Faith, Grief, Healing, Newsletter, Trauma recovery

February Newsletter 2022

February 17, 2022 Jennifer Ohman-Rodriguez

WAITING

This month finds me busy doing book interviews, planning for upcoming in-person events, and writing a couple of articles. But I am also listening to the stirrings of Spirit. Wondering when and where my first call in ordained ministry will be. In other words, I am waiting.

Waiting can be frustrating. I have days in which I am anxious about the future and angry at the process. These times remind me of when I waited for grief to lift just a bit so I could feel like myself again. And as in grief and trauma recovery, I find myself doing a lot of slow breathing in and even slower breathing out. For me breath work helps maintain a small sense of still being centered in my body.

Breathing also reminds me I have agency in my life. Agency means choices. Some seen, still more cloaked under my own or the world’s pain. Prayer often accompanies my intentional breathing. And as my angst lifts, I thank God for the help and gifts I am aware of and also the ones I have yet to discover. My prayers often end with an exhaled “amen.”

Waiting then is not stagnate. It is full of moving air often taken for granted as Spirit swirls with an imperceptible wind gaining momentum until fully revealed.

THE VALUE OF REVIEWS

So this is a big one! Every author relies on readers to write online reviews. Authors need a minimum of 100 reviews on Amazon and/or Goodreads to be effective. Please, please, please consider reviewing my book on Goodreads and at my Amazon author’s page. You have my thanks!

BUY THE BOOK

Put A Time to Mourn & a Time to Dance on your bookshelf! My book is currently available (on sale!) at Chalice Press.

BONUS SECTION

In one of the many early drafts of A Time to Mourn & A Time to Dance I included a poem as an epigraph before what is now the Prologue. Here’s the poem.

Remembering our beginning,

Misplaced in life’s ups and downs,

Rekindled in a shared glance,

Me alone holding our story,

Attending eternity’s truths,

Gifting me again with our love.

RESOURCES IN GRIEF AND TRAUMA RECOVERY

I love this video from the Ergos Institute of Somatic Education: Growing in Spirituality

A BOOK RECENTLY READ

I recently finished reading Elizabeth Stout’s Oh, William! The character, Lucy Barton, says toward the end of the book something resonating with me both as a writer and as a mother.

“But I was a writer. And that is a vocation…but I wanted those children more than I wanted my work. And I had them. But I needed my work as well…I would give it all up…all of it I would give up–in a heartbeat I would give it up–for a family that was together and children who knew they were dearly loved by both parents…”(219-220)

HAPPENINGS

Planning for future in-person, hybrid, and online speaking engagements is underway for 2022. If your organization, church, podcast, conference, library, or literary festival is interested in inviting me to speak, please click here: Invite Jennifer to Speak. Here’s what’s on the calendar so far:

In-Person

Monday, February 21, 2022: I’m presenting at the event “Poems for a Dangerous Time” at the Montreat Conference Center in Montreat, North Carolina.

Sunday, March 13, 2022: Join me at the Tucson Festival of Books! I’ll be at the Adult Fiction/Non-Fiction tent from 2:30 to 4:30.

Tuesday, April 26, 2022 at 7:00 pm: In-person book talk at Gloria Dei Lutheran Church in Iowa City, Iowa. No registration necessary.

In the News

Gather Magazine published my article, “Small, simple self-care” in their January/February 2022 edition.

Read why Chalice Press decided to publish A Time to Mourn & A Time to Dance.

November 4, 2021: A Time to Mourn & A Time to Dance is in the Southeastern Iowa Synod of the ELCA eNews.

Interviews

Q & A with Chalice Press President, Brad Lyons.

Book launch interview with Brian Allain of Writing for Your Life and Compassionate Christianity.

On this podcast episode of This is Life and the Living of It, Steven D. Lee and I talk about trauma recovery and faith.

Faith, Grief, Love

STUFF

July 13, 2021 Jennifer Ohman-Rodriguez

Last week I dropped off another load of stuff. Made a donation of sorts to an organization assisting people in need. My stuff helps make their programs happen. I’ve been doing this kind off-loading a lot lately as I forage through item after item in our home looking to toss, keep, or give away.

Of course each item is infused with memories. As I throw out a broken Tonka truck I hear the traffic sounds my young sons once made years ago. As I load up a box with books I remember my beloved career in early care and education. As I sort through old picture frames I remember life as it once was and is no longer. Our stuff holds memories just as the walls of our homes and churches seem to do. As if these inanimate objects and structures infuse our lives with living breath. Memories however are not alive. Yet they are within us functioning as internal containers of the past, ones full of emotions. Some memories, wonderful and loving. Others reminding us of past tragedies, regrets, and unfulfilled dreams.

In December of 1995 I said goodbye to a room full of three, four, and five year old children and their parents and guardians. Most of these families were immigrants. Some from Palestine and more from Mexico. Many families were in Chicago illegally having fled war, hunger, and disease. Even the three year old children showed visible signs of where they came from: Large crusted scars from untreated pinworm, PTSD from witnessing violence, and visceral memories of being hungry. Saying goodbye to these children was painful. I loved them and they me.

Through tears during one last circle time I reached my hands and arms out wide as if holding them all. Then I gathered the air in bringing unseen molecules toward me. My hands resting on my heart as my words spoke my truth: “I will always be in your hearts and you will always be in mine.”

And I have. Held them in my heart for almost twenty-seven years. Their faces, laughs, smiles, and tears rest within me. Surrounded by circles of hope. Well wishes for them and our shared world as prayer for something greater than we can imagine.

My heart, your heart, all hearts expand, make room, welcome. So that when the mementos break, disintegrate, take up too much space, or our beloved church decides to change, combine, or close, then we have what lives on in our hearts, souls, and minds. And we can remember that’s where God lives as well. In us, wherever we go and whatever we do. Always finding new life when what lives in us meets what lives in others. Reminding us that it is not the stuff stored in our closets or the beloved physical places holding our lives. It’s the relationships we grow with God, ourselves, and others.

Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay

Faith, Healing meditation, Trauma recovery

Gathering Stars

June 18, 2020 Jennifer Ohman-Rodriguez

“He (The LORD) brought him (Abram) outside and said, “Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your descendants be.” (Genesis 15:5 NRSV)

There once was a man named Abram who felt God abandoned him. God had promised him something, a son with his wife Sarai. A son, ensuring life continuing after Abram was gone. Now Abram and Sarai were too old to have a child.

But God asked Abram to go outside and look up into the night sky. “Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them,” God said.

Abram looked up. Not down. Or straight ahead. Or behind. Or to the side. But up. Up! Discovering sky covering him like a gigantic tent. Stars hanging from its roof. Some bright. Some faded. Some painting the night sky with streaks of light. Stars everywhere! So many stars Abram could not count them.

And God said, “So, shall your descendant be.”

Abram’s time and place is not our time and place. Yet the sky still exists. It fills nightly with clouds, stars, planets, and a moon. A sky full. Reminding us of God’s presence among us. Now. Today. Tonight. Next week. Month. Year. God remains. God always remains. God remains promising tomorrow.

Healing Activity

Imagine in your mind you are standing or sitting outside under a night sky. On a patio or deck or balcony. In a large field, out in the desert, on top of a hill. Anywhere your mind takes you.

Fill your lungs with air. Feel the cool night air on your limbs. Listen to the night’s noises. Feel your feet on the ground. Or your hips in a chair.

Now look up. Into the sky. Notice the night. Notice if the night is clear or cloudy. Notice if the moon is waxing, waning, or full.

Still looking up, take a deep breath in and exhale slowly out.

Breathe in again, with gentleness. Breathe out with relief.

Breathe in with gentleness. Out with relief.

This time breathe in opening your arms wide and out to the side. Exhale lifting your arms up into the sky. And look up.

Breathe in again reaching as far as you can into the sky. Gathering the night’s stars or clouds or air in your arms. Exhale, bringing your arms toward your chest. Placing your hands on your heart. Like a heart hug.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

Breathe in again. This time reaching your arms into the night sky. Gathering stars or clouds or air. Exhale bringing your arms down. Placing your hands on your heart.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

Breathe in again. Reach. Gathering the night. Exhale. Placing gifts on your heart.

Breathe in. Leaving your hands on your heart. Breathe out.

Breathe in all the promises sitting on your heart now with gentleness. Out with relief.

Breathe in with gentleness. Out with relief.

Prayer

God who created vastness in night’s sky, clouds moving on wind, moon in muted light, and all seen and unseen stars. Remind us each night you are always with us. Guide us with night time wonders. Move us toward healing salve, beloved community, and further into your work on earth.

Go in peace, holding God’s promise in your heart. Amen.

~~~

Find a video of this meditation at https://community.contemplativelife.org/forum/gathering-stars

Top photo courtesy of Pixabay at https://pixabay.com/photos/starry-night-starry-sky-silhouette-1149815/

Faith, Trauma, Trauma recovery

Slow Trauma, Psalmist Style

April 14, 2020 Jennifer Ohman-Rodriguez

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Every day I check the maps. First, my state map. How many cases in my county? How many deaths in my state? Watch Iowa’s numbers increase daily. Each day showing additions. Not subtractions. Yesterday, 1710. Today?

Move to the country’s map. How many states in the United States of America are on stay-at-home orders? Most states now have them. Mine does not. Governor refuses. Claiming freedom, more important than life. Asking us to die for it. Her stubborn stance making us more anxious, lonely, afraid, and unprotected.

My last check, the world. Numbers, never the same. Never less. Only more. Throwing me back into the cushions I lean on. Despair’s long sigh escaping through my nose. Sinking my heart lower and lower. Until questions erupt. Not of maps, leaders, or politicians. But of God.

How long, O Lord?

Will you forget me forever?

How long will you hide your face from me?

***How long must I bear pain in my soul,* *and have sorrow in my heart all day long?***

How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?

Ancient words still keening. Sounded from the psalmist. Written in Psalm 13, first two verses. (NRSV) Naming our feelings of abandoned-ness, pain, sorrow.

Walk on path one bright day. Hear frogs sing. Filling woods with sound. Notice flock of gulls dancing in sun’s rays. Breathe in spring’s warming air. “I feel like a bowling pin,” I say. “A bowling ball rolls toward me. In slow motion. Growing larger as I watch.”

Mind sees me standing with all my beloveds. Facing forward. At the end of alley ’s lane. Watching the ball. Praying it veers off to one side, teeters on the edge, finds the gutter. But the ball stays on course. Toward us. As we freeze. Immobilized. Caught in a slow form of trauma. Spanning days, weeks, months. Trauma approaching, getting closer and closer. As we continue standing. Hearing ball against wood floor. Feeling moving vibrations beneath our feet. Ball growing bigger and bigger. Soul asking again like the psalmist. “How long, O LORD?” (v 1)

Brain, a funny organ in humans. Mine flashes. With wonderings in trauma’s watch. How does the psalmist manage hope in the last two verses? Beginning with, “But I trust in your unfailing love…” (v 5)

How do we hope when the ball keeps rolling? Answer my own question. Out of something I tell my son these days. “We can hold both sadness and hope at the same time.”

A paradox. Holding both. Something I learned from living in concurrent grief and trauma recovery. Sadness, sorrow, and despair are emotions. But hope? Hope is learned. Practiced. Acquired. What is called a cognitive function.

Holding both, wisdom. Excelled in by the psalmist. Through first naming and listing experiences surrounding pain. Pain, intrusive thoughts, sorrow, abandonment, defeat. This listing, a crying out called lament. Lament defining deep unmet basic needs such as safety. Lament leading to an ask for help called prayer. “…Give light to my eyes…” (v 3) the psalmist prays.

Then the psalmist shifts. Into recognizing gifts. God’s gifts of “trust,” “unfailing love,” and “salvation.” ( v 5) Remembering these good gifts, the psalmist builds hope. In a future filled with song and “good“-ness . (v 6)

Yes, we can hold sadness and hope at the same time. Sadness begins a necessary journey in emotional survival. Leading us to act by lamenting. Lament opening us into another act. The act of prayer. For our pain and needs. Leading us into naming the gifts we have already received. Gratitude for these gifts creating a sense of hope from within. Hope living alongside sadness. Sadness, the beginning. Hope, the last word. Together creating a never-ending map for living. One providing ongoing healing balm. Making the ball rolling toward us something we can deal with.

How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?
    How long will you hide your face from me?
²How long must I wrestle with my thoughts
    and day after day have sorrow in my heart?
    How long will my enemy triumph over me?

³Look on me and answer, Lord my God.
Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death,
⁴and my enemy will say, “I have overcome him,”
and my foes will rejoice when I fall.

⁵But I trust in your unfailing love;
my heart rejoices in your salvation.
⁶I will sing the Lord’s praise,
for he has been good to me.

This post also appears at https://compassionatechristianity.org/trauma-recover/

Photo courtesy of Pixabay at http://www.pixabay.com

Faith, Healing meditation, Trauma, Trauma recovery

Sitting Lonely

March 18, 2020 Jennifer Ohman-Rodriguez

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How lonely sits the city that once was full of people!
How like a widow she has become, she that was great among the nations!
She that was a princess among the provinces has become a vassal.

Lamentations 1:1

Walking my normal route. On a Sunday afternoon in early spring. Temperature in the fifties. Slightly overcast with sun flitting in and out. Air smelling of trees swelling into resurrected life. And soil. Soil pining to be planted. So much so I must breathe in its scent as breezes brush against my face.

I see no one. No people. No one out. No children playing on the playground. No families strolling by pushing baby carriages. No runners. No other walkers.

Cars roll by slowly. No longer in a hurry. But not many cars. Cars resting. Found parked in driveways, garages, and along the streets of my neighborhood. As if it is Thanksgiving or Christmas day. Everyone home on forced holiday.

Back home my son reports the store shelves are bare. He returning from stocking up on a few items—toothbrushes, acetaminophen, milk. Tells me this news as we make a list for my grocery run the next day. Writing down what we really need. What we can do without. Thinking ahead for a future we do not understand and cannot predict.

Like most of my friends, I spend time on the phone with loved ones scattered in other places. Feel a need to connect daily now. Check in. But also to help convince or plan. For my oldest to leave Mexico amidst flight cancellations and possible border closings. For my mother to stay south as long as possible instead of coming home to community spread.

When not on the phone or email or text, check the maps. The ones telling me the latest reports. The ones showing the growing numbers. In between checks trying to study, answer emails, read the latest update from seminary, reschedule my life as meetings, events, and deadlines change hourly. All part of my new job as home manager of crisis’ constant change.

The writer of Lamentations imagines or looks out over an empty Jerusalem. After war’s sieges took lives. Captured prisoners. Enemy conquering, creating new reality. Forcing residents to move far away. Emptying a city. Leaving smoldering bits of a recent past. Only seen by those remaining. A desecrated temple. A destroyed way of life.

The prophet looks out over what once was and is no longer. Allows the scene to enter his body. For woe to fill his heart.With scene in mind, heart, and body, calls it like it is. Words allowing the sharing of sorrow with other mourners. “How lonely sits the city…!”

We live in a new form of exile. Not exile like those escaping war or political persecution or famine. Even a pandemic does not compare to these atrocities. Yet there remains a flavor here of exile now. Of being refugees. Even if our camp is in our own home. We are torn away from loved ones, work, friends, activities, faith communities, and school. Separated from routines, predictability, and calm.

So I sit at my kitchen table. Stare out the window. Watch a dog and its person walk across the field. Track their progress. Become aware of my held breath.

Begin to breathe. First in, then out. Again. Again. Deeper. Fuller. Breath reaching behind tired eyes. Loosening jaws. Unfurling forehead. Finding shoulders through collar bones. Down arms into fingers. Belly filling up. Hips letting go. Breath running down silent legs. Into ankles, toes. Eyes closing. Mind blanking. Body breathing into prayer spilling out.

Be present, God. Here. Everywhere. Make your presence known to all. Heal us with holy breath for this day. And tomorrow. And the days already on their way. Strengthen us. For the work to be done. The decisions to be made. The sacrifices we must make for neighbor and stranger and self. Fuel and refuel us with your Spirit each hour, day, week, month. Grow Spirit’s compassion in us. For each other. Amen.

~~~

Scripture quotation from the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

Image Credit: Image by <a href=”https://pixabay.com/users/gregroose-2823595/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=3091078″>Grégory ROOSE</a> from <a href=”https://pixabay.com/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=3091078″>Pixabay</a>