Books
Forgiving Our Fathers and Mothers:
Finding Freedom From Hurt and Hate
“An excellent resource for the journey…The authors’ gracious approach does not minimize the pain adults feel about their relationships with parents who have hurt them. Neither does it offer platitudes. Instead, the Fields and Hubbard outline concrete steps to do the necessary work of forgiveness in order to move forward into a life of freedom. An excellent resource for the journey."
- Publishers Weekly
"Leslie Leyland Fields and Jill Hubbard take us into raw, messy stories so we can be transformed by that mysterious and painful grace in the force called forgiveness."
—Scot McKnight, Northern Seminary
“If our families are to flourish, we will need to learn and practice ways of forgiving those who have had the greatest impact upon us: our mothers and fathers."
Do you struggle with the deep pain of a broken relationship with a parent?
Leslie Leyland Fields and Dr. Jill Hubbard invite you to walk with them as they explore
these questions:
these questions:
- Why must we forgive at all?
- How do we honor those who act dishonorably toward us, especially when those people are as influential as our parents?
- Can we ever break free from the “sins of our fathers”?
- What does forgiveness look like in the lives of real parents and children?
- Does forgiveness always require reconciliation?
Through the authors’ own compelling personal stories combined with a fresh look at the Scriptures, Forgiving Our Fathers and Mothers illustrates and instructs in the practice of authentic forgiveness, leading you away from hate and hurt toward healing, hope, and freedom.
MORE HERE: Excerpts, reviews, video clips
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The Spirit of Food
34 Writers on Feasting and Fasting Toward God
With essays by Wendell Berry, Robert Farrar Capon, Andres Dubus, Lauren Winner, Luci Shaw, Jeanne Murray Walker, and many others.
Introduction
The season’s first salmon hang headless in my daughter’s hands, one fish in each, as she walks them up the hill to the house. From the front steps, I can see their heft and length, the shine of their silvered scales, their shimmering backs. I am anxious to hold them myself. It is the first week of the commercial salmon fishery, a profession my children and husband have worked in nearly since birth. for me, it’s been thirty-three seasons here on this remote Alaskan island....(more)
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Surviving the Island of Grace
Life on the Wild Edge of America
“...To deem this solely a memoir of her life spent as the wife of a salmon fisherman on a remote Alaskan island would be missing the boat, for Fields’ powerful poetic prose deals with themes as large as the great outdoors . . . . Just as Thoreau went to the woods to live deliberately, so, too, do the Fields live on this ocean, without electricity, or telephones, with bears and eagles as their constant companions, choosing it as much for what it offers as for what it omits. Paying homage to man’s flexibility and gratitude for God’s grace, Fields’ memoir is haunting in its imagery, uplifting in its message.” ---Booklist
1978
This morning, before I leave our loft for breakfast, I do not check the calendar. I know what day it is: July 26–put-out day. This is the day we load our nets from the mending racks on the beach and drop them back into the water. I am grim. I have done this four times by now in this, my first season, which makes me still a nervous greenhorn, since Duncan, his two brothers and his father have been fishing for more than twenty years, yet I know exactly what will happen in the day and night ahead. (more)
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Parenting is Your Highest Calling
And 8 Other Myths That Trap Us In Worry And Guilt
The nine most common parenting myths are exposed and replaced with the fresh hope of truth. Through an eye-opening look at cultural beliefs and God’s example as a parent, Fields invites readers to let go of guilt and find freedom to love your children as God intended.
The Beginning: From Worry and Guilt to Freedom
I am going to bed happy tonight. We've just had a family meeting on our bed...(more)
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True Stories of Obsession, Death, and Love from Alaska's Commercial Fishing Men and Women
Hooked! begins where The Deadliest Catch ends. The rousing sea stories are here: the dramas of near-death battles, the sickening tragedy of lovers and friends lost to the waters---but this is not the whole story. This collection represents an extraordinary holistic view of Alaskan fishing: not just men's lives on the water, but women's as well. Not just winter crab fishing, but the challenges and thrills of fishing for cod, salmon, halibut, and herring. Not just the dying, but the passionate living as well. Readers will understand as never before why so many men and women are hooked, unwilling or unable to leave this uncommon life.
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True Stories of Daring, Persistence, and Survival from the Nation’s Most Dangerous Profession
“ . . .These are gripping stories . . . Set in the frigid and unforgiving waters of remote places such as the Bering Sea and the North Atlantic, these 19 chapters vividly describe the realities and motivations of those pursuing swordfish, herring, salmon, crab, urchins, and other creatures of the deep...Featuring such noted authors as Peter Mathiessen, Spike Walker, and Linda Greenlaw, this first compendium is an absorbing look at a world few even consider, much less experience.” --amazon.com
Introduction
It started in 1977 when I put on my first pair of hip boots on a tiny island in the Gulf of Alaska and vaulted into a small wooden skiff full of salmon. (more)
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Finding Hope in Unexpected Pregnancy
Unexpected pregnancies happen to women in every season of life, yet the loneliness surrounding an unplanned pregnancy is rarely acknowledged. In Surprise Child, Fields walks the reader month-by-month through the stages of pregnancy, voicing with startling honesty her own struggles and guiding the reader from despair toward readiness for new life.
Introduction
Four years ago I walked into the bathroom, hand clenched around a white cellophane-wrapped stick. Three minutes later the bathroom door opened, and my face was white. In a tiny centimetered window no bigger than my fingernail a faint line slowly emerged, then solidified. It was the face of another human being—one I had not asked for. Surely my life was over. (more)
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The Entangling Net
Alaska’s Commercial Fishing Women Tell Their Lives
“. . . a powerful and vivid portrayal of commercial fishing in Alaskan waters. . . . This book is engaging, intriguing and thrilling for anyone who might be fascinated by the lives of these extraordinary working women who thrive on hard challenges, physical and emotional stamina, and moments of grace within an elemental and fiercely beautiful sphere. Fields is a fine, lyrical writer.” --Pacific Northwest Quarterly
I've Seen People Die (read)