spirituality – Jennifer Ohman-Rodriguez

“For fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men.”

Matthew 28: 4 NRSV

MEDITATION

Mary Magdalene and Mary go to the tomb. They go on Sunday at dawn. Immediately, the earth shakes. An angel appears whose “appearance is like lightning.” (28:3)

Guards there, on the job. Ordered to keep watch. Commanded to commit atrocities. Feeling stuck in a daily nightmare. With no way out, except death. Theirs and their loved ones. Called moral injury now. No way to stop it. Culture and systems stronger than individuals. These men are merely human.

Guards succumb to ancient instinct this famous morning. In fear, they shake like wild animals. Falling dead like possums. While the women run with fear and great joy. Grounded in something greater than themselves.

PRACTICE: GROUNDING

Stand or sit. If possible place your feet on the earth. Or close to earth through the floor. You may also use hands for this action.

Feel your heels on the earth. Feel the pads of your feet on the earth. Feel your big toes on the earth. Feel your pinky toes on the earth. Feel all your toes on the earth. Feel your whole foot, both feet on the earth.

Now breathe up through the earth into your heels. Breathe up through the earth into the pads of your feet. Breathe up through the earth into your toes, one by one. Breathe up through the earth into your whole foot. First left, then right. Now both.

Breathe. Begin your dawn from here. Grounded.

PRAYER

God of all people and all living things, ground us in your creation. Ground us in your love. Regardless of our actions. Regardless of our past. Regardless of what we have done right or wrong. Regardless of when we were stuck. Regardless, love us. Then. Now. Forever. Amen.

Image by İ. A. from Pixabay

Healing, mine, and my sons, occupies my thoughts most days. What we need. Which modalities works best. Finding new or additional healing ways. Reading another book on trauma recovery or Lyme Disease. Going to therapy. Doing the work–both at home and in the therapy office. Paying the bills.

But I tire of this work being the focus of our family’s life both individually and collectively. As if healing is the only thing that binds us together. I yearn to focus on living. Or what I think living is. Healing seems like the past, living more like the now and future. Yes, we all need to do more healing. I have written elsewhere that the world and its people keep hurting and therefore healing is ongoing. Yet I seem to seek something more, not sure what though. Just know I’ve spent eight years focused on healing first. And I wonder if my focus is sustainable over time.

Yet as I think about it, I am not ready to step away from healing’s many ways. And my unreadiness is not about a lack of courage or living. It is about who I have discovered I am these past eight years. And who I am is someone who in my sensitivity to the world needs places, spaces, and people to work through how life impacts me. I also want to continue peeling away the layers of pain stacked up within me. The ones masquerading as personality and temperament and dictating who am I.

In healing, I find myself in new and fascinating ways. And these incremental discoveries bring me joy! So, what I am really discovering is that healing is life’s nourishment not just its balm. An ongoing focus reminding me of the sentence I composed in magnetic words soon after Tony died. The one staring at us from its place on the refrigerator.

“You can do this life well.”

years later adding a few more words:

“You can do this life well only in ongoing healing.”

Living, for me, is doing this life well through healing.

Image by Tiyo Prasetyo from Pixabay

Tag: spirituality

FEAR

Healing as Living