Newsletter – Page 2 – Jennifer Ohman-Rodriguez

Faith, Healing, Newsletter, Trauma, Trauma recovery

NEWSLETTER for AUGUST, 2022

August 22, 2022August 27, 2022 Jennifer Ohman-Rodriguez

TRAVELING BACK

Looming. Ahead of me. Out the windshield.

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.

August 10, 2022 Ephraim, Wisconsin

UPCOMING EVENTS

Devotional in Rise & Shine: 2022-2023 Devotion Book. ELCA School and Learning Centers.

September 1 @ 6:30 PM: Book Reading at Beaverdale Books, Des Moines, Iowa.

September 15: Blog post for Faith+Lead, “Addictions as Suffering.”

October 4: Book Club with St. Mark Lutheran Church in Davenport, Iowa

October 10: “Being a Spiritual Writer,” with author Lori Erickson at the Iowa City Book Festival. Our session is at 6:30 PM at the Coralville Library.

October 22: “Trauma-Informed Worship” with Faith+Lead. (10-12–Online Only)

November 1: “Spiritual Care for Trauma” with Faith+Lead. (10-11:30–Online only)

November 8: “Spiritual Care for Trauma” with Faith+Lead. 10-11:30–Online only)

November 15: “Spiritual Care for Trauma” with Faith+Lead. (10-11:30–Online only)

November 29: “Spiritual Care for Trauma” with Faith+Lead. (10-11:30–Online only)

December: Essay (print/online) in Sundays and Seasons: Guide to Worship Planning, Year A 2023 (Augsburg Fortress)

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.

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.

Domestic Violence, Grief, Healing, Hope, Newsletter, Trauma recovery

NEWSLETTER, (JUNE/JULY 2022)

June 29, 2022 Jennifer Ohman-Rodriguez

Hypervigilance. Stuck on high alert. A symptom of unhealed traumatic experience. Leading to constant control of environment, self, and others. Seen in perpetrators of domestic violence, sexual violence, and organizations, governments, and families who follow intense sets of rules. What if those who are trapped by their internal demand for control healed instead?

TRANSITIONS

The last days of June urge us into July. A month when after eleven years in our home we pack our belongings, load a large truck, and transport all that we have across town into a temporary living space. In 2011 we moved to this area full of hope. In July we don’t leave this house in despair. But we do acknowledge all that happened to us as a family, individuals, the country, and world while living in this place called home. We also leave not knowing the future. Because my call into ministry moves painfully slow. And because the world shifted while we lived here in this place. Some shifts make us more truthful. Some shifts tore our hearts open. Some shifts are still healing.

So, we leave. Not feeling metaphorical or poetic. More practical and realistic. Turning faces toward this thing called now and another thing named future. Praying for soft landing at the other end. Knowing life, in its mixture of joy, pain, and sorrow, still claims its essence as worth living.

Behind the scenes for Faith+Lead’s Book Hub event.

RECENT & UPCOMING HAPPENINGS

Article: “Where Faith and Trauma Recovery Meet,” at Bearings Online.

Article: “Heal Self, Love Others.” at Faith+Lead.

Television Appearance: “Childcare in Iowa,” on Ethical Perspectives in the News. Sponsored by the Inter-Religious Council of Linn County.

Taped Workshop: “Beyond Job’s Friends: Accompanying Those in Trauma’s Pits.” Faith+Lead Book Hub Event. Listen to the podcast here.

July 16: “Beyond Talking About Trauma.” Wild Goose Festival in Union Grove, North Carolina.

July 30/31: Reading, Q&A, & Book Signing at St. John Lutheran Church in Rock Island, Illinois. Stay tuned for more details!

July 31: Preaching at St. John Lutheran Church in Rock Island, Illinois.

August 6-7: Preaching at Faith Lutheran Church in Eldridge, Iowa.

August 11-12: “Trauma Informed Ministry.” Door County, Wisconsin

September 1 @ 6:30 PM: Book Reading at Beaverdale Books, Des Moines, Iowa.

October 22: “Trauma Informed Liturgy,” with Faith+Lead.

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.

THE VALUE OF REVIEWS

Whether we like it or not, there is a business to writing. Every author relies on readers to write online reviews. Please, please, please consider reviewing my book on Goodreads and at my Amazon author’s page. You have my gratitude!

WHAT I’M READING

I’ve studied compassion from the clinical researcher point of view and also some of the Buddhist practices of compassion. Now I’m diving into the compassion of Jesus.

BUY MY BOOK

Put A Time to Mourn & a Time to Dance on your bookshelf! My book is currently available (on sale!) at Chalice Press. Also available at Prairie Lights, Barnes & Noble, Coralville, Iowa, Barnes & Noble Online, Books-a-Million, Target, Bookshop.org, and Amazon.

BONUS SECTION

From my journal…

June 2, 2017. Iowa City, Iowa

On a clear day in late spring when the air cleared of Iowa humidity and big white clouds hung in a seemingly simple blue sky, on a day when grief’s pain hit me again and again, I sit in the living room of an senior living apartment listening to a man in his late eighties tell me the adventures of his life. As he does, thought fills my brain. What will I write about once grief is no longer the subject of my morning outpouring of words?

On this day, and I tell the man’s wife so, I think maybe I will write other people’s stories or maybe stories of being a pastor. Because on this clear day, I once again love hearing someone else’s story. Or perhaps I tire of my own. Acceptance of which sprouts in my soul.

Grief, Hope, Newsletter, Trauma recovery, Writing

NEWSLETTER (MAY, 2022)

May 26, 2022 Jennifer Ohman-Rodriguez

Photo Captions:

Discovering my book on the shelf at Prairie Lights (Iowa City), Barnes & Noble (Coralville, Iowa), and an upcoming event with Faith + Lead.

RECENT & UPCOMING HAPPENINGS

New article with Faith & Lead: “Heal Self, Love Others.”

“Childcare in Iowa,” on Ethical Perspectives in the News. Sponsored by the Inter-Religious Council of Linn County.

Saturday, June 4th at 5:30 pm: Preaching at St. Mark Lutheran Church in Davenport, Iowa.

Sunday, June 5th at 9:30 am: Preaching at St. Mark Lutheran Church in Davenport, Iowa.

“Beyond Job’s Friends: Accompanying Those in Trauma’s Pits.” Thursday, June 16th, 2022 at 2:00 pm: Faith+Lead Online Book Hub event.

“Beyond Talking About Trauma.” July 14-17: Wild Goose Festival in Union Grove, North Carolina. Stay tuned for more information.

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.

THOUGHT

Pray for compassion, for just mercy, for our culture prone to carry unhealed pain buried within its layers of controversy until it explodes into others–so often and again innocents. Then get off your knees advocating with every word, deed, action, courageous works of self-healing, and posture for God’s love, compassion, and justice to rule our world. Not those humans whose pain permeates their stolen power. Prayer is like empathy, only the beginning. The first step. Stagnant unless it leads to compassionate action.

BONUS SECTION

I journal a lot, daily. Or I have in past years. Right now, I’m slowing down. In part because journaling for a writer also includes returning to finished journals. Rereading them. Looking for themes, recurring questions, poetry fragments, hints of unhealed pain, and the next piece or book asking to be written.

My current confession is I do not like rereading my journals. At all. Feels like work done begrudgingly. Like I know its good for me and that feeling never really works with its shift into shame’s posture. So I often avoid rereading my journals. But recently five tattered notebooks created a pile in my office. Greeting me each morning with a whined, “Hey, remember us!”

Until one morning I muttered, “Fine! But I’m not going to add to this pile by continuing to journal until I’ve read all five of you!”

So I haven’t, much. Journaled. Although occasionally something flows into my heart and head which begs to be written down. Then, I scribble away again. Or in reading yet another trauma recovery book I do some sort of suggested exercise. Because nothing short of dutiful am I in investigating these small moments of healing. Which often fill up many pages!

Much of what I reread in my journals is repetitive, boring, and often depressing. The gems, the possible sprouts of something bigger, are rare. Making the discovery of something moving me to write are longed for gifts. And these gifts do appear! Here’s one from the height of the pandemic, before the vaccine.

November 6, 2021

Quiet morning of shiny sadness felt in cheeks. Turning down toward the earth. Maybe in sadness we return to creation waiting to be made anew like a seed. Irony: This thought makes me smile…

WHAT I’M READING

Radical Compassion: Learning to Love Yourself and Your World with the Practice of RAIN by Tara Brach.

My primary therapist often talks about Tara Brach’s work. Post seminary, I have time to read outside the Christian theological canon. Which I love doing because I believe that when we are curious about God, when we believe we can never fully grasp the immensity of God and are humbled because of it, we become curious about other faith traditions’ thinking about and relationship with God.

According to her website, “Tara Brach’s teachings blend Western psychology and Eastern spiritual practices, mindful attention to our inner life, and a full, compassionate engagement with our world. The result is a distinctive voice in Western Buddhism, one that offers a wise and caring approach to freeing ourselves and society from suffering.”

THE VALUE OF REVIEWS

Whether we like it or not, there is a business side to writing. Every author relies on readers to write online reviews. Please, please, please consider reviewing my book on Goodreads and at my Amazon author’s page. You have my gratitude!

BUY MY BOOK

Grief, Healing, Newsletter, Trauma, Trauma recovery

April Newsletter, 2022

April 20, 2022April 27, 2022 Jennifer Ohman-Rodriguez

CURRENT REALITY

It’s April. My youngest son left to explore Europe. My oldest son winds his way toward home for work, doctors’ appointments, and visa renewal. Forrest and I passed the first round of applications to adopt a doodle dog. The house is up for sale. I’m interviewing for congregational ministry, wondering and worrying about finances, marketing the book, writing an article, and working on a second book. Oh! And it’s Easter. Still. For the next 40 plus days.

Yet I breathe in all the goodness this whirlwind of words embraces. Because without all the healing work we as a family did and continue to do the list of our lives would read very differently. This possible reality, of what could have been, always lives in my heart and mind. Not as pain but as truth laced with gratitude. Thankful I pushed us to do the work, the healing work, as an act of love. Healing giving us balm and leading us to live fully in love, purpose, and joy each hour of each night and day now and in all the days to come.

May you find a way to “do the work” as well.

~Jennifer

HAPPENINGS

In-Person

Tuesday, April 26, 2022 at 7:00 pm: In-person book talk at Gloria Dei Lutheran Church in Iowa City, Iowa. Prairie Lights Bookstore will be there selling my book at the event. You may attend virtually or watch at a later date at Gloria Dei Live.

Saturday, June 4th at 5:30 pm: Preaching at St. Mark Lutheran Church in Davenport, Iowa.

Sunday, June 5th at 9:30 am: Preaching at St. Mark Lutheran Church in Davenport, Iowa.

July 14-17: Wild Goose Festival in Union Grove, North Carolina. Stay tuned for more information.

Podcasts

Tues. May 3 – Ep. 52: Grief + Healing Author Jennifer Ohman-Rodriguez on Untrained Wisdom.

Thursday, June 16th, 2022 at 2:00 pm: Faith+Lead Book Hub event.

Articles

“Where Faith and Trauma Recovery Meet,” at Bearings Online.

“Small, simple self-care” in the January/February 2020 edition of Gather Magazine.

In the News

Coming up! Ethical Perspectives on the News sponsored by the Inter-Religious Council of Linn County.

Gazette interview with Rob Cline.

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.

This is Life and the Living of It: Steven D. Lee and I talk about faith and trauma recovery.

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

Each month I share part of my process of writing A Time to Dance & A Time to Mourn. This month’s offering is a blog post from May 4, 2018 that did not find a home in my memoir.

Easter Understanding

Sitting in a church pew Easter Sunday. Seats at a premium this morning. Finding space third row from the Baptismal font. On the right almost under the organ pipes.

Swarms surround us. Decked out in Spring’s cold glory. Small limbs buzzing from early morning chocolate bunnies. Syrupy smells poured over church-basement pancakes wafting up sanctuary stairwell. Scents floating off potted lilies celebrating this day, distracting our noses.

Me, quietly book-ended by sons. Lanky height towering over shrinking self. Our hearts cradling family variants. Arriving on time for once. Not participating in today’s service. Missing one person in body, spirit, love. Forced imbalances creating new holiday traditions. Because of loss. Because of illness. Because human essence demands continual, dynamic change. Life ever flowing somewhere. Living in all directions. Forward, one of many routes. Options include straight back, down, and up above. Existence also following verticals and sub-verticals like feeds and streams.

During Lent this year understanding the movement of Lot’s wife. Looking back froze her future. Into crumbling salt. Comprehending this can happen to us. So far doesn’t. Ongoing therapy eradicates salt. Revisiting the past orients us into living. Discovering alternatives. Lot’s wife perhaps wanting choice too. Beginning with resisting orders. Ones requiring forced obligation in ancient womanhood. A constricted soul experiencing momentary freedom. Salt worth its weight. Me, not so interested in salt. Embracing all directions.

WHAT I’M READING

My latest? Homecoming by Thema Bryant, PhD. Also check out her podcast by the same name.

THE VALUE OF REVIEWS

BUY MY BOOK

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

Faith, Grief, Newsletter, Prayer, Trauma recovery

March Newsletter, 2022

March 17, 2022April 18, 2022 Jennifer Ohman-Rodriguez

Lenten Litany
During this season of Lent let us pray,
Creating God, produce peace within each of us. Ask our inner peace to radiate out into the world.
Saving Jesus, provide lasting healing within each of us. Lead our healing into peace.
Advocating Spirit, reveal wounds within each of us needing mending. Accompany us toward healing ways.
Saving Jesus, provide lasting healing within each of us. Lead our healing into peace.
Creating God, produce peace within each of us. Ask our inner peace to radiate out into the world. Amen.
~Jennifer Ohman-Rodriguez, March 4, 2022~

THE VALUE OF REVIEWS

HUGE ASK: Every author relies on readers to write online reviews. Authors need a minimum of 100 reviews on Amazon and/or Goodreads to be effective. I have 96 more to go! 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. Or support your local, independent bookstore.

BONUS SECTION

Creating a book begins as a solitary endeavor. But publishing a book requires a team–literary agent, copy editors, marketing professionals, a publisher, typesetters, book sellers, printers, and of course visual artists. I’m blessed that Chalice Press asked for my input every step of the way including ideas for the front cover. Here’s my initial rough sketch next to the finished cover. From my stick-figure sketch to the published front cover–WOW! Thank you, Ranka and 99designs!

RESOURCES IN GRIEF AND TRAUMA RECOVERY

Two months into widowhood, I giggled my way through this book: Widow to Widow: Thoughtful, Practical Ideas for Rebuilding Your Life by Genevieve Davis Ginsburg.

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 for March, April, and June:

In-Person

Tuesday, April 26, 2022 at 7:00 pm: In-person book talk at Gloria Dei Lutheran Church in Iowa City, Iowa. Prairie Lights Bookstore will be there selling my book before and after the event.

Podcasts

Tues. May 3 – Ep. 52: Grief + Healing Author Jennifer Ohman-Rodriguez on Untrained Wisdom.

Thursday, June 16th, 2022 at 2:00 pm: Faith+Lead Book Hub event.

In the News

Gazette interview with Rob Cline.

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.