Leslie Leyland Fields
9 min read ⭑
“We don’t need more information about God or prayer; we need more attachment. And the Psalms are there for exactly that. They give us a whole-brain, whole-hearted, whole-body approach to loving and attaching to God.”
When Leslie Leyland Fields isn’t traveling to speak at conferences around the world, she’s usually writing award-winning books or hosting writing workshops from the comfort of her hometown: Kodiak, Alaska. (Except, of course, when she’s helping with her family’s commercial salmon business each summer in Harvester Island.)
No matter where Leslie is, she’s committed to connecting with God with her whole spirit, soul and body — and helping others do the same. Join us as she gets honest in today’s interview about her obsession with YouTube, her thoughts on how God invites us into holy dialogue, and why she’s choosing to live her spiritual life out loud instead of in silence.
QUESTION #1: ACQUAINT
There’s much more to food than palate and preference. How does a go-to meal at your favorite hometown restaurant reveal the true you behind the web bio?
I sit down at a window booth because it’s over the waterway to the harbor. Fishing boats pass by just 200 feet away because we’re a fishing town: Kodiak, Alaska. And of course, I’m at a seafood restaurant!
We’re fishermen, too — my family and I are commercial salmon fishermen in the summers. Every summer, we migrate, like the salmon, from the town of Kodiak to a wilderness island where my family and I have been fishing for almost 50 years.
So what do I order? “I’ll take the blackened Cajun salmon, please.”
My friends look at me like I’m crazy, but that’s my first choice. (Besides, they cook it better than I do!) If not that, then any Alaska or local seafood wherever I am. I get judged for it, but I want to support fishermen and sustainable harvest. I know personally how much it costs to get that fish on people’s plates. (Okay, our kind of fishing isn’t quite like “The Deadliest Catch,” but sometimes it’s pretty close!) And besides that, how can you say no to Szechuan salmon, coconut cod, or halibut tacos?
QUESTION #2: REVEAL
We’ve all got quirky proclivities and out-of-the-way interests. So what are yours? What so-called “nonspiritual” activity (or activities) do you love engaging in, which also help you find essential spiritual renewal?
I’m a smoker. And when I get together with other smokers — oh, how we’ll dish and compare!
I’m talking about smoking salmon, of course. It’s my favorite activity of the summer. But it’s also pretty nerve-wracking because it all matters. How you cut that brilliant carmine flesh, just walked up from the beach, into strips. (Or will you smoke the whole fish, split?) How you brine it. (Wet or dry? How much salt? Sugar? Which kind?) How long you brine it. Whether you hot or cold smoke it. And for how long and at what temperature. Plus, if or how you glaze the salmon. (One time, I glazed a king salmon with rhubarb sauce from my field.)
So many choices! It’s truly all art and science with a bit of prayer thrown in, which also means I goof sometimes. I miscalculate. The time I wrecked my sons’ whole smokehouse full of salmon because I stoked the fire too high. (Ugh! No way to walk that back!)
It’s always a balance of control and letting go, plus some bowing before the mysteries of fire, smoke, salt and wind, all of which you need. I really have to align myself with the grain of God’s universe to make it work. I find that deeply rewarding and renewing.
QUESTION #3: CONFESS
Every superhero has a weakness. Every human, too. We’re just good at faking it. But who are we kidding? We’re broken and in this thing together. So what’s your kryptonite, and how do you hide it?
Would someone please take away YouTube? And reels and shorts? And genius cats, clogging toddlers and Jeremy Allen White interviews? I’ve been a disciplined person for most of my life, but I’m not sure I can say that anymore. I’m a sucker for the online parade of brilliance, goofiness and creativity, all of which play so much better than my toil at the blank screen.
Who doesn’t prefer dancing Irish grannies over the lonely pursuit of profundity? So I try to make a few rules for myself. I set goals each day for my work. I try to have some spiritual focus in the morning. With my prime-time energy, I immerse myself in God’s Word. Then, I hit the hardest deadlines next.
By mid-afternoon, well, things trend downhill, and I find myself straying over to YouTube. I think some of that whimsy is good and fun, so I’ll never ban it outright. I’m just trying to whittle away at my frivolity quotient, saving the yoga goats and lip-synching celebrities as a reward after I finish Big Work — even an interview!
QUESTION #4: FIRE UP
Tell us about your toil. How are you investing your professional time right now? What’s your current obsession? And why should it be ours?
Right now, I’m spreading the word about something that changed my life 20 years ago when God felt really far away. What started then is now my newest book, “Nearing a Far God: Praying the Psalms with Our Whole Selves.” It all sounds tidy now, but let me tell you, it started in a mess.
Picture this: a woman on a remote roadless island in Alaska raising six wild kidlets (five boys and a girl, to be specific) while staying involved in her family’s fishing labor and trying to write books. And wanting to follow Jesus. There’s no church and little contact with the outside world. So there are tears, exhaustion, fights and storms. And God feels so far away from this faraway place. Whether you live in Atlanta, Houston, or Los Angeles, you still know what this isolation and desperation feels like. But I discovered all those same emotions in the Psalm from guys writing more than 2,000 years ago.
Here’s my discovery and what the book is about: We’ve been so bent toward “knowing God” with our minds, but we were made for more than that. When we get together with other believers, we “study” the Bible — all good. But our disembodied, neck-up theology of prayer and spirituality often doesn’t touch the whole of us.
We don’t need more information about God or prayer; we need more attachment. And the Psalms are there for exactly that. They give us a whole-brain, whole-hearted, whole-body approach to loving and attaching to God. They show us what it looks and sounds like to truly love God with all our hearts, minds, souls and strength. They’re utterly unique in the Word of God because they create this holy dialogue between God and his people. And we’re invited into that dialogue!
I believe we’re intended to enter the Psalms with our own voice and story. In the book, I show people how to do that. When we do, we encounter God in his Word in an astounding, holistic way. God comes near — as near as our next breath.
QUESTION #5: BOOST
Cashiers, CEOs, contractors, or customer service reps, we all need grace flowing into us and back out into the world. How does the Holy Spirit invigorate your work? And how do you know it’s God when it happens?
A few years ago, I discovered a memory I had forgotten for 50-plus years. When I was in junior high, we had to hike a steep mile-long mountain road to get to the school bus every day. One winter day when I was in 7th grade, there was a blizzard. The school bus drove us to the bottom of the hill as it always did. Normally, no matter the weather (even at zero), no one ever gave us a ride. But this one time, in the midst of this crazy blizzard, someone did — the bus driver. She risked everything to drive us up the mountain.
The Lord returned that memory of extraordinary kindness to me when I really needed it. This sentence just appeared: “I wished then and I wish now, writing this, that it had been my mother or my father instead (who gave us a ride up the mountain). But I am learning to give this up: interrogating the past as a means to accuse. I see now not neglect but radiant kindness.”
I was astonished at that truth. It came from beyond me. This happens for all of us in our art. Jesus tells us to “ask, seek and knock,” which I think is all about pursuing God’s truth, love, and wisdom no matter where it takes you. For me, my “ask, seek and knock” tool is language and writing. When writing, I try to suspend my preconceptions to allow for radical disruption. When we aim beyond self-expression to truth-expression, we’re going to get carried up the mountain by the Holy Spirit into a larger, wider, more beautiful place.
QUESTION #6: inspire
Scripture and tradition beckon us into the rich and varied habits that open our hearts to the presence of God. So let us in. Which spiritual practice is working best for you right now?
For most of my life, I’ve read God’s Word and prayed in silence, my body frozen, as many of us have done. The Hebrews would have been shocked! I’m getting my “spiritual” into my body life — into my whole self!
I’m doing this through the Psalms, writing into and out of them, then expressing and embodying my prayers. In other words, I’m learning to bring my whole self to this wondrous Father. I’m so much louder than I was! I’m so much freer. I’m living my spiritual life out loud instead of in silence and immobility.
QUESTION #7: FOCUS
Looking backward, considering the full sweep of your unique faith journey and all you encountered along the way, what top resources stand out to you? What changed the game and changed your heart? What radically altered your life? What changed your reality?
The book that got me started on whole-person spirituality is Jim Wilder and Michael Hendrick’s book, “The Other Half of Church.” They introduced to me this new field of neurotheology, which looks at the fascinating nexus of the brain — how we actually learn and change — and spiritual formation.
I love listening to audio Bibles, but most of them are exclusively in men’s voices. It was a revelation when I heard Her.Bible, which is all narrated by professional narrators — all women. It’s designed to help us hear the heart of God in every book, chapter and passage.
We all have things we cling to to survive (or even thrive) in tough times — times like these! Name one resource you’re savoring and/or finding indispensable in this current season, and tell us what it’s doing for you.
I need more energy these days and really want to honor God with my body (and winters in Alaska can be very long), so I’m loving praise dancing and fitness. There are a number of programs out there, but I’m really enjoying Paul Eugene’s videos on YouTube. When I’m tired of being draped over my computer, I get up and hit one of his workout videos. It’s so refreshing and returns me to wholeness.
QUESTION #8: dream
God is continually stirring new things in each of us. So give us the scoop! What’s beginning to stir in you but not yet fully awakened? What can we expect from you in the future?
Some super exciting things are happening with my memoir work. Over the next few years, I’ll be teaching my “Your Story Matters” material to Christian leaders overseas, in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. I’m watching God fulfill my dream of seeing so many people freed and restored through finding God in their stories.
I plan to continue this work, but I also get to steward this blood-sweat-and-Spirit work of the Psalms book now. I’ll be leading my first Nearing God Gathering in April. I’ll be leading these retreats now for years to come — here in the U.S. and abroad.
It would be easier just to move onto the next book. The publishing industry expects you to do this, and our culture values the “next new thing” above all else. But I have to stop and follow Jesus into the grapevines — to water and weed and prune and gather all that God wants to grow through memoir and now the Psalms work. It’s such a joy to watch our Father bring freedom to his children!
In our Western culture, we’re pretty good at worshipping God with our minds. And we’re often reminded to use our hearts, too. But as Leslie pointed out, God wants — and asks for — more than that. He wants our bodies to be involved.
If you take a look through the Psalms, you’ll find some interesting (and very physical) ways the psalmists prayed or worshipped, like lifting their hands, standing, shouting, bowing, dancing, clapping or getting out in nature.
Putting aside differences regarding worship styles and preferences, maybe it’s time to ask ourselves: How can I involve my body when I worship or pray to God? How can I express my love intellectually, emotionally and physically?
Leslie Leyland Fields joyfully spends her life in an economy-class airplane seat and on two islands in Alaska. She’s written 14 books, including Your Story Matters: Finding, Writing and Living the Truth of Your Life; Crossing the Waters: Following Jesus through the Storms, the Fish, the Doubt, and the Seas; and Nearing a Far God: Praying the Psalms with Our Whole Selves. She teaches the Memoir Masterclass (online) and leads “Your Story Matters” and “Nearing God” retreats in Alaska and around the world that bring hope and healing through the Psalms, story and community.
