Jennifer Ohman-Rodriguez's Blog, page 6
May 25, 2022
Prayer is Only the Beginning
Pray for compassion, for just mercy, for our culture prone to carry unhealed pain buried within its layers of lies and controversy until it explodes into others–so often and again our innocents. Then get off your knees advocating with every word, deed, action, courageous works of self-healing, and posture for God’s love, compassion, and justice to rule our world. Not those humans whose pain permeates their stolen power. Prayer is like empathy, only the beginning. The first step. Stagnant unless ...
May 17, 2022
HEART’S BEAT
Infused in the words we speak, imbued in the words we write, dripping in the words we think is something pulsating with direction and meaning. Writers call this something many names, none right or wrong. Just ways of describing our unique urge to use words when making sense of self, other, world, and God.
Writer Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew calls this something, “heartbeat.” Without a heartbeat, without this “internal engine” moving our words in all forms–spoken, written, and thought–into truth,...
April 20, 2022
April Newsletter, 2022
CURRENT REALITYIt’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 a...
April 12, 2022
Easter Early in Grief
Every Lent a simple wreath hangs on our door. It’s a peace sign woven from vines by a third world woman. Someone trying to better her life and therefore the lives of her family by fingers practicing hope.
This sign also hung on our door from the first August morning of our grief. I took down our summer garland of blue and yellow flowers and hung this one up instead. Attempting to mark us as a home experiencing a different time than everyone else’s. Wanting to wrap the wreath in black ribb...
March 31, 2022
Spread the News
Spiritual writer and griever, Paul D’Arcy*, says of A Time to Mourn & A Time to Dance…
“[This] work is a profound and needed teaching about trauma recovery and perseverance, masterfully told.”
Here are 2 things you can do help people who need this book find this book:
Write a review of my book on Amazon and Goodreads: Just a couple of sentences. The more reviews, the more readers find my work. ...March 24, 2022
Tomorrow’s Dawn
Five and a half years ago I was closing the door of my late husband’s mental health practice for the last time. Boxes of client files went into clinical professional storage. Furniture came home, was sold, or moved to my older son’s first apartment. Various mementos found their way to family members. Tony’s extensive professional library was given to a young colleague, a sexual abuse crisis center, the library, or was toted home in white, file boxes.
Other boxes came home as well. Full of inf...
March 17, 2022
March Newsletter, 2022
Lenten Litany
During this season of Lent let us pray,
Creating God, produce peace within each of us. Ask our inner peace to radiate out into the world.
Saving Jesus, provide lasting healing within each of us. Lead our healing into peace.
Advocating Spirit, reveal wounds within each of us needing mending. Accompany us toward healing ways.
Saving Jesus, provide lasting healing within each of us. Lead our healing into peace.
Creating God, produce peace within each of us. Ask our inner peace to rad...
February 25, 2022
Prayers Supporting Trauma Recovery
These prayers were written for and first offered to God on February 21, 2022 at the Montreat Conference Center during the symposium, Poems for a Dangerous Time. I presented a workshop entitled Psalms in Despair: Reflection, Practice, & Prayers During Trauma Recovery. We began the workshop with these prayers.
Let us pray,
Healer of our known and unknown wounds, we acknowledge our desire for this session, this space, this time together to be physically and emotionally safe for all peopl...
February 17, 2022
February Newsletter 2022
WAITINGThis month finds me busy doing book interviews, planning for upcoming in-person events, and writing a couple of articles. But I am also listening to the stirrings of Spirit. Wondering when and where my first call in ordained ministry will be. In other words, I am waiting.
Waiting can be frustrating. I have days in which I am anxious about the future and angry at the process. These times remind me of when I waited for grief to lift just a bit so I could feel like myself again. ...
January 31, 2022
My Children Leave Me in January
Snow and IceMy children leave me in January when winter sky covers the fields. Dropped temperatures bundle us into sluggish selves. Frosted windows watch as the world whispers in thickened silence.
My children leave me in January never following the predetermined course of others their age. Not August or September when many return to school. While recent graduates load trailers traveling toward new adventures. And gap year’s youth stuff large backpacks with necessities for discovering t...
