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Faith, Grief, Healing, Hope, Trauma

Thoughts on Grief, Compassion, & Joy

Jennifer Ohman-Rodriguez

From my journal, January 20, 2021

I think Jesus fished for people in need of compassion. Maybe he saw the disciples lacking in it. Heard this void in their words and actions. Knowing God wanted more for them.

Read an article by Nicholas Wolterstorff in The Christian Century magazine a couple of years ago, the January 16, 2019 edition. Struck once again how Christian doctrine often works against us in relationship to one another. Doctrine becoming a shield. Creating a wall of souls. Not allowing the other, the one holding up the shield, to step beyond entering into our pain. Embodying our experience. Creating compassion for and with us.

Wolterstorff was called heretical after writing honestly about suddenly losing his beloved son, Eric. A reviewer of Wolterstorff’s book, Lament for a Son , guarded something, maybe the vestiges of their own unresolved trauma with their words. Instead becoming a humanly righteous defender of the faith (as the reviewer saw it). But Wolterstorff needed a defender of his heart. From others. Especially Christians. I quote this man who endured profound loss here.

“I am not angry [at God] but baffled and hurt. My wound is an unanswered question. The wounds of all humanity are an unanswered question.” *

As Christians, we do not hold a doctrine of grief. Of how we believe, even trust, and then act upon our belief in times of grief. On how to love others through the most profoundly painful times in life. Perhaps we need such doctrines. Doctrines of grief, sorrow, trauma, anguish. Small frameworks reminding us of our human responsibility to ourselves and to one another. Not just to God in abstraction. In human configuration. But to the holy within us or in front of us who ask merely for a small bit of compassion. Love. Understanding. Claiming there is nothing heretical about any form of human love including grief for the loss of what we love. Loved. Of a beloved.

My mind winds through these thoughts on grief and compassion leading me to joy. Not that joy should be the end result of grief. Perhaps only because I want as a giver of compassion to hold joy for those who hurt until they may reclaim it for themselves. Some claiming it for the first time.

Joy often brings me to the verse from Psalm 30–words I discovered as a teenager full of feelings, hormones, insecurities, and fears.

“…Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning.” Psalm 30:5 NRSV

I hope that the psalmist knows something I do not. Not that sorrow is an active ingredient of joy. Necessary to make joy rise. But that all feelings and especially intense feelings have an active lifespan which does not last in intensity and duration. Acute only for a period of time-an expanse we cannot predict yet must travel through. The longing never fully dissipating. Yet with the increase of self-compassion and compassion freely given by others, the longing has a sense of healing and a willingness to embrace other feelings, the ones supporting new life in the after time of sorrow.

Perhaps joy doesn’t come the morning after waking on and off, weeping. Or even the next. Or the next. Perhaps joy comes in small glimmering ways. Like the fall afternoon light dancing on rippling water. The steadiness in night’s sky of a shining planet. A dewy bud opening at dawn. The busy butterfly on summer’s flower. A moment of silence shared with an understanding other. Slight moments reflected off bits and pieces of the world, the natural world and sometimes even its humans. Momentary brightness showing us, reminding us of something other than sorrow. Which feels good enough. Better than what was. A particle of joy amidst what we cannot change.

A prayer.

God of all emotions, We wait for joy found in small gestures of human compassion and glimmers of life within our view or on their way. Weaving in and out of obstacles, sadness, shock. We wait while you hold hope for us in its coming. Slowly, through minutes, hours, days, months, years. Waiting. You in joy. You in sorrow. Amen.

* Lament for a Son by Nicholas Wolterstorff.

Christmas, Hope, worship

A Sermon for Christmas Eve

Jennifer Ohman-Rodriguez

Luke 2:1-14 [15-20]

On Sunday, Advent III, I asked the congregation what they longed for. And the answers shared were individual yet also universal. The kind we all have. The kind we all carry on our hearts such as peace, healing, and acceptance.

Then in the days leading up to Sunday, Advent IV and on Advent IV (the last Sunday in Advent), something happened around here. On Wednesday during our free community meal, one of our regular friends said to me “Pastor, I brought my friend tonight. I told him that it is peaceful here.”

Someone’s longing for peace was and is answered here in this place. We can treasure these words in our hearts.

On Thursday, one of our Wednesday night volunteers said to “Pastor, thank you for allowing me to volunteer here even though I am not a member and do not attend worship.”

Someone’s longing for acceptance was and is answered here in this place. We can treasure these words in our hearts.

On Sunday night, another person who regularly eats with us here said to me and Pastor Josh of the Northern Illinois Synod office, “I fell on hard times and this place has helped me get back on my feet. Thank you.”

Someone’s longing for healing was and is answered here in this place. We can treasure these words in our hearts.

On that same night, on Sunday, Advent IV, I sat outside in my car looking through the Fellowship Hall windows. Watching people eat together, find warm clothes, connect with others, give and receive support. Within our walls, finding peace, acceptance, and healing. And I just cried at the beauty of it all. Cried like the shepherds must have done when witnessing what the world could be and just because a baby had been born to bring the good news to the poor. Good news of great joy.

I also cried, (sobbed really) because of the fragility of it all. Knowing the scene that I witnessed can fall apart so easily.

Tonight, is the night each year we dare to hope that our universal longings for peace, healing, and acceptance for all people in our world are or at least can be fulfilled. And like other universal longings, I think we want them to be fulfilled simply. Not in easy answers per se. But perhaps as answers staring us right in the face.

We long for simplicity and especially this night when we hear once again the story of the birth of yet another poor child, this one in a makeshift birthing center. So much already not in his favor. Yet somehow in his new life we hear a message that all can be well. That the God we hope for, long for is truly among us. Simply among us, incarnate in a baby.

Simplicity answering our longings. Opening up like the sky seems to do on this night for a group of lowly shepherds keeping watch by night. Watching not for peace on earth, but for predatory animals lurking in the shadows. Waiting to take their prey.

But instead of predators, the heavens erupt in celestial beings, and song, and joy. Because the longings of the poor have been seen by God. And God is sending hope, simple hope in human form. So human, Jesus-Emmanual-God-with-Us does not appear fully grown but as a baby. A newborn baby.

Perhaps all these things—a baby born in the night, shepherds feeling seen and heard by night’s sky—is why the hymn, Silent Night, has become an enduring part of our Christmas season each year. Why we always sing it. Why we know its words. Why it speaks to our hearts in universal longing. That in night’s silence, we see the holy. In night’s calm, we find hope in all being well at least for a time. In night’s star and moonlight, we sense peace, healing, and acceptance in the miracle of a baby whose future will be tenuous. Yet brims with the possibilities of a new beginning, a new earth, and a new time for all people.

Peace, healing, and acceptance fulfilled through the unexpected yet ordinary. The Good News simple. It’s application, it’s living, not. Amen. 

The grace of God has appeared in a baby. In tiny human form. Vulnerable. Needy. Alive. Let us care for this grace with love, tenderness, and compassion. Amen. 

Image by Svetlana from Pixabay

Baptism, Death, Faith, Grief

Creation Clothing

Jennifer Ohman-Rodriguez

With each funeral or memorial service, I preside over as an ordained pastor, I speak about our role as the Church (the whole Body of Christ throughout the world). In this rite we give the recently deceased, the loved one, back to God having completed their earthly baptism. No longer needing to be clothed in the one for whom humans could not obliterate. The funeral, while also for the bereaved, is at its core a rite of the Church. And not only or merely the congregation’s or the gathered. But a rite of all of us, together as the Church throughout the world. Giving the recently deceased back to God going on around the world in all times and in all places. Praying without ceasing. As one immense Body of Christ.

How this giving back to God plays out after death, none of us fully know. The closest I get is when witnessing the transition between this life and death (or the next life). What I see when death is expected, is that there is a rhythm in this shift, one of slow peace. Creating an in between time (a space between full life and full death). And this space wears its own clothing. Even in the midst of tears, beeping machines, sterile walls, and suspended time, this space is cloaked in garments of so many human feelings as well as peace. I suspect this peace continues after death as well. I know the human feelings do here on earth.

I’d also like to believe, hope, and pray that in sudden, unpredicted death, there is also this peace. Even if the transition time is quick. Because it seems to me as a regular observer of the in-between, that this transition is part of the process. And as a sudden death griever my thinking here gives me comfort.

The other day I heard a story about someone who was baptized four times. Four times! As if the first one wasn’t good enough. But for whom? Not God so that leaves three sets of humans playing god. Reminding me of Job’s three famous friends–Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophar. The talkers who suck the air out of the ash pit.

Once is all it takes to be given life in Christ on this earth. This life created out of God (Word) and the earthly element of water (unless there is no water and then another earthly element is used like dust or sand.). Something of the earth though as a reminder of both John the Baptist’s actions and words* and also that when God created the universe, God created human beings (our ancestors!) out of an earthly element, dust. Now in baptism, the water with the Word creates new clothing for us with the energy of the Holy Spirit. Creation happening again and again right in front of our eyes. And we are wrapped in Christ, Christ’s teachings, Christ’s healing, Christ’s ways. Christ in action on earth through us. Christ always.

Yet in wearing Christ, we bear a responsibility: To speak and act into what is not Christ while we are here. On earth. And there is a lot that is not Christ in this world that looks like not compassion. Not love. Not right relations with God and others or the earth. Not about the flourishing of all of creation, just a bit of it.

So, let us pray for our earthly Baptism. For feeling God’s lovingness enfolding us. Holding us so that we, each as a tiny bit of the Body of Christ, can be Christ in this imperfect world. An agent of God’s change like Jesus was and is and is to come. In this prayer, asking for what has been allowed to perpetuate that is not God and does not wear God’s garments to be diminished, eradicated. Forever.

God of each new day of your ongoing creation, bring us together, clothed in the saving grace of Jesus. Deliver this holy clothing on the Holy Spirit’s wind, wrapping us as on in you and with you. Reveal to us how to be your people without gender-based violence. Undo in us what humans have created in our name and not yours. Amen.

* “I baptize you with water for repentance, but the one who is coming after me is more powerful than I, and I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. (Matthew 3:11, NRSVUE)

Prayer from “Being Clothed With Christ: A meditation on Ending Gender-based Violence” by Jennifer Ohman-Rodriguez in Forgive Us and Transform Us for the Life of the World. ELCA, 2025. 57

IMAGES: Adult Baptism: Image by Ahstubbs from Pixabay. Infant Baptism: Image by Leonardo Espina from Pixabay. Font: Image by WikimediaImages from Pixabay

Uncategorized

Resource Release Announcement!

Jennifer Ohman-Rodriguez

I am excited to be one of the writers for “Forgive Us and Transform Us for the Life of the World,” a new resource from the ELCA. This resource contains stories, poetry, art, and explanations created by ELCA members to help people dig into what sexism and patriarchy are and how people experience them. “Forgive Us and Transform Us for the Life of the World” is free and can be accessed here.