Leslie Leyland Fields

Training is Not Enough!!

We all want our children to obey us implicitly, to do everything we want them to do. But there's a catch. When the focus of our "training" is primarily about getting our kids to do what we want them to do, we're in for trouble. The lesson is obvious, so I won't beat it to pieces. You can train a killer whale to do flips and tricks on command with yummy bits of fish as rewards, but treats and tricks don't change his heart. Tillie the orca is still an orca. He is still a creature with a wild, whale heart, just what he was created to be.

Our children are too wondrously and fearfully made to be reduced to animal training. They wear the fingerprints of a God who delights in His own creativity, poured out in a nearly infinite variety of faces and personalities, giftings, temperaments, minds, spirits. Don't we know this, how incredibly unique and complex each one of our children is? "Glory be to God for dappled things" Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote exultantly in his famous poem.

Glory be to God for dappled children, I add,

Pass the Peace, Not the Judgment

Three  emails these last 3 days have pierced me.  Emails that echo a message I am hearing over and over. Stay a moment and listen.

A woman writes me from a coffee shop where she goes to find anonymity and quiet to grieve. Her young adult daughter died of a drug overdose last week.  She bears not only this, but the judgment of church members who conclude she must bear fault in this tragedy.  If she were a truly godly mother, this wouldn' t have happened.

A mother of many children wrote.  She and her husband adopted and rescued more than ten children from instability and abuse. They were stretched beyond their limits every day for more than twenty years, but knew God had called them to this ministry of love.  When the kids became teens and began acting out their prior hurts and abuses , her husband, in full-time ministry, was fired.  Her husband's  pastor believed if  this couple had truly "trained up their child in the way they should go," their children  would all be obedient, God-loving people.

One more. A woman with two adult children who are making some poor choices. She agonizes over their lifestyles and cannot understand how this has happened.  Didn't she devote her life to them, homeschooling, doing everything possible to raise them "in the nurture and admonition of the Lord"?  How can this happen?  She feels betrayed and confused.

How many of these stories can I recite?  More than anyone wants to hear-so I give you only these. I am grieved and burdened to hear them. But I am the blessed one who gets to hear these women on the other side, when they are bathed in the truth of the Scriptures, in the relief of their tears, rather than in myths and judgment.   They are writing in the beginning steps of freedom. They weep at realizing that though others judge them, God does not.  That their teen and adult children have made their own choices, have acted out of their own will, their own prior damage. They weep to remember God does not ask them to take His place in their family. God does not expect them to wield sovereign control over their children. They weep to realize they have indeed done what God has asked of them:  to sacrifice for their children, to live out their faith faithfully before them, to  teach them the love and laws of God.  They are beginning now to leave  the rest in God's hands not out of helplessness, but out of faith. They know, who else shall we deliver our children to? Who else loves them with an undying love? Who else rescues and redeems lives and souls?  And even if one should lose the life of her child, even then, she writes, she is not without hope.

This is what you, all of us, must do. The next time you see a family in church with a kid who's struggling,

or with children who no longer come, or a family with an adult child making other choices--- Pass the peace, not the judgment.  Come close to them, pass out a hug, open your ears to listen, give them your hand. Our sisters and brothers are wounded enough.  Let's quite being cop, judge and jury and leave the judgments to God. His judgments will be righteous and merciful. Ours will be harsh---and wrong.

Beyond Happiness: The Life-Saving Truth about Children

Sanctity of Life week. Why is it so important that we don’t “sell” children as instruments for our happiness and fulfillment? Please read on.

I recently returned from a speaking tour, where I met with many parents, mostly mothers. Of all the conversations I got to be part of, one in particular I cannot forget. I had just spoken on the value of children, noting that we often “sell” the value of children to our culture at large by promising buckets of fun and happiness and fulfillment for the parents. This is often our apologia and defensive shot in the Mommy Wars. (“I’m fulfilled as a mother, therefore mothering is of great value !” vs. “I’m NOT fulfilled as a mother, therefore it’s of little value!”) It’s not that there isn’t happiness and fulfillment to be had. I do experience amazing moments with my daughter and five sons (ages 21 – 7), events and funny sayings and sweet cuddle times that I want to bottle or can or stick in the freezer, tender moments to feast on later, when my plate is bare and I hunger for sustenance. But there are LOTS of problems with this approach, of course. Here is one, in the words of a woman who approached me after one of my presentations.

Her child had been born with a significant birth defect, she told me. While pregnant, the doctors painted the worst possible scenario and encouraged her to abort. She refused, and months later welcomed a daughter into her family, a daughter whose health and abilities have far exceeded the doctor’s warnings. Many friends, however, have chosen otherwise, she said.

“When they find out that their in utero child has Downs or Spina Bifida or some other problem, they end the pregnancy, using pious language like, ‘I’m returning this little blessing to God.’ But what they really mean is, they don’t want to be troubled. They think having children should be about happiness, not sacrifice.”

When we lose sight of God’s greater purposes for children---and for parents---clearly, the consequences are serious. A number of studies have revealed that parents are more depressed than non-parents. Child abuse and neglect is at pandemic levels, to start the list.

And abortion is still obscenely common. Most distressing, is how many women of faith are ending the lives of their child. The Guttmacher Institute reports that each year, of the nearly 1.5 million women who obtain abortions , the majority are women who claim some measure of faith. Eight out of ten women who will end the life of their child self-identify as Catholic, Protestant or “born-again.”

What can we do about this? Here’s one thing we can start doing right now: begin speaking the truth to young people and couples contemplating marriage and family, and those in the midst of that work now. We need to help deconstruct the scales of happiness and stop holding out empty promises, that we stop quoting the only verse in the Bible that equates children with happiness (“Children are a blessing and a reward .. . . happy is the man whose quiver is full of them,” Ps. 127) . That we replace all this with fuller truths: that God does not bring a child into the world to feed our pride, to swell our dreams of success, to be channels for our own joy. He brings every child into the world because he loves life, he is the creator of all life, and each child comes to fulfill His plans and purposes (not mine!). And His plans will be accomplished, despite our own sins and failures as a parent, and despite the sins and failures of our children.

This is such great good news, for all of us!! When we really grasp this, we can release ourselves us from the tyranny of the scales of happiness.

( Good Day: “Oh, my kids are so smart and loving and kind!! Parenting is SOOOO worth it!! Bad Day: “A failing grade, broken curfews, messy rooms, disrespect---ARRGGGHHH! Parenting is SOOO not worth it!!) We don’t have to measure the worth of the whole parenting enterprise, the worth of our own parenting, even the worth of our children by our mercurial levels of fulfillment. We’re released from weighing the benefits against the costs. The questions, “Am I happy and fulfilled as a parent?” and “Is parenting really worth it?” are, finally, irrelevant!

There’s good news here for our children as well.

Our children are released a from these unforgiving scales, too, and a weight they were never meant to bear: our hunger for happiness and fulfillment through them. In place of the scale comes an immeasurable deep-down joy, the kind that comes from knowing we are part of something immense, exciting and eternal: the shaping of lives for the holy purposes of God. This is the feast I can pull out when I’m hungry and my plate is bare. I know I will be filled again and again.

Dear Friends,

The holy season is upon us.  In the spirit of giving, and in thanks to you all, I want to share with you a poem I wrote a number of years ago, that has been used in surprising ways since it's first publication  (including Jan Karon's use of it in her Mitford series).  It could have been said better, I know, but the truth of this birth---in both places---has once again scoured and devastated me. Exactly what I needed. I hope the same for you.

Let the Stable Still Astonish

Let the stable still astonish.

Straw–dirt floor, dull eyes,
Dusty flanks of donkeys, oxen;
Crumbling, crooked walls;
No bed to carry that pain,
And then, the child,
Rag-wrapped, laid to cry
In a trough.

Who would have chosen this?

Wrestling with Chekhov: A Theory of Mothering, Art and Sport

Here's how I know I'm cultured and refined. At wrestling regions this weekend, I did not scream "kill him!" to either one of my sons as they stalked their opponents on the mat. I only thought it. I bit my corndog from the concession stand demurely and chewed with my mouth closed. As I hiked up and down the bleachers dodging supine bodies, I apologized sweetly after every collision. So where does this land me? In the elite class of upper bleacher wrestler moms, a position I have fiercely defended these last fifteen years.

For those unfamiliar with high school wrestling, it plays like this: two people, guys and/or girls, most of whom have just cut 5 - 10 pounds in the last 5 days, wearing nothing but a spandex singlet and a fancy pair of flat sneakers, face each other like panthers in the center of a circle, and attempt to vanquish the other by pinning them, helpless, to the mat.

It's primal, intense one of the most amazing display s of pure strength and athleticism. And one more thing. If you're a mother of one (or two) of those spandexed, ripped and twisted bodies on the mat---its sheer fear. Necks aren't supposed to bend that way. Backs should not fold, heads weren't made to be mashed, and bloody noses deserve more than a coach ramming a twisted piece of Kotex up the nostril---O child of mine!! I can hardly watch. The only way I can survive this sport which my sons love and have been competing in since they were 4,--is with a camera. And later, a laptop. I stand at the edge of the mat, a mere 30 feet from the action, lens to face.

Now it's about snapping a good photo, not worrying about the other guy snapping my son's back. It's about the composition, documenting the drama, the faces, snatching a second of art. And between matches, I sit behind the keyboard, exhaling.

Which is where Anton Chekov comes in. I'm reminded of his famous prescription for writers:

" A writer is not a confectioner, not a dealer in cosmetics, not an entertainer; he is a man bound under compulsion, by the realization of his duty and by his conscience. To a chemist, nothing on earth is unclean. A writer must be as objective as a chemist."

There I was, the chemist-photographer, safely and objectively documenting my sons' pins, wins and losses. It saved me a section of stomach lining, I'm sure. I took factual detached notes during this phase. Items like this:

1. People, mostly females with certain pitched voices, shouldn't be allowed to scream inside a closed, densely populated gym.

2. Other people, mostly males, with a voice at a certain decibel level, shouldn't be allowed to yell inside a closed, densely packed gym.

3. Former wrestlers greet each other with a headlock rather than a handshake.

4. Wrestling coaches have extra springs in their legs to launch them off their chairs when shouting directives to their wrestlers.

5. Wrestlers in the heat of their matches do not listen to their coaches instructions, particularly when the coaches are airborne.

But the longer I was there, the more my objectivity shrank. By the time the 8^th hour approached (with 5 more to go), I had watched the blind wrestler approach the mat with his white cane. I followed the kid who lost every match. I talked to the undefeated heavyweight, cheered on the girl wrestlers built of wire and guts. In short, I got close.

Chekhov's brilliant fiction is so often true, yet these words, these particular hortatory words ... they feel a poor prescription for writers, and for mothers, even sport spectators. The best art and sport (and parenting) comes from immersion, passion, where everything matters all at once, and you are desperate to get it right. "The only books worth reading are books written in blood . . ." Frederick Beuchner says about the writing end of this.

" Write not just with wit and eloquence and style and relevance but with passion. Then the things that your books make happen will be things worth happening-things that make the people who read them a little more passionate themselves for their pains, by which I mean a little more alive, a little wiser, a little more beautiful, a little more open and understanding, in short a little more human."

I put my camera down, finally, by the last matches. I watched my sons with unshielded eyes and roiling stomach as they writhed, fervently and dangerously on the mat, as I shouted equally fervently from the mat's close edge.

If I hadn't, I would have nothing to post here, except a few photos, a couple of medals, a list of observations about the peculiarities of human behavior at wrestling matches.

As it is, the photos didn't turn out. Not enough light, the wrong setting. Most of my journalistic notes were abandoned. I've never been good at operating from a distance.

I write all of this now to you, friends and readers, meeting you here in this space, this mat we call a page. I come close with a promise, with arms poised to clinch, to draw you yet closer, not further. To bring you immersion and passion, perhaps even to spill a little blood along the way, yours and mine. My hope is the same as Beuchner's, that we both emerge from our matches a little wiser, more understanding, more alive, yes, a little closer to the human beings God meant us all to be.

To do this, I would love to hear back from you. I am not good at technology-yet! But talk to me through my email address ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) or Facebook-until I can figure out how we can all speak together hand to hand, word to face.

Blessings and peace in this Holy season,