Jennifer Ohman-Rodriguez's Blog, page 4

Morning’s Rise

Dark meets light as first thin layer of dawn emerges from behind distant darkened peaks. A horizontal sliver of glowing brightness slowly claiming more of night’s sky with morning’s rise. Revealing, minute after minute, a rounded, pulsating ball of glare. Forcing me to look away.

For many years I’ve been watching these mountains. In predawn peace they appear grey black against a sky of the same color. By mid-morning the mountains have turned bright brown. Afternoon finds them dressed in l...

Easter Grief

Each year during Holy Week and into Easter, I am reminded of how thin this time is. How tears form and fall after many months of dry eyes. How hearts fill with sadnesses assumed transformed into something resembling new life.

My therapist says these times are dips into small pockets of what once was. Not places demanding we stay or get stuck in. Just revisit. For a few hours or days. Until this small opening reseals and the present now invites us back in. Leaving us with another memory....

Mercy

LAMENT

Lord, hear my prayer,
    listen to my cry for mercy;
in your faithfulness and righteousness
    come to my relief.
Do not bring your servant into judgment,
    for no one living is righteous before you.
The enemy pursues me,
    he crushes me to the ground;
he makes me dwell in the darkness
    like those long dead…

I shall be like those who go down to the pit…

Psalm 143: 1-3, 7 NRSV

MEDITATION

The afterlife of traumatic experience wants us to feel confused, shamed, and...

NEWSLETTER, FEBRUARY 2023

The Big News

Yep, that’s right. The day is finally approaching in which I will be ordained in Word & Sacrament in the ELCA! The story leading up to this day is long, most of my life really. So after decades of waiting on myself and the church, here I am saying “yes”!

Attend Ordination Online

You are welcome to attend my ordination online on the YouTube Channel, “GatheredByGrace.”

Called to a Congregation

The good people of St. John’s Lutheran Church in Rock Island, Illinois...

Dormant

“…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,...

White Women’s Confession and Litany

As with all liturgies, this confession and litany has a life of its own. The words printed here will shift and change voicing 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 ...

NEWSLETTER, JANUARY 2023

GOOD NEWS!

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 crack...

What Joy! Today Only (December 10)!

Buy my book today only (December 10) at 50% off. On days 11 & 12, my book it will be 20% off. Oh, and orders over 75 receive free shipping! ORDER HERE.

Thank you! And blessings on these precsious days of preparation. Jennifer

Newsletter December, 2022

HEALING & THE HOLIDAYS

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 comp...

NEWSLETTER November 2022

THIRD THANKSGIVING

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 hol...