Category: Faith

Faith, Love, worship

Vulnerability Creates Love: Thoughts from Maundy Thursday

Jennifer Ohman-Rodriguez


  I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.  By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” John 13: 34-35*

In a chapter entitled, “Places We Go When the Heart is Open,” author and professor Brené Brown writes “there is a debate among researchers about whether love is an emotion.” [1]

Some researchers lean toward love being an action or an intention more than emotion. And some, like Dr. Brown seem to think love is a bit of both—a descriptive word for an emotion and its accompanying feelings as well as a verb full of actions.

Yet love, whether an emotion or action or both remains elusive. Author and social critic, bell hooks, writes in her book All About Love that:

“Everywhere we learn that love is important, and yet we are bombarded by its failure. In the realm of the political, among the religious, in our families, and in our romantic lives, we see little indication that love informs decisions, strengthens our understanding of community, or keeps us together. This bleak picture in no way alters the nature of our longing. We still hope that love will prevail. We still believe in love’s promise.” [2]

Today, as we begin the service of the three days, we hear once again the story of Jesus giving the disciples a new commandment, not an additional commandment added to the other ten, but a new commandment.

34 I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Yet in order to know who to love as Jesus commands, we must return to what Jesus has been showing us throughout the story of his life here, the story of his ministry on earth.

We know Jesus ate with sinners and tax collectors. Extortionists and soldiers.

We know Jesus healed people considered the “throw-aways.” The ones banished to the edges of their communities. Forced to beg or worse in order to survive.

We know that Jesus also healed the un-seen. People who did not count as much. Whose humanity was somehow lesser than others, children and women.

We know that Jesus taught all people—regardless—about what it means to be human and in relationship with one another and with God.

And we know that Jesus taught and lived a form of unheard-of-equality. He himself was no greater than his followers. Jesus was no greater than the servants serving him. No greater than human beings suffering enslavement.

Brené Brown writes “We cultivate love when we allow our most vulnerable and powerful selves to be deeply seen and known, and when we honor the spiritual connection that grows from that offering with trust, respect, kindness, and affection.”

Jesus shows himself often to be vulnerable. In our text this evening, Jesus kneels as the servants and enslaved do. He disrobes. And while he is not fully naked, without his robe he is less protected, more vulnerable. Then he makes an offering to his disciples, his beloved disciples. And the offering is one of trust, respect, kindness, and affection.

In this action of love Jesus moves the disciples (all but one disciple that is) away from all that damages the tender roots of love: “shame, blame, disrespect, betrayal, and the withholding of affection.”

And while Jesus does not say it in the Gospel of John, he does say something very important about love in Luke, chapter 10 in the parable of the Good Samaritan:

 “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”

Love your neighbor as yourself brings us back to Brene Brown’s work. She believes from her research that “we can love others only as much as we love ourselves.”

This love thing for others does not happen unless we are willing to be vulnerable with ourselves and others. And only if we are willing to heal the soil in which love cannot grow for ourselves and others. And only if we treat our own bodies with the tenderness that Jesus washed the feet of his friends, even the friend who betrayed him!

To love then is not easy. It is as layered as the gospel writers of Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John as well as the Deuteronomist say it is. Love takes our hearts, our souls, our minds, and our strength. Not so much as to love but as to heal the blame, shame, disrespect, betrayal and withholding of affection that dampens and even kills love.  So yes, bell hooks, is correct. The picture of love is bleak in this world we live in. But it was also bleak when Jesus lived on this earth. And yet, he held hope for all creation that love was and is possible. And if Jesus showed us that love is still possible then I believe we too can remain hopeful and with open hearts for ourselves and others. Amen.

[1] Brown, Brené (2021) “Places We Go When the Heart is Open,” in Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience.

[2] hooks, bell (2001) all about love: new visions.

Image by congerdesign from Pixabay

*The above post is based on John 13:1-17, 31b-35 and was originally heard as the Maundy Thursday sermon on April 17, 2025 in the midst of the congregation of St. Johns Lutheran Church, Rock Island, Illinois.

Faith, Healing, Hope, Prayer

Numbered Days

Jennifer Ohman-Rodriguez

In recent weeks a small snippet of scripture swirls in my mind. Words repeating themselves for days. Demanding acknowledgement. Forcing me to ask if this repetition gets its fuel from my anxiety or if Spirit speaks. The words are from Psalms:

“So, teach us to count our days…”[1]

Gentle words suggesting I wake to each day. Acknowledge my place in it. Plant myself in each hour’s time and space. Even in the too busy days of being a pastor, the chaos of moving and home repair, and the ongoing work of caring for family.

“So, teach us to count our days…”

A thought reflected on first while sitting in the quiet of an inn far away from our unpacked boxes and new unknowns. Vacation morning pulsing with no agenda. A day to rest in, hear the rhythm of. Once home, reflection continues in dawn’s daily quiet.

“So, teach us to count our days…”

Phrase reminding me to offer gratitude for the experiences contained in each day. Yet in my own situation—survivor of deep tragedy, pastor, son with chronic illnesses, new empty nester, partner again—I forget these offered moments of acknowledgement. Do not see them or push them away. And in doing so miss gratitude’s slow reveal of what loosens with change.

“So, teach us to count our days…”

I think in my own insecurities, anxiety, and unhealed wounds I hold tightly to my sons, having done so since conception. Even more since my first husband, Tony, died. Now as they move away from me in distance, I am brought back to the time before they existed on this plane. The stage before I knew and loved their father. An earthly space I occupied holding hope for them along with the despair that they might never exist.

“So, teach us to count our days…”

My sons, now six feet tall, are hope made real. And what connected me to something bigger than myself each day when raising them remains. Joined by the absorbing vocational work of writer and pastor. Past despair turning toward wondering: What comes next in this new iteration of our family’s “we?” Each of us counting our days separately yet with the others’ love and support. Life transforming from one time to the next.

“So, teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart,” the psalmist writes. Action words infusing my prayers.

God, you remain in every time and space. Teach us to live each day traversing change with grace and in doing so growing “the enlightened eyes of our hearts.” [2] Hearts seeing the truths of life together and apart. Truth building wisdom so that sight, gratitude, and compassion teach us to live well within ourselves, live well with others, live in healing, and live in you. Amen.

[1]  Psalm 90:12 NRSVUE

[2]  Ephesians 1:18 NRSVUE

Image by Aleksandra from Pixabay

Faith, Grief, Healing, Healing meditation, Trauma recovery

Night’s Bitterness

Jennifer Ohman-Rodriguez

How like a widow she has become…she weeps bitterly in the night, with tears on her cheeks. Lamentations 1:1-2

Reflection

Limbs fall limp. Eyes drop focus. Mind escapes into sleep. Allowing a few moments of respite.

Until roused by repeated visions and racing words. Breaking in with images and their clinging emotions. Bringing tears, sighs, tossings, and turnings.

Yet some nights the moon rises high mid-mind race. Light filters through closed window shades. Asking for breathing in of its essence. And a breathing out of sleeplessness’ broken record. Inhaling in and out once, twice, as long as it takes for buttock muscles to loosen. Cascading into other muscles letting go.  

Until morning wakes. Sunlight slipping in after moonlight. Opening another day for what is possible in healing. Through a compassionate word here. A challenging one there. A few questions to think about. Not fully healed. Something though. Enough to keep going.

Healing Practice: Breadcrumbs

What keeps you going? Write down who and what gives you enough to want to do the work of healing.

Start just with one something. Add another something. Maybe two. Over the coming hours and days, collect five. Name them breadcrumbs. Follow them on your path into healing and restoration.

Prayer

 “Restore us…” God, “that we may be restored.” In our restoration give us hope in you, in our now, in our future. Amen. (Based on Lamentations 5:21)

Image by Filip Filipović from Pixabay

Faith, Healing meditation, Self-Care, Trauma recovery

A Self-Care Minute

Jennifer Ohman-Rodriguez

Before, during, and after we care for others in the aftermath and afterlife of traumatic experiences we care for self. Self-care is foundational in the care of others. When we do not care for ourselves, we inflict violence upon ourselves. And we risk causing others additional harm. Here’s a small moment of self-care, a micro minute surrounding your soul with goodness and love to use at any time in your day.

Begin breathing in through the top of your head. Thank God for your head.

Now allow your breath to slip down into your shoulders. Breathe in and out from your shoulders. Thank God for your shoulders.

Let your breath slip into the back of your neck and between your shoulder blades. Breathe in and out from the back of your neck. Then breathe in and out from between your shoulder blades. Thank God for your neck and upper back.

Now allow your breath to slip into your stomach. Breathe in and out from your stomach. Thank God for your stomach.

Let your breath to slip down into your hips. Breathe in and out from your hips. Thank God for your hips.

Now allow your breath to slip down into your knees. Breathe in and out from your knees. Thank God for your knees.

Let your breath slip down into the soles of your feet. Breath in and out from your feet. Thank God for your feet.

Breathe now through your whole being beginning in your feet, traveling through your body, and out the top of your head. Thank God for your body.

Continue breathing until you are ready to return to your day.

Amen.

Image by lee seonghak from Pixabay

Faith, Healing, Healing meditation, Liturgy, Trauma, Trauma recovery

Flourishing

Jennifer Ohman-Rodriguez

In health and human development we often use this term: survive or thrive. An either/or term with an embedded orbit between the two. Teachers, child development specialists, medical doctors, therapists, chaplains, pastors, loved ones, and really most of us want children and all people to move beyond surviving into thriving. Because surviving can be a time of waiting, frustration, fear, feeling stuck, and powerlessness. We use terms such as survival mode, subsisting, and stagnate to describe the extreme edge of this survival spectrum and softer terms such liminal space and limbo to describe survival as more temporary.

Environmental and systemic circumstances such as racism, genderism, joblessness, poverty, lack of resources, and poor or declining health attempt to hold us in survival. The ongoing worry about safety, food, housing, income, and health overtime can become a traumatic experience adding another layer of pain onto life in survival. Any traumatic experience may also keep us securely in perpetual fight or flight, even freeze states. Surviving then becomes a form of hypervigilant maintenance. Of keeping things as stable as possible while existing always on the edge of the next bad thing happening.

If surviving continues or moves into more security toward or into thriving’s beginnings, trauma’s leftovers from the time of living close to death can create more disease, the autoimmune and inflammatory kind. Disease throws us back into surviving once again shutting down the other end of this trajectory of survive or thrive.

Surviving is not to be minimized. The experience of just surviving seems relentless and unending for most people. Yet self and other compassion asks us to hold gently the miracle of surviving. Our bodies keeping us alive again and again after possible non-survival. Desiring us to move the other way toward and into thriving.

We survive then to thrive. Surviving becomes the living basis in which to add on layers of living. Layers such as growing in deep health, relationships, possibilities, accomplishments, and resources. When we cannot move toward thriving we of course feel stuck because flow is denied.

I, like many people, overuse the word thrive. I want my sons to thrive. I want my new husband to thrive. I want all my beloveds to thrive. I want all of creation to thrive. I want to thrive. The word thrive means “to grow vigorously,” and flourish.* Yet my heart embraces the word flourish as something more than thriving. A word meaning “to grow luxuriantly.”** Flourishing, for me, extends life’s various layers of growth. Creating an out of rather than an or. Instead of survive or thrive, we build: Survive first. Move toward and into thrive leading into a time of flourishing and beyond.

How can we build from surviving? Through healing. Deep, ongoing healing leads us out of surviving, into thriving and toward flourishing. Healing creates goodness within and around. In goodness we are no longer separated from love of self and others. In healing we create more internal and external space to ensure everyone has access to healing.

How do we heal? We begin with the simple desire to heal. Just a tiny mustard seed amount desiring something else. Something replacing the suffering in us and around us with hope. Something washing away the layers of pain bit by bit until we find ourselves where we’ve always existed, encapsulated in love. Love flowing in, above, under, and around us.

Then what do we do? Without thinking we connect and reconnect. Realize we’ve been shut down and away from the world and its people. The process of healing rejoins us to ourselves, others and all that is greater than ourselves–the universe and Spirit. This connection and reconnection, in Scriptural terms, uses the word righteousness or righteous. As in I have reconnected to God. Words which have come to mean, in some traditions, following God’s rules, being obedient to these rules even if they are the rules of powerful humans and not God. For so many people, myself included, these terms feel like more trauma turning my stomach around. I remind myself in healing that there are other understandings of these words.

So, what if we substitute righteousness with healed? Here’s what happens in Psalm 92, verses 12-15 when we do. (NRSVUE)

12 The righteous flourish like the palm tree
    and grow like a cedar in Lebanon.

The healed flourish like the palm tree and grow like a cedar in Lebanon.

13 They are planted in the house of the Lord;
    they flourish in the courts of our God.

They are planted in the house of God; they flourish in the places of our God.

14 In old age they still produce fruit;
    they are always green and full of sap,

In old age the healed still produce fruit; the healed are always green and full of sap,


15 showing that the God is upright;
    God is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in God.

showing that God is healed and wants healing; God is my rock, and there is no un-healing in God.

There is no un-healing in God. What a thought! What a belief! God wants us to move beyond surviving. God wants us to heal. God wants us to build on survival into what is possible for ourselves, others, and all creation. And when some of us begin to move out of survival into thriving, God wants us to turn back toward those people still in survival. God wants us to connect, have compassion. Offer healing ways to all people, to all of creation. Only when we heal, connect, and ensure others will also heal can we truly flourish within ourselves and in our world. Flourishing then is an act of compassion for self and others.

*https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/thrive

**https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/flourish

Image by Joe from Pixabay