Category: Trauma recovery

Grief, Healing meditation, Trauma, Trauma recovery

Impatient

Jennifer Ohman-Rodriguez

“What is my strength, that I should wait? And what is my end that I should be patient? Is my strength the strength of stones, or is my flesh bronze? In truth I have no help in me, and any resource is driven from me.” Job 6: 11-13 NRSV

Reflection

Eyes stare. Mouth droops. Limbs sit in supposed silence. Only sores speak. Erupting into puss pools.

Life evaporating like tiny raindrops on desert wind. Leftovers buried with each child. Leaving Job with no vision of future.

Job needs others to hold future for him. To be strength for him. But Job learns people’s consistency and appropriateness in tragedy and trauma varies. Many are unreliable, questionable, hurtful, and harmful. Job says,

“Those who withhold kindness from a friend forsake the fear of the Almighty. My companions are treacherous like a torrent-bed…in time of heat they disappear: when it is hot, they vanish from their place.” Job 6:14, 17

Job’s friends posture in trauma’s heat. Find quick answers to suffering’s sorrow. Offer support in limp gestures. Cover their cluelessness with words worn as thin cloaks.

In his pit, Job sees truth. Recognizes their moralism as yet another lathering of pain. Adding putrid frosting on top of bitter cake. Each taste full of shaming shapes. Requiring sufferer’s scarce amount of patience to be used on help’s imposters claiming compassion.

“Compassion means ministry.” writes theologian Andrew Purves. Ministry “for healing or wholeness.”

Compassion does not say, “your head should not feel heavy.” Because compassion does not expand pain’s cutting edge. With knives of judgement and misconstrued power.Compassion sees face-to-face. Hears truth. Believes. Feels. Provides. Compassion says, “My head feels your heaviness. Here are some soft pillows.”

Healing Practice: Do No-Thing

Today we offer ourselves compassion. Not judgement.

Self-compassion allows us to do nothing. Only asks us to sit. Stare.

Until sitting leads to noticing. Noticing the sounds around us. Naming them one by one.  

Noticing more sounds. Coming from within. Breath breathing. Fast, slow, deep, shallow, labored, stilted, heavy.

Breath bringing us inside our bodies. Awakening realizations of sensations. Feelings living in muscles, organs, limbs. Some achy, hard, tingly. Some heavy or warm. Forming shapes. Circle, oval, brick, or plane.

Breath leading us back. To what surrounds us. The drawing on the wall. Ceiling fan above. Lamp across the room. Breathing in silence. Breathing out stillness. Breathing in staring. Breathing out seeing.

Prayer

Insistent God, persist in loving me. Persist in caring for me. Persist in healing me. Sprinkle silent kindnesses on my ashes. Infuse quiet kindnesses into my soul. Fill me with just enough determination to persevere another minute, another hour, another day. Send people courageous enough to sit with me in my pit as it echoes with nothing but muffled torment. Amen.

[i] Purves, Andrew. (1989) The Search for Compassion: Spirituality and Ministry. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press. Page 17.

Image by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay

Grief, Healing, Healing meditation, Trauma, Trauma recovery

One Small Seed

Jennifer Ohman-Rodriguez

“It (the kingdom of God) is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”  Mark 4:30-32 NRSV

Image by DJnyanko from Pixabay

Reflection

A card stock square. Maybe an inch and half in width. Cream colored. A shaded black square drawn within. Containing an open space in the middle. Open space not empty. One mustard seed, centered and hot-glued on. Just one. With words surrounding the seed. Making a phrase. Corny, like so many faith sayings.

Found in bathroom drawer. Leftover from some worship service. Somewhere. Tossed away. Hiding under makeup, face cream, dental floss. Until now. Finding new life wedged between bathroom wall and electrical outlet.

“Faith as a grain of mustard seed!”

Small card with tiny seed. Just a seed. Not a plant. Not a condiment. Just an increment of something possible. Like faith. Like hope. Like love. Like healing.

Image by GOKALP ISCAN from Pixabay

Healing Practice

Comb the cupboard for mustard seeds. Or borrow a few. Buy some. Allowing your eyes to feast on the varied shades of red, brown, and gold.

Drop a mustard seed, just one, into an empty glass jar. Place the jar on the counter where you will see it several times a day.

That’s it. That’s the practice. The rest is up to your mustard seed. To remind you daily that this speck is all you need of hope or faith or both.

Prayer

God of what can be,

Send us a seed a hope,

Plant in us this one, small seed,

Tend this seed with water, light, and food,

Watch as seed sprouts into seedling,

Grows into young stem, shoots off branches,

Becomes strong,

Until birds build nests in its arms,

Creating new life out of tiny hope.

Amen.

Grief, Healing meditation, Trauma, Trauma recovery

Clinging

Jennifer Ohman-Rodriguez

“My soul clings to the dust; revive me according to your word…My soul melts away for sorrow; strengthen me according to your word.” Psalm 119: 25; 28

Reflection

Dust. Tiny particles streak air. On sunny, still afternoons. Light reflecting off silvery wisps of nothingness.

Dust. Swirls on dry, windy days. Masking sight. Adding brown to blue sky. Causing itchy eyes, parched throats, and protesting noses.

Dust. Accumulating. Blanketing surfaces. Scattered if moved. Slipping through grasping hands. Landing again. Only gathered in on soft cloths.

Soul unable to cling.

Healing Practice: Dusting

Open your arms wide and to your sides.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

Breathe in gathering seen and unseen dust particles floating around you.

Breathe out into a hug.

Repeat gathering dust. As long as needed.

Prayer

God,

I cling to the ground. Lift me up.

I cling to the ground. Revive me.

I cling to the ground. Strengthen me.

I cling melted to the ground. Re-form me.

I cling for safety to the ground. Be my security.

I cling frozen to the ground. Move me.

I cling to the ground in pain. Show me healing’s way.

Amen.

Biblical Text: NRSV

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

Healing, Healing meditation, Trauma, Trauma recovery

Afflicted

Jennifer Ohman-Rodriguez

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“My soul is bereft of peace; I have forgotten what happiness is; so I say, “Gone is my glory, and all that I had hoped for from the LORD.” The thought of my affliction and my homelessness is wormwood and gall! My soul continually thinks of it and is bowed down within me. But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases…”   Lamentations 3:17-22

 

Meditation

Bitter thoughts. Stewing from down below. Gurgling with stomach acids. Bubbling up. Burning the esophagus. Causing throat and breath to sour.

The writer of Lamentations uses strong metaphors. Wormwood, a plant smelling and tasting bitter. Gall, another name for bile. Words filling the air and us with pain’s felt presence in and out of our bodies.

But in the midst of severe affliction this writer dares to hope? What is it that this writer “call(s) to mind?” In the midst of smells so intense, so permeating that the writer curls. Caves in. What glimmers enough amidst affliction to speak of “steadfast love”?

 

Healing Practice: Glimmers

What gives you even a small glimmer of hope? A pin head of possibility? A fleeting thought of future?

What or who steadies you right now? Your therapist? The mail carrier showing up every day at the same time? The noon time factory whistle or downtown church bells?

Name these. Write them down. Even the smallest of the small.

The writer of Lamentations puts hope in God. Maybe you do too. Maybe you don’t. Or maybe God is a glimmer of what can be.

 

Prayer

God of what can be, bring breezes filled with fresh air. Blow away bitterness’ smell. Settle my stomach. Give relief to my soured throat. Spark my imagination. Fill my thoughts with hope’s tiny glimmers. Amen.

 

~~~

Biblical translation: NRSV

Image by Evgeni Tcherkasski from Pixabay. 

Faith, Healing meditation, Trauma recovery

Gathering Stars

Jennifer Ohman-Rodriguez

 

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“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.

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/