Yep, that’s right. The day is finally approaching in which I will be ordained in Word & Sacrament in the ELCA! The story leading up to this day is long, most of my life really. So after decades of waiting on myself and the church, here I am saying “yes”!
Attend Ordination Online
You are welcome to attend my ordination online on the YouTube Channel, “GatheredByGrace.”
Called to a Congregation
The good people of St. John’s Lutheran Church in Rock Island, Illinois called me to be their pastor on January 8, 2023. I began ministry among them immediately (the very next day). This amazing community of Christians is loving and missional. Their tag line is “a place for all people.” And they work at it! They also look outside their walls to see the deep needs of the world. Then they get involved out there in the world, working toward being part of God’s kingdom here on earth.
An Excerpt From Something I’m Writing
I love Jesus who is with God and the Holy Spirit. But not Jesus alone. Not Jesus the metaphor for a godly, dystopian superhero who shows up in Disney-style miracle scenes. Not Jesus the fictionalized character in a story I don’t want to read because it causes me and others harm. Not Jesus the caricature, the gross distortion of who and what God is. Not Jesus allowing human all-knowing-ness of God to obliterate the mystery of God.
Upcoming Events
My public schedule slows in this season of my life.
Thursdays find me teaching a pastoral care class in listening, caring, and assessing for Wartburg Seminary in Dubuque, Iowa. Teaching like writing is a love of mine and I am grateful for this unexpected return to the classroom.
Spirit fills me each Sunday when leading worship and preaching at St. John’s.
On Sunday, the 8th of January, the good people of St. John’s Lutheran Church in Rock Island, Illinois called me as their pastor! At this writing (the day after) I am in a wild whirling of joy, anticipation, and active packing! This congregation, for me, is answered longing, answered visioning, and answered prayer. A community in Christ working both outside and inside church walls spreading, planting, growing the love of God over the waters, under the bridges, and into the cracks in the concrete.
January 25: Book talk at Oaknoll East Retirement Living, Iowa City, Iowa.
February 9 – May 18: Pastoral care instructor at Wartburg Seminary, Dubuque, Iowa.
February 25: Ordination at Gloria Dei Lutheran Church, Iowa City, Iowa.
July 17-20 : Workshop presenter at the ELCA’s Rostered Ministers Gathering, Phoenix, Arizona.
INVITE JENNIFER TO SPEAK
If your organization, church, podcast, conference, library, or literary festival is interested in inviting me to speak, preach, or lead a workshop, please click here: Invite Jennifer to Speak.
WHAT I AM READING
Many therapists working with people in recovery from traumatic events as well as these expert authors of Why God Won’t Go Away speak of healing as being sacred, holy, and spiritual. I agree because it’s my own experience with the beautiful mysteries of true wellness. I first learned about this book exploring the “biology of belief” by reading Peter A Levine’s In An Unspoken Voice a few years ago (a book sitting on my late husband’s bookshelf). While much has been discovered about the human brain since these authors wrote Why God Won’t Go Away, the information and accompanying thinking is still valid and educational.
FROM AN EARLY DRAFT
Rollercoaster
Last Spring one of my sons spent a few days at Disney theme parks with his marching band. After picking him up and between adolescent grunts and mouths full of food, my son shared with me that he spent a lot of time on roller coasters while in Florida. Because…he is fifteen. And not sleeping very much because…he is fifteen. And coming home sick because…he is fifteen.
I spend my days on a rollercoaster as well, an internal ride called grief. Sudden grief seems to be exactly like those theme park rides. It plummets unwilling riders straight down at some undefinable speed. Only to come up for air when it feels like it in a momentary lull convincing us that the ride is now quiet, pleasant. Only we all know, those of us on this ride, that more looms on the horizon. The calm before the really scary parts only lull us into a false and temporary sense of peace.
My older son and I stopped by the cemetery the other day. It was an impromptu trip. We were in the neighborhood. While he danced around the neighboring graves planning what to plant around Tony’s stone, I descended internally. Triggered because someone else had lain a flower at Tony’s grave. Not me. “I feel like I’m falling down on my job,” I said.
Later though and back home I felt a sense of peace. Maybe it was spending a few hours with my son. Maybe is was also that glimmering moment of courage when I told my son he and his brother will heal. They will live good lives. I will heal and live a good life. Because we can. We can heal. And Tony wants that for us, demands it of us.
Written in 2017
THE VALUE OF REVIEWS
Being an author, especially a spiritual author, means also being my own marketing director. And I admit I have all sorts of feelings about being tied to the social media self-promotion cycle. Yet there has always been a business side to writing. So here’s what publishers, book sellers, and writers know about getting books into readers hands, eyes, and hearts:
NEWSLETTERS: The more people on an author’s newsletter email list, the more the author sells their books. You can be on my newsletter list by simply following my blog. To do so, press the SUBSCRIBE button on the upper left side of this page.
REVIEWS: The more online reviews a book receives, the more a book sells. Please consider reviewing my book on Goodreads and at my Amazon author’s page.
TIKTOK: If you post on TikTok, say something about my book AND use the hashtag #BookTok.
Eleven pounds. Eighty-six ounces. Fresh. Organic. Not too heavy for me to lift into my grocery cart. Remember the brussel sprouts. Forget the cranberries. Because I burned my orange, cardamom, cranberry sauce in the crock pot yesterday. Making sauce no one will eat. Because really what we all want are good lingonberries with our feast. The hard-to-find ones costing seven dollars a jar. But I like the smell of simmering cranberries. Warms up our home with thoughts of holidays’ past. Until berries remind me of their fragility and burn. No longer evoking memories. Just another failed cooking attempt.
Earlier, when leaving for the store, gazed at sparkling crystals covering drive. Made mental note to sand upon return and remind sons to scrape mid-afternoon. Ensuring safety for myself, my mother, the delivery people. Before late November sun sets to soon.
Now arriving home, the back seat full for our upcoming feast. Sand our drive, pock-marked by your overuse of salt. Wanting once, a lifetime ago, to make sure I did not slip on this descending slope. Throwing grit down now. Missing you. Not because I do your chore. But because I simply miss you. Today. Yesterday. Tomorrow. Miss you on this sunny Sunday day.
Hours later sit with strangers in writing workshop. Flowing tears shift them in their seats. Like so many others blindsided by our pain. Spectators more comfortable with emotions on the page than in living truth. Curious voyeurs hoping against hope to keep covered their own pain while not empathizing with a slice of ours.
Tears emanate from truth told through poem written here and shared. Today, this Sunday before Thanksgiving, I bought my first Thanksgiving turkey since you died. We, no longer qualifying as refugees, welcomed at others’ Thanksgiving tables. Released this third Thanksgiving to celebrate on our own. The stuffing mine to overcook. The cranberries mine to burn. The gravy mine to whisk into lumps. The pumpkin pie mine to forget the sugar. Like the time my sons will not forget.
In following days leading up to event make another phone call asking to have your name removed from some bill, piece of mail. Like I have so many times these past twenty-seven months. Never ending, this removing you from our day-to-day business of living. Realize as this holiday approaches though that I must (once again) slow down. Be good to myself. Take care. Cease all dissassociations and denials. Just be in what was, what is not now, and what can be despite it all. A paradoxical trifecta of sorts. The holy trinity of living after trauma and death.
Third Thanksgiving. First turkey. Wonder what we will be thankful for this year. The brutality of what happened to us compounded by sons’ illnesses, mysterious and hard to treat? No. Will we be thankful for knowing and loving you? Will we be thankful for what we have accomplished in healing grief, trauma, illness? Will we be thankful for mercies still to come? Will we feel hope this day, our first alone. The first we trust ourselves to be alone just sons, me and my mother. Who will bring Norwegian lefse made with gluten free flour, thick instead of thin. Making us all remember when wheat lefse smeared with real butter rolled up easily. You wanting to sweeten yours with brown sugar. Me telling you this way is incorrect in purist lefse culture. You carving the turkey. Looking at me with silent words of, “I really do not know how to do this…”
Me believing you will figure it out. Like now I believe we will continue to figure out life without you as I dish up food. Light candles. Gather us into the grace of this day.
INVITE JENNIFER TO SPEAK
If your organization, church, podcast, conference, library, or literary festival is interested in inviting me to speak, preach, or lead a workshop, please click here: Invite Jennifer to Speak.
I love metaphor. I embrace metaphors for God in my own theological imagination, my own thinking about and encountering God. Rabbi Toba Spitzer’s new book is a welcome addition to my wonderings about God. Here is a small bit of her wisdom:
“There are two elements found in every spiritual and religious tradition that resonate with the power of Voice: music, and the sound of silence. Each of these modalities offer opportunities for transformative spiritual experience.” (109)
There are a number of exciting possibilities incubating for 2023. Stay tuned!
THE VALUE OF REVIEWS
Being an author, especially a spiritual author, means also being my own marketing director. And I admit I have all sorts of feelings about being tied to the social media self-promotion cycle. Yet there has always been a business side to writing. So here’s what publishers, book sellers, and writers know about getting books into readers hands, eyes, and hearts:
NEWSLETTERS: The more people on an author’s newsletter email list, the more the author sells their books. You can be on my newsletter list by simply following my blog. To do so, press the SUBSCRIBE button on the upper left side of this page.
REVIEWS: The more online reviews a book receives, the more a book sells. Please consider reviewing my book on Goodreads and at my Amazon author’s page.
TIKTOK: If you post on TikTok, say something about my book AND use the hashtag #BookTok.
I’ve been traveling a lot lately. And in my travels I’ve met many people harmed by some form of Christianity. Some by my own denomination. Yet all the people I’ve met still seek something greater than themselves: The earth, other gods, nature, other ways of believing in something. But God, the God I proclaim, seems absent.
Garden of the Gods, Colorado Springs, Colorado
I too, know this sense of God’s absence. I felt it in the depths of trauma’s aftermath. I feel it now as I write these words. What I’ve learned though is that fatigue, anger, and stress impact my daily sense of God. And experts tell us that the experience of prolonged spiritual absence is a symptom of unhealed trauma. Healing and self-care uncover our innate spiritual selves. Yet not necessarily back to the pews of our past. But back to something–named or unnamed.
God, are you always with us? Even when we cannot feel your presence. See you in nature, animals, other people? Even when we cannot trust you? Or believe in your presence anywhere? Hold us in hope for the return of our spiritual selves. Amen.
If your organization, church, podcast, conference, library, or literary festival is interested in inviting me to speak, preach, or lead a workshop, please click here: Invite Jennifer to Speak.
BONUS SECTION
From an early draft of my book.
The minute I laid down I knew something was wrong
For days I felt tired. Tired to the bone. Slogging through my days. Achy as if coming down with something.
School was in session. Is Paul bringing home the latest bug?
Sure, I was working out more if only to save my skeleton. But my new regime began weeks ago. Really! My body should be used to all these weights and prolonged walks by now!
Yes, I was writing all the time. For work. For me. For seminary. Lower arms feeling a bit stiff at the end of each day. But that’s to be expected, isn’t it?
But I also felt edgy. Tense. So tense I couldn’t break out of it no matter what I did. Then I started having headaches. Really bad headaches accompanied by nausea. Happened at church one Sunday morning. Left worship to ask around for some acetaminophen. “What’s wrong?” a friend wondered.
“I’ve been reading the Old Testament book of Amos all morning for seminary. I think I have Amos head.”
“Well, I’m glad we have a name for it,” she replied.
At noon I laid down to nap. Too tired to go on. Study more. Write more. Take care of more bills, schedule more appointments, wash more dishes, do more laundry.
In bed my body spoke to me. Nervousness rushed everywhere within me. Agitation kept me from stillness. Even though this felt different, I breathed like I would in an anxiety attack. Long deep breaths in through my nose. Blown out through my mouth in steady pulses. Rhythm bringing in hope. Pushing out pain.
It worked, sort of. But not completely.
So, I waited. Breathing taking the edge off for a time. Never forever. Forever requiring deep healing for this stuff to cease residing in my body, any body. Is this a relapse? Or is it the next layer of pain ready for healing?
Checked my calendar. Another EMDR session in a few days. Healers and healing on their way.
THE VALUE OF NEWSLETTERS & REVIEWS
Being an author, especially a spiritual author, means also being my own marketing director. And I admit I have all sorts of feelings about being tied to the social media self-promotion cycle. Yet there has always been a business side to writing. So here’s what publishers, book sellers, and writers know about getting books into readers hands, eyes, and hearts:
NEWSLETTERS: The more people on an author’s newsletter email list, the more the author sells their books. You can be on my newsletter list by simply following my blog. To do so, press the SUBSCRIBE button on the upper left side of this page.
REVIEWS: The more online reviews a book receives, the more a book sells. Please consider reviewing my book on Goodreads and at my Amazon author’s page.
Thank you!
WHAT I AM READING
I’ve never been much of a fan of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) person. Tony, my late husband and trauma therapist, was not either. We both felt professionally that its effects were not long term nor reached for root causes. When it comes to trauma recovery, many of the primary researchers agree. Why? Because CBT is about the mind, not the body. And trauma infects our entire selves. Yes, I use some CBT methods at times but as an adjunctive method and not for my deep, long lasting healing needs.
Medical doctor and author Paul Conti agrees. He writes, “The idea that we can simply get over difficult things that happened to us in the past is far more common than it should be, and in my opinion, some cognitive-behavioral therapy techniques (CBT) perpetuate this notion.” (71)
Read his book for an insider view of how the medical treatment of trauma often goes wrong.
September Newsletter, 2022: All rights reserved by the author.
Clipping along at 70 miles per hour, maybe faster. Mile after mile bringing me closer to what I have dreaded for almost six years. My stomach tells me we are almost there. Thankful Forrest drives, not me.
Phone rings. Answer only because it’s one of my sons, Ricardo. With a question. We’ve all just moved. Our lives, in boxes, transitions, and unknowns. We talk briefly, say “goodbye,” and “I love you.”
Realize the moment of trepidation, crossing the Illinois state line into Wisconsin for the first time since Tony died, flew by five miles or so ago.
Instead in that second, the passage between states, my eyes focused on us. The here and now in our relationship as son and mother. The universe aligned with synchronicity acknowledging our truth, both living and dead, in protective action.
If your organization, church, podcast, conference, library, or literary festival is interested in inviting me to speak, preach, or lead a workshop, please click here: Invite Jennifer to Speak.
THE VALUE OF NEWSLETTERS & REVIEWS
Being an author, especially a spiritual author, means also being my own marketing director. And I admit I have all sorts of feelings about being tied to the social media self-promotion cycle. Yet there has always been a business side to writing. So here’s what publishers, book sellers, and writers know about getting books into readers hands, eyes, and hearts:
NEWSLETTERS: The more people on an author’s newsletter email list, the more the author sells their books. You can be on my newsletter list by simply following my blog. To do so, press the SUBSCRIBE button on the upper left side of this page.
REVIEWS: The more online reviews a book receives, the more a book sells. Please consider reviewing my book on Goodreads and at my Amazon author’s page.
Thank you!
WHAT I’M READING
I love non-fiction books and not just ones about theology, pastoral care, or trauma recovery! I also love reading travel books which fill me with dreams of future trips. Last month, while selling books to a local used book store, I fell in love with the cover of a book. I didn’t buy it because I promised myself I would not buy any more books until after our move. But then we went back with another trunk load of books to sell and… I just had to buy it! So if you love the combination of books, travel, and Iceland, check this one out.
August Newsletter, 2022: All rights reserved by the author.
Jennifer Ohman-Rodriguez 