“…What you sow does not come to life unless it dies.” *
Reflection
Fallow field. Ground still, frozen. Plowed and harrowed for future days. Covered in frost or snow. Waiting for sowing, tending, harvesting.
Dormant, but only to the unobservant. Moisture seeping, trickling down. Absorbed through minute openings in hardened ground. Causing movement beneath. Winter’s soil preparing, ripening. For springtime’s burst. Energy creating improvisations, mistakes, hidden gems, harvest, and a few weeds.
In the beginning, healing is like standing on dormant ground. Cold seeping up through soles. Life numb, standing still. Feeling like a small speck in life’s vastness. Waiting to trust the un-death of dormancy.
Healing Practice: Unseen Seeds of Hope
Keep a list today. On a small piece of paper. One you can fold up. Fit in your pocket. Carry with you for writing on. Perhaps with a stubby pencil recording the moments, even fleeting ones, in which hope settles on your heart for a second as a realization, a discovery, or an opening into what’s possible. Name these moments of unexpected joy, mercy, compassion. Gathered for sowing in future’s field.
Prayer
God, witness in me this day what I cannot see. Witness the tiny seeds of healing and hope I sow in my own fallowness. Witness in me my life-force still living. Witness in me my surprise in discovering unexpected joys. Receive my thanks for what I do not know will bless me this day and tomorrow and in my own healing. Amen.
As with all liturgies, this confession and litany has a life of its own. The words printed here will shift and changevoicing the needs of each context.If you use this confession and 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 Confession and Litany today is based on a litany and confession written by Jennifer Ohman-Rodriguez.”
Please also let me know you are using it. Thank you.
The assembly prays using these or similar words.
We, white bodied, white raised, and whiteness perpetuating women confess to God, ourselves, and to all others.
We confess we have social privileges and advantages other women do not have.
We confess we ignore other women do not have what we have.
We confess we take for granted the gifts of these advantages.
We confess we unconsciously and consciously think we deserve what we have over what other women do not have.
We confess we buy into the view that what we have is scarce and cannot feed all women.
We confess we hoard life’s bounty and in doing so allow others to suffer.
We confess there is so much we do not know and do not see.
We confess all that we leave undone each day for the unity of all human beings.
We confess we partake in communal sins of omission.
We confess to you, God ,and to all women and in doing so ask to be released from these evils imploding within us and out into the world so that we take only what we need. Making sure all are fed. Joining in the work of bringing your love-in-action into reality for all women.
We confess.
We, white bodied, white raised, and whiteness perpetuating women lament to God.
We cry out and in doing so our tears follow the tears of women kept down, aside, and under in an ongoing parade of lament before God.
We wail and in doing so tell the world we create ourselves and all others in God’s image. Not in man’s. Not others’ gender norms. Not from others’ perceptions of beauty. Not in human-made values of class structure. Not in empire’s power. Not in colonialism’s tyranny. Not in racism, genderism, or faith-ism. We lament, cry, and wail and in doing so imagine who we can be and are not yet.
We lament and in doing so ask for courage and tenacity in bringing your kingdom to earth. We feel weak in the face of this work. We lament this untruth of our weakness allowing this lie to dissipate and disappear into the atmosphere. We seek then through you O, God, to manifest your goodness and love which can only be fully revealed when all of creation and all of creation’s people are seen, heard, valued, and healed.
We lament.
We, white bodied, white raised, and whiteness perpetuating women feel.
We feel the pings, pinches, and punches of our battered bodies.
We feel the words we have not been allowed to say screaming from our souls out into the world.
We feel compassion for ourselves and for what we have not been allowed to reveal.
We feel and embrace the heroic and lifesaving ways of our bodies.
We feel what we know, do not know, do not want to know.
We feel, holding hope for all women to heal.
We feel understanding all bodies are one. One in God.
We feel.
We, white bodied, white raised, and whiteness perpetuating women begin and continue healing.
We heal, transforming our pain, the pain perpetuating damage onto other women, into goodness.
We heal as a continuation of life itself.
We heal, health giving new birth to new life.
We heal, tending all new life as if raising our own beloved children.
We heal, each one of us healing so that healing becomes greater than hurting.
We heal, healing becoming a way of life, one eradicating the wounding of hiding, avoiding, and blinding the hurt of hurting.
We heal.
We, white bodied, white raised, and whiteness perpetuating women act.
We act by refusing to accept the story told to us from birth that we are somehow different and better than other women.
We act in ways of public compassion first feeling the sorrows and joys of all women everywhere while no longer remaining silent or still.
We act, learning day by day how to bring God’s kingdom to earth.
We act, each of us becoming justice in words, deeds, marches, votes, public service, and answering yes to where we are called to serve.
We act in prayer. Never stopping. Never ceasing. Always praying. Until all women are whole. All girls are never torn apart.
We act as love. Building love out of healing, compassion, respect, and willingness.
Together, we white bodied, white raised, and whiteness perpetuating women lift up these prayers to you O, God. Trusting in your infinite mercy, grace, and spirit-filled direction. Breathing in your transformative power. Allowing its infusion to build our courage for the work to be done in us, among us, and around us. Amen.
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.
Holidays require a lot of time, preparation, and work. A focus on things that often don’t seem to matter especially when life is full of loss, sorrow, and pain. Whether you are in grief healing or trauma healing or both, our extended holiday season from Thanksgiving through New Year’s Day can feel relentless. Accompanied by either a cacophony of increased social activity, gift expectations, feast preparations, religious services, family gatherings, scheduling complications, and hectic travel experiences or the agitated silence of isolation and anxiety. Either way, this time requires increased amounts of energy directed toward avoiding emotional triggers, traps, and anniversary issues. Output so often wasted because we cannot continue suppressing the emotional flooding or hijacking regardless of our hypervigilant efforts.
So, what if? What if instead of fastening our seat belts, praying to make it through, and dreaming of the time when this extended performance ends we did something different? What if we embraced these weeks as a time for having difficult yet necessary conversations with ourselves and our loved ones? The conversations which more often than not just simmer below the festive surface. Leaking out regardless. Creating outbreaks of varying levels during a time when we all are supposed to look like one big happy family and community.
What if this dreaded time was an opportunity to say what needs to be said? Speaking into our fears of this time of gathering and reliving what changed our lives without our permission. Emotions named and expressed minimizing the accrual of resentments and anger that we usually either numb with alcohol, food, or drugs or explode out into those gathered.
What if the holidays became more a time of shared reflections of what we’ve healed in the past year, the work we still want to do, and the compassion we are able to give ourselves and each other?
What if these holy and sacred shared revelations became as important as pumpkin pie, beautifully decorated holiday cookies, and holiday sweaters?
What if we looked forward to these yearly conversations, held over a period of six or so weeks? That somehow these conversations felt more needed and less obligatory than the annual fest of too much food and drink, concerts, parties, carols, and movies? Because we came to realize that being fulfilled by our relational transparency with ourselves and others led to deeper connections with the people we both love and need, including ourselves?
What if Emmanuel, God with us, included or even was these connections we made each year with one another? Making the real gift of this season of piled up holidays, each with their own set of implied expectations, an ongoing act of fostering and strengthening human relationships? What if?
Blessings on your holy connections this holiday season. ~Jennifer
“I’m not getting a tree,” I announce in early December.
“What? We always have a tree,” Ricky counters voice climbing into combat. Cave into his insistence.
Drive south, to the edge of Iowa City. Snow storm brewing across grey streaked sky. Sons grumble as they pick out and cut down tree. Farmer saws end off making rough places plain. His sons tie tree to roof of our car. Drive back home. Snow whirling around us. Beautiful. Scary.
Decorate tree. After Epiphany, thought of taking tree down makes head swim. Sends me back to bed. Remember year before. Ricky, in pain from losing his dog, his dear friend to the ravages of suicide, and his mind to a medical mystery screamed at us for trying to take down the Christmas tree. All Tony and I could do was soothe our beloved son. Once again feeling helpless in the face of this unknown something eating him away. Promised again and again we would keep the tree up forever. While he sat on the sofa staring at shedding, browning branches and listening to the Charlie Brown Christmas CD until Spring. When there was now no doubt that the tree needed to leave.
This year, in a trance, put away ornaments. Strip off lights. Ask sons to haul tree outside to curb. Vacuum up mess. Sit on same sofa gazing at empty spot left by tree, by Tony.
WHAT I AM READING
A good read in which religious historian and author Karen Armstrong brings together the thinking and practice of many of the world’s religions on growing compassion for self and one another.
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.
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.
Jennifer Ohman-Rodriguez 