I first ran into Phyllis Tickle when I started exploring the liturgy of the hours. She wrote a great breviary called The Divine Hours (you can check out over at the Ann Arbor Vineyard web-page which hosts a Daily Online version.) Soon after she kept turning up. I heard interviews with her on Podcasts, I ran into her while visiting my brother’s church. She wrote a number of forwards to books I was reading. I was impressed with a lot of what she was saying.
Finally this year I met her while I was down in Albuquerque at a conferance hosted by the Center for Action and Contemplation. She is one of the kindest people I have met! Lately she has been talking about a movement some of you might be familiar with that she calls “The Great Emergence.”
Basically she, along with many others, believe that the church is going through a great upheaval similar to the reformation. Our society is facing questions the church in it’s current form has trouble framing in a relevant story. The main issue is where does authority lie. They believe the mantra of solo scriptura, within the protestant tradition, has ceased to be compelling in our current framework.
We are also struggling with what makes us human, and if/how we have souls. Phyllis has done some great work distilling a great number of issues down into some pretty easy to understand images. I recommend you take a peek at the video below. In it she presents the church today in the image of a rose and asks you where you fit in. (The original video was removed, below is another video where she presents this idea)
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In