Lately I've found myself spending more time in the gospels than usual, slowing down to read them through several times before moving on with my journey through the Word. I've wanted to look more closely at Jesus, so when I saw Crossing the Waters, by Leslie Leyland Fields, I grabbed it as an intriguing book. And it is.
As the matriarch of a large Alaskan fishing family, Fields lives on the water. She faces practical challenges inherent in this life she has chosen, such as storms, scant fishing grounds, and an often-seasick youngest child. In this book, she explores how the waters in which we see stories take place in the gospel speak to spiritual issues. Making connections between events in her physical life and those the gospels speak to in our spiritual lives, she takes us along on a sort of "thinking aloud" journey.
What I enjoyed most about the book was the way Fields flashes back and forth from what she is doing in the moment (for example, cleaning nets) to Jesus and the disciples doing something similar (for example, cleaning nets). She muses as to what Jesus was actually trying to convey in His parables as she "walks them out" in real time. She even takes us on a trip to Israel and intersperses her thoughts and Jesus' words as she goes out on the very waters that He traveled.
If you are yearning for a closer look at the gospels from a unique angle, this might be just the book you are looking for. For more information on the author, go here.
I received this book free of charge from Tyndale Publishers in exchange for a fair review.
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