Category: Grief

Faith, Grief, Healing, Hope, Trauma

Thoughts on Grief, Compassion, & Joy

Jennifer Ohman-Rodriguez

From my journal, January 20, 2021

I think Jesus fished for people in need of compassion. Maybe he saw the disciples lacking in it. Heard this void in their words and actions. Knowing God wanted more for them.

Read an article by Nicholas Wolterstorff in The Christian Century magazine a couple of years ago, the January 16, 2019 edition. Struck once again how Christian doctrine often works against us in relationship to one another. Doctrine becoming a shield. Creating a wall of souls. Not allowing the other, the one holding up the shield, to step beyond entering into our pain. Embodying our experience. Creating compassion for and with us.

Wolterstorff was called heretical after writing honestly about suddenly losing his beloved son, Eric. A reviewer of Wolterstorff’s book, Lament for a Son , guarded something, maybe the vestiges of their own unresolved trauma with their words. Instead becoming a humanly righteous defender of the faith (as the reviewer saw it). But Wolterstorff needed a defender of his heart. From others. Especially Christians. I quote this man who endured profound loss here.

“I am not angry [at God] but baffled and hurt. My wound is an unanswered question. The wounds of all humanity are an unanswered question.” *

As Christians, we do not hold a doctrine of grief. Of how we believe, even trust, and then act upon our belief in times of grief. On how to love others through the most profoundly painful times in life. Perhaps we need such doctrines. Doctrines of grief, sorrow, trauma, anguish. Small frameworks reminding us of our human responsibility to ourselves and to one another. Not just to God in abstraction. In human configuration. But to the holy within us or in front of us who ask merely for a small bit of compassion. Love. Understanding. Claiming there is nothing heretical about any form of human love including grief for the loss of what we love. Loved. Of a beloved.

My mind winds through these thoughts on grief and compassion leading me to joy. Not that joy should be the end result of grief. Perhaps only because I want as a giver of compassion to hold joy for those who hurt until they may reclaim it for themselves. Some claiming it for the first time.

Joy often brings me to the verse from Psalm 30–words I discovered as a teenager full of feelings, hormones, insecurities, and fears.

“…Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning.” Psalm 30:5 NRSV

I hope that the psalmist knows something I do not. Not that sorrow is an active ingredient of joy. Necessary to make joy rise. But that all feelings and especially intense feelings have an active lifespan which does not last in intensity and duration. Acute only for a period of time-an expanse we cannot predict yet must travel through. The longing never fully dissipating. Yet with the increase of self-compassion and compassion freely given by others, the longing has a sense of healing and a willingness to embrace other feelings, the ones supporting new life in the after time of sorrow.

Perhaps joy doesn’t come the morning after waking on and off, weeping. Or even the next. Or the next. Perhaps joy comes in small glimmering ways. Like the fall afternoon light dancing on rippling water. The steadiness in night’s sky of a shining planet. A dewy bud opening at dawn. The busy butterfly on summer’s flower. A moment of silence shared with an understanding other. Slight moments reflected off bits and pieces of the world, the natural world and sometimes even its humans. Momentary brightness showing us, reminding us of something other than sorrow. Which feels good enough. Better than what was. A particle of joy amidst what we cannot change.

A prayer.

God of all emotions, We wait for joy found in small gestures of human compassion and glimmers of life within our view or on their way. Weaving in and out of obstacles, sadness, shock. We wait while you hold hope for us in its coming. Slowly, through minutes, hours, days, months, years. Waiting. You in joy. You in sorrow. Amen.

* Lament for a Son by Nicholas Wolterstorff.

Baptism, Death, Faith, Grief

Creation Clothing

Jennifer Ohman-Rodriguez

With each funeral or memorial service, I preside over as an ordained pastor, I speak about our role as the Church (the whole Body of Christ throughout the world). In this rite we give the recently deceased, the loved one, back to God having completed their earthly baptism. No longer needing to be clothed in the one for whom humans could not obliterate. The funeral, while also for the bereaved, is at its core a rite of the Church. And not only or merely the congregation’s or the gathered. But a rite of all of us, together as the Church throughout the world. Giving the recently deceased back to God going on around the world in all times and in all places. Praying without ceasing. As one immense Body of Christ.

How this giving back to God plays out after death, none of us fully know. The closest I get is when witnessing the transition between this life and death (or the next life). What I see when death is expected, is that there is a rhythm in this shift, one of slow peace. Creating an in between time (a space between full life and full death). And this space wears its own clothing. Even in the midst of tears, beeping machines, sterile walls, and suspended time, this space is cloaked in garments of so many human feelings as well as peace. I suspect this peace continues after death as well. I know the human feelings do here on earth.

I’d also like to believe, hope, and pray that in sudden, unpredicted death, there is also this peace. Even if the transition time is quick. Because it seems to me as a regular observer of the in-between, that this transition is part of the process. And as a sudden death griever my thinking here gives me comfort.

The other day I heard a story about someone who was baptized four times. Four times! As if the first one wasn’t good enough. But for whom? Not God so that leaves three sets of humans playing god. Reminding me of Job’s three famous friends–Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophar. The talkers who suck the air out of the ash pit.

Once is all it takes to be given life in Christ on this earth. This life created out of God (Word) and the earthly element of water (unless there is no water and then another earthly element is used like dust or sand.). Something of the earth though as a reminder of both John the Baptist’s actions and words* and also that when God created the universe, God created human beings (our ancestors!) out of an earthly element, dust. Now in baptism, the water with the Word creates new clothing for us with the energy of the Holy Spirit. Creation happening again and again right in front of our eyes. And we are wrapped in Christ, Christ’s teachings, Christ’s healing, Christ’s ways. Christ in action on earth through us. Christ always.

Yet in wearing Christ, we bear a responsibility: To speak and act into what is not Christ while we are here. On earth. And there is a lot that is not Christ in this world that looks like not compassion. Not love. Not right relations with God and others or the earth. Not about the flourishing of all of creation, just a bit of it.

So, let us pray for our earthly Baptism. For feeling God’s lovingness enfolding us. Holding us so that we, each as a tiny bit of the Body of Christ, can be Christ in this imperfect world. An agent of God’s change like Jesus was and is and is to come. In this prayer, asking for what has been allowed to perpetuate that is not God and does not wear God’s garments to be diminished, eradicated. Forever.

God of each new day of your ongoing creation, bring us together, clothed in the saving grace of Jesus. Deliver this holy clothing on the Holy Spirit’s wind, wrapping us as on in you and with you. Reveal to us how to be your people without gender-based violence. Undo in us what humans have created in our name and not yours. Amen.

* “I baptize you with water for repentance, but the one who is coming after me is more powerful than I, and I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. (Matthew 3:11, NRSVUE)

Prayer from “Being Clothed With Christ: A meditation on Ending Gender-based Violence” by Jennifer Ohman-Rodriguez in Forgive Us and Transform Us for the Life of the World. ELCA, 2025. 57

IMAGES: Adult Baptism: Image by Ahstubbs from Pixabay. Infant Baptism: Image by Leonardo Espina from Pixabay. Font: Image by WikimediaImages from Pixabay

Grief, Trauma

Heavy Day

Jennifer Ohman-Rodriguez

Each year on this day, August 13th, I honor all those who lost their lives in the Wisconsin River. I also honor their beloveds. Those left to make sense of life after death. In doing so I honor myself, my sons, and our large extended family. Yet I do so with heaviness. Ever wondering if this practice of mine is helpful. To me. To anyone.

This year, I scramble to find those who have died in the past year. The list seems small and nameless.

In March, a woman.

June 29th, a 63-year-old man.

Not listing their names seems like an added cruelty layered onto to unexpected death, shock, grief, sorrow. This year leading me to a realization. Of why I do this painful pattern each year, now numbering eight. Yes, to be truthful about the dangers of that river. Yes, to find a sense of community in common experience. Yet also as a pleading prayer to have just five more minutes with the husband/partner/friend/lover/co-parent I lost without warning. Just five minutes to say, “I love you!”

And “Any last words of wisdom as I live on without you?”

And then, “Goodbye!”

My list each year, what cannot ever find full closure. Just a holding while living.

Image by Anna from Pixabay

Grief, Healing, Love, Trauma, Trauma recovery

Unsent Letter

Jennifer Ohman-Rodriguez

You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased. Luke 3:22

A few years back I began repeating this biblical text to my sons. Words spilling out when I was at the very end of my patience or beyond tired. Often accompanied by placing my hand on their heads of tangled hair in an unofficial gesture of blessing.

These words calmed me. Diffused any situation. Whatever it was. Reminded me that no matter what I loved them with every connected molecule of my being. Later, I would laugh at my audacity. Knowing  it would take some time for them to realize I was quoting scripture. 

My eldest son asked me on the day of his dad’s one year memorial mass,  “How can you be proud of me when I haven’t done anything with my life yet?”

Through tears, I babbled some sort of response. Praying it was enough for my hurting son on that raw and painful day. Later, I thought of what I could have said, still wanted to say. So, I wrote this letter and found it among my many drafts not so long ago, still unsent. 

                                                                                                               After the 13th of August, 2017 

To my beloved sons,

Did you know the root of the word “believe” finds its way back to the word “beloved?” What a wild play on words! To say we believe in something or someone is to acknowledge our love for them.

After all that has happened, I still believe in us, in our family, and in our love for one another. We loved, Dad and I, by believing in one another and in you. 

Right now you may not believe in anything. Yet you love. You have loved more in the past twelve months than ever before. Loved Dad in loss and grief. Loved me at my absolute worst. Loved one another in the midst of chaos. And most importantly loved your selves–your grieving, traumatized, messy, lost selves. You may not feel you are loving right now. But here’s what I believe (and therefore love): We cannot face adversity without courage. And true courage is born of love.

I am and remain proud of you both. Not just of who you are right now but of who you will become in life. Not that I know or can see or predict the you that you will be. But I believe in you both. 

Love, 

Mom

Grief, Healing, Trauma recovery

Roller Coaster Ride

Jennifer Ohman-Rodriguez

From my journal entries in 2017

Last Spring my younger son spent a few days at the Disney theme parks with his marching band.  Picking him up from the trip and between the grunts attributed to adolescence and mouths full of food, I understood he spent a lot of time on roller coasters while in Florida. Because…he was fifteen. And not sleeping very much because…he was fifteen. And coming home sick because…he was fifteen.

I spend my days on roller coasters as well. It’s called grief. Sudden grief may be exactly like being strapped in. Climbing up at a laborious speed. Plummeting straight down at the tune of 150 miles per hour. Then there are the times in which the ride seems quiet, even pleasant. Like the calm before the really scary parts in a movie lulling us into a false sense of peace.

My older son and I stopped by the cemetery not long after this trip. It was an impromptu visit. We just happened to be in the neighborhood. While my son danced around the adjacent graves planning what to plant around Tony’s stone, I descended down a steep emotional roller coaster ride because someone, not me, had lain a flower at his grave. “I feel like I’m falling down on my job,” I said.

Back home I felt a sense of true peace. Maybe it was spending a few hours with my son. Making plans for the summer. Running errands. Sharing some time at the cemetery. Maybe it was also my moment of courage in which I shared with my son the verities close to my heart. “You and your brother will heal and live good lives. I will also heal and live a good life. Dad wants this, demands it.”

The truth also being that the beach and water we were on the day of Tony’s death was not adequately marked as dangerous. The universal signs of water safety posted in red, white, and black found on so many beaches across the United States were not there. The swimming buoys or lifeguard were not there. Another person died the same day close to the spot which took Tony. Another man died just a few weeks after. A young woman a few weeks before. My son saying the other man was probably a tourist, an unknowing tourist. Me agreeing. “I need to speak out.  Children die in the Wisconsin River.”

“Young children can’t survive that river,” my son replying. Knowing this truth because he too had been caught in its grasp along with his brother. “You might just have to do that Mom,”

Image by 3345557 from Pixabay