Inspire, Fall 2006

Inspire 17 I am lost, I am found, I am freed from the suffocating bounds of self. As I work at writing memoir and nonfiction, holding up the tattered pieces of my life in a search for language to shape and redeem them, I invite the gaze of another — the Word — Creator himself. This is the ultimate writing workshop. Sometimes I am quiet, simply listening. Other times I am Jacob, who, having ushered the rest of his family to a safe distance, then stolidly approaches the theophany, sweaty hands on his wrists, not letting go until the words he needs are spoken, the blessing given. This duel is a singular enterprise. No one can stand in for me. And though the prevailing metaphor for the church — the human body — is the quintessential image of community (many parts, one body), St. Paul admonishes us as well to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling. Whether we live in the heart of Manhattan or on an island in Alaska, this is the hard work done on our knees, alone. This is the hard work of writing, nothing less than a fearful working out of our daily salvation. I write about the virtues of working in isolation because I must. In a few weeks, I will pack up house and children and make the flight out to our distant island. I will always long for community in this place, and in my winter island home as well, and will read journals and join conferences and workshops whenever possible, but I am reconciled to the boundaries set around me. I am learning not to fear isolation and need. Indeed, as a writer, I am fed by the tensions that define my life. Perhaps these are the same tensions that define the lives of believers everywhere — who stand every day with their two feet in oppositional worlds. On the day that all longing is filled, will my pen fall silent? Or, perhaps, finally, in the company of redeemed fellow writers and artists, I will find my best and truest voice, a choral voice. Leslie Leyland Fields is the author of five books, Out on the Deep Blue , The Entangling Net , The Water under Fish , Surviving the Island of Grace , and Surprise Child: Finding Hope in Unexpected Pregnancy . You can visit her at www.leslie-leyland-fields.com or www.surprisechild.com . Her e-mail is northernpen@alaska.com . Indeed, as a writer, I am fed by the tensions that define my life. Perhaps these are the same tensions that define the lives of believers everywhere — who stand every day with their two feet in oppositional worlds. Noah, Micah, Leslie (Leyland) ’79, Duncan ’78, and Naphtali Fields are in the back row while sons Elisha, Abraham, and Isaac are in the front.