Category: Trauma

Grief, Healing, Newsletter, Trauma, Trauma recovery

April Newsletter, 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.

Homecoming by Thema Bryant, Ph.D.

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

CP chalice only  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.

April Newsletter, 2022: All rights reserved by the author.

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
Domestic Violence, Healing, Liturgy, Trauma, Trauma recovery

Litany of Mercy for the Ceasing and Healing of Domestic Violence

Jennifer Ohman-Rodriguez

A litany is a series of prayer requests to God typically made by a worship leader. These requests are called petitions. The people gathered for worship respond to the offered petitions with a repeated refrain. In this litany the refrain is the ancient liturgical prayer Kyrie eleison. This litany is offered as we begin October and Domestic Violence Awareness Month.

Women in posture of pain and protection.

The Leader begins.

We pray to you, oh God,

LORD, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy for the people in our prayers.

God, we pray this day for those people living with any form of past, present, or ongoing violence,

Stop the violence,

Lead all people to safety,

Provide all who suffer with healing balm.

We pray to you, oh God,

LORD, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy for the people in our prayers.

For those people among us now, in our immediate environment, our church, our neighborhood, or community who today live with the ongoing pain, fear, perpetuated trauma, and victimization of domestic violence,

Give these people the inner strength to survive,

Help them protest without being hurt,

Send them help NOW,

Keep them alive in body, heart, soul, and mind.

We pray to you, oh God,

LORD, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy for the people in our prayers.

For all survivors of domestic violence in all its evil forms living throughout the world,

Settle their nervous systems,

Calm their bodies’ racing chemicals,

Make room within their hearts, bodies, souls, and minds for healing.

We pray to you, oh God,

LORD, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy for the people in our prayers.

For all domestic violence helpers and healers such as mental health clinicians, domestic violence shelter workers, hotline volunteers, trauma-informed body healers and therapists, givers of monetary donations, police personnel, teachers, emergency medical technicians, medical doctors, nurses, social workers, chaplains, pastors, researchers, and all others who provide aid, safety, and healing,

Help these helpers, healers, and those for whom we have not named to do no harm,

Send them courage, strength, and your power to both stop the violence and support the healing process of others,

Remind them to care for themselves each day so that they can fully care for others.

We pray to you, oh God,

LORD, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy for the people in our prayers.

For all people, including ourselves, who know or suspect current occurrences of domestic violence and do nothing,

Open our voices,

Project our words,

Turn our words into protests,

Pivot our protests into necessary actions.

We pray to you, oh God,

LORD, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy for the people in our prayers.

For all communities in Christ gathered around you God in Water, Word, and Meal,

Build true sanctuary within church walls for all victims and survivors of domestic violence,

Create within these walls environments for healing,

Ask all of us as Christians to participate in our own healing so we in turn provide healing for others.

We pray to you, oh God,

LORD, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy for the people in our prayers.

LORD, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy for the people in our prayers.

LORD, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy for the people in our prayers. Amen.

This prayer was first given to God on October 14, 2020 during chapel at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota. My thanks go to Dr. Beverly Wallace for giving her students space for creative voice.

As with all liturgy, this litany has a life of its own. The words printed here will shift and change. Some will stay. Others will go. The litany, as is, is just a beginning. It changes to voice the needs of each context. If you use this litany in any form I ask that you attribute the work to me even if you add or modify the work. The attribution may look like: “Our litany today is based on a litany written by Jennifer Ohman-Rodriguez.” Please also let me know you are using it. Thank you.

Image by Diana Cibotari from Pixabay

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.

Healing meditation, Revised Common Lectionary Text, Trauma, Trauma recovery

BR O KEN

Jennifer Ohman-Rodriguez

“Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am in distress;  my eye wastes away from grief,
 my soul and body also. For my life is spent with sorrow, and my years with sighing; my strength fails because of my misery,  and my bones waste away. I am the scorn of all my adversaries,  a horror to my neighbors, an object of dread to my acquaintances; those who see me in the street flee from me;  I have passed out of mind like one who is dead; I have become like a broken vessel.” Psalm 31:9-12 NRSV

Reflection

Words from my own journey through trauma recovery: I want to lose myself in movie after movie. Curl up in bed, eyes staring at the blank wall. Drink the leftover wine in the fridge until I no longer feel anything. Buy another dress online. Only to send it back again. Move to an island far away from all who know my story. Numb myself in anything taking a layer of pain away. Not even asking for it all to cease. Just shed the top portion of what I endure. Maybe just for an hour. Giving me a break from my broken body. From trauma’s relentless monotony.

Today I decide instead to bake. Satiate my craving for spice cookies. Or maybe just the sugar as temporary antidepressant. But also need some sort of small movement. Like smashing butter, cracking eggs, measuring vanilla, mixing it all together. Watching the separate parts form a whole. Liquid acting like glue. Bringing it all together.  

Movement grows a young child’s brain. Neurons reaching out into strings of pathways. Maybe movement can grow my brain back? My stuck, middle-aged, traumatized brain. Showing it a path out of this muck. By molding ingredients together. Making sticky cookie dough. Mending what is broken.

Healing Practice: Collecting Ideas

Buy a pack of recipe cards. Or note cards. Any size.

Write down one idea for healthy movement or action per card, thoughts nudging you in some way.

One card may say, “jump rope. Another may say, “go dig in the dirt,” or “remember to sketch the big oak tree in the park,” or “paint the office wall marine blue.” Collect these ideas for times when you want to run away from the broken pain playing havoc in your soul.

When next you want to escape, take a deep breath instead. Let it out slowly while you pick out a card. And then try it. Just try it. For five minutes. Maybe longer. Give yourself permission to only make the dough but not bake the bread. Or dig a hole without planting something in it. The point is to move just a little bit toward healing. Toward reconstructing our broken vessels.

Prayer

Send me ideas, God. For healing me. For healing those I love. For my brokenness to slowly fill in with life again. Amen.

© Jennifer Ohman-RodriguezJennifer Ohman-Rodriguez and Jenniferohmanrodriguez.com, 2021. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Jennifer Ohman-Rodriguez and Jenniferohmanrodriguez.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Image by SEBASTIEN MARTY from Pixabay