild, hard-knock youth and young adulthood. Her early stuff like Traveling Mercies is more earthy than her more mature stuff like Bird By Bird, about the writing life but also her faith life–really beautifully written. I’ve always had a fondness for Kathleen Norris, who also has had quite a deep faith journey. Her breakthrough memoir about her going back to her South Dakota family and Christian roots is great but also her books like The Cloister Walk, in which she spent time in a monastery, and The ABCs of Faith–great reads. Among males, most any spiritual book by the late Catholic priest Henri Nouwen is just the best–very readable but in-depth theology and his many books cut in spite of being quite Catholic appeal as much to Protestants as Catholics as he wanted to reach a wide audience. I like Rachel Held Evans, who just converted to the Episcopal Church from the non-denominational, conservative evangelical world, who’s young and very talented and engaging writer. Might check out any of this people with searches on Facebook and “like” their pages to get a taste of their stuff. Me, I’ll take Lamott and Henri Nouwen any day per the others for depth but readability. Then check out at Amazon or Barnes and Nobles–they are all big sellers. (AS is Lady Tickle.)
And I almost forgot Quaker writer Richard J. Foster’s “Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth.” It’s a classic and one of the best on Christian spirituality in modern times, or anything else by Foster.
She has to be a nice lady as I was born 20 minutes away at Memphis Methodist Hospital. She reminds me of another southern lady – my mom!
Cool! Southern ladies are the best–my mom was very much one, too.