Category: Grief

Grief, Newsletter, Trauma recovery

JANUARY NEWSLETTER 2022

Jennifer Ohman-Rodriguez

ON THE BOOKSHELF

WELCOME

Welcome to my inaugural newsletter. Why a newsletter? Well honestly the idea began at the advice of every marketing person in the publishing industry. Somehow newsletters boost book sales. Believe me, I’m not producing a newsletter because I want to contribute to the clutter in your inbox. So yes, I am a bit sceptical. But honestly I’m also enjoying what began as yet another task on my to do list! So here it is, my first newsletter as an author. If you continue reading you will find I’ve included background information pertaining to things I write about in the book. Some months you will find sections called “bonus reads” from the original manuscript that didn’t make the final cut. Also included are a few grief and trauma recovery resources  as well as upcoming events and publications. And that’s about it. Thank you for reading any of my writing and blessings on your healing journey.                                                                               

~~~Jennifer Ohman-Rodriguez~~~

BOOK RELEASE EVENT

Please join me and Chalice Press President & Publisher, Brad Lyons, for a Q & A on Tuesday, January 18th at 7:00 PM CST. Click here to register. 

BUY THE BOOK

CP chalice only  My book is currently available (on sale!) at Chalice Press. 

THE VALUE OF YOUR REVIEW

Every author relies on readers to write online reviews. Authors need a minimum of 100 reviews on Amazon to be effective. Please consider reviewing my book at my Amazon author’s page.

BACKSTORY: TEARS AND RAIN

Tears and Rain was a major theme in my experience of grief with trauma recovery. Tears because they streamed unbidden throughout each day and night. Rain because the universe around me mourned as well. Tears (and rain) brought healing to me and continue to bring healing and new life to our world.

Tears and Rain is also a song by James Blunt. His lyrics, filled with the poetry, portray trauma’s afterlife. Listen to the track below. Read the lyrics. 

TEARS AND RAIN LYRICS

How I wish I could surrender my soul
Shed the clothes that become my skin
See the liar that burns within my needing
How I wish I’d chosen darkness from cold
How I wish I had screamed out loud
Instead I’ve found no meaning. I guess it’s time I run far, far away, find comfort in pain
All pleasure’s the same, it just keeps me from trouble
Hides my true shape, like Dorian Gray
I’ve heard what they say, but I’m not here for trouble
It’s more than just words, it’s just tears and rain. How I wish I could walk through the doors of my mind
Hold memory close at hand
Help me understand the years
How I wish I could choose between Heaven and Hell
How I wish I would save my soul
I’m so cold from fear. I guess it’s time I run far, far away, find comfort in pain
All pleasure’s the same, it just keeps me from trouble
Hides my true shape, like Dorian Gray
I’ve heard what they say, but I’m not here for trouble
Far, far away, find comfort in pain
All pleasure’s the same, it just keeps me from trouble
It’s more than just words, it’s just tears and rain. Oh
Tears and rain
Oh
Tears and rain. Far, far away, find comfort in pain
All pleasure’s the same, it just keeps me from trouble
It’s more than just words
It’s just tears and rain.

BONUS READS FROM MY WRITER’S RECYCLING BIN

This month’s bonus read, “A Widow’s Wreath,”  first appeared on my blog in February, 2017. Read about my adverse reaction to placing a wreath on Tony’s grave that first Christmas here.  

RESOURCES IN GRIEF AND TRAUMA RECOVERY

What’s Your Grief is one of the most comprehensive resources I’ve seen on grief.

Trauma Recovery at Compassionate Christianity is my curated site full of trauma recovery resources.

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: 

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

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

Tuesday, January 18, 2022 at 7:00 PM CST: Join me online for a Q & A with Chalice Press President, Brad Lyons. Click here to register.  

Monday, January 24, 2022: Brian Allain of Writing for Your Life and Compassionate Christianity interviews me. I’ll post a link in next month’s newsletter. 

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. 

Grief, Healing, Trauma, Trauma recovery

To Everything There is a Season

Jennifer Ohman-Rodriguez

Week after week of therapy sessions. Each hour supporting healing through writing. Page after page revealing in words both pain and joy, sorrow and solace. All the while surrounded by loving writing professionals delivering suggestions with more care than critique. Revision after revision after revision accumulating into hundreds of rewrites leading to now. Filling my heart with a cascade of emotions.

With gratitude to God and to all the healers in this splintered world of ours, I officially announce the birth of my book. A Time to Mourn & A Time to Dance: A Love Story of Grief, Trauma, Healing & Faith is now available for preorder through Chalice Press at https://chalicepress.com/collections/coming-soon/products/a-time-to-mourn-a-time-to-dance.

Book Cover
Grief, Trauma, Trauma recovery

August Counting

Jennifer Ohman-Rodriguez

Every year on this day when families return from vacation full of just made memories, begin readying for the school year ahead, every year at this time I count the dead. Because right about now, five years ago, we came home from vacation without one of us forever. And there was no getting ready for the start of school for any of us. There was only a funeral to plan, a death to make sense of, and life to figure out. So today I count and if possible name the dead ones. Those who in the past twelve months lost their lives in the Wisconsin River. Those who innocently were fishing, wading, or boating. Those who in trying to save the lives of others, lost their own in this treacherous river. This river with a killing history exacerbated by an ongoing sinful lack of warning signs and a state refusing to allow survivors to challenge existing laws.

Lynda Mueller, 58

Parker Kruse, 22

Unnamed man

James Dolphin, 62

And I remember Anthony D. Rodriguez who did not come home with us after the Wisconsin River took him on August 13, 2016.

Still.

Faith, Grief, Love

STUFF

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

Grief, Healing meditation, Trauma recovery

OUT

Jennifer Ohman-Rodriguez

Psalm 130

“Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord.
    Lord, hear my voice!
Let your ears be attentive
    to the voice of my supplications!

 If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities,
    Lord, who could stand?
But there is forgiveness with you,
    so that you may be revered.

I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
    and in God’s word I hope;
my soul waits for the Lord
    more than those who watch for the morning,
    more than those who watch for the morning.

O Israel, hope in the Lord!
    For with the Lord there is steadfast love,
    and with the Lord is great power to redeem.

It is the Lord  who will redeem Israel
    from all its iniquities.” ( NRSV)

Reflection

Psalm 130 belongs to a group of psalms called “the ascent psalms.” Psalms sung as pilgrims made long journeys to the temple in ancient Jerusalem. Once at the temple, weary  after walking so far, pilgrims may have chanted these words while climbing the many steps leading into the temple. Bodies moving with lament and hope. Arms reaching for God and God’s redemption.

Ascent. A word associated with goodness. We think and speak of going up or moving forward as the best way. Moving downward, not as acceptable or desirable. As in God is up not down. Up in heaven not down here on earth. Not deeper down in the pits of our despair and pain.

Up, down, ascent, or descent are neither good nor bad movements. All movements depend on context. In the context of pain and despair we often move away from God. We turn away from all goodness because we are unable to fathom God moving with us in any direction. 

Yet God always promises to accompany us. God goes with us into every place, including life’s pits. Maybe a better directional word is out. Easing pain moves us out of despair into the experience of joy. Healing uncovers God’s ongoing presence with and in us.

Spiritual Practice: Moving

Read aloud the first two verses of Psalm 130. As you read, reach your arms out in all directions. Reach out and down. Reach out and up. Reach out and to the side.

 Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord.
    Lord, hear my voice!
Let your ears be attentive
    to the voice of my supplications!

Read aloud verses three and four standing or sitting still.

If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities,
    Lord, who could stand?
But there is forgiveness with you,
    so that you may be revered.

Read aloud verses five and six while breathing the words in and out. As you breathe listen for God within you and all around you.

I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
    and in God’s word I hope;
my soul waits for the Lord
    more than those who watch for the morning,
    more than those who watch for the morning.

As you read aloud verses seven and eight, move as if you are moving toward God’s hope living within you.

O Israel, hope in the Lord!
    For with the Lord there is steadfast love,
    and with the Lord is great power to redeem.

 It is the Lord  who will redeem Israel
    from all its iniquities.

Prayer

Ascending and descending God, move your Spirit within and around me. Move me with your energy. Create healing as we dance. Amen.

Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay