22 Dec

What’s New with Me

Posted by Jennifer Clark Tinker in Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , .

So much has happened in my life since I was really active here on the blog. I haven’t written a lot about my second child, but I was just re-reading some of my old posts about my struggles with infertility, and it’s worth mentioning that I have two beautiful children now. They are ages 7 and 21. I often joke that it’s natural child spacing at its quirkiest–and best. They are both precious people and I’m so glad I get to be their mom.

In other news, we had a big move earlier this year. We moved from a small town (population 250) in a rural part of Texas to a much bigger small town in the outer suburbs of San Antonio. It’s funny because I run into people who are from major cities and they think of our current suburb as a “small town,” but having come here from a tiny town, I look at our bustling suburb with wide eyes and think, “We’re in the city now!”

Suburban life is a sweet spot for me. I grew up in a suburb of Columbus, Ohio. And I loved having wide open countryside nearby while also not being far at all from the really big city. And of all the cities in Texas, San Antonio is my favorite. So, as far as I’m concerned, we could retire in this big small town we’re in right now and I’d be delighted.

Our move was prompted by my husband, David’s recent change of jobs. He is now pastoring a church out in the country near this town we call home. The setting of the church is ideal because Dave gets to pastor a rural congregation–which he is so well suited for, and we get to live in the suburbs which works well for the kids and me.

Our new church is a delightful community of people. They have welcomed all of us with such warmth. It’s been really good for my soul to be among them. I feel like I get to be more myself at this church than I have felt I could be in many previous churches.

This move in general has been really good for me. I even found a job that I love. I’m working part time at an art store that doubles as a walk-in art studio. So much of my experience in making art has come in so useful in my new role there. I’ve only been there three months, but I already feel like I’m part of really good team of co-workers and I love having so many opportunities to share the joy of creating with our customers.

I’m still toying with the idea of going back to school. But given the number of times I’ve made announcements on the blog about what I might be doing in that regard, I’m loath to update y’all on that until I actually have something concrete to report.

So that’s all the news for now.

God be with you all this Christmas and may you be blessed in the new year!

28 Apr

Creating Words

Posted by Jennifer Clark Tinker in Uncategorized.

I’ve been getting up early in the morning to write. And I like it.

This is big. Really big. I’ve been a nite owl–thought to be incurable–for nearly all my life.

I never knew I could be the kind of person to enjoy mornings so much, but I do. I love the morning now. I love being awake before everyone else and doing my own thing for a spell.

More specifically, I like the feeling of purpose that getting up to write gives me. I have so many words–oh so many–and I want them live somewhere. So getting up to write gives me that sense of honoring myself by giving my words a place to exist, to be free, to have their day in the sun. Well, not literally in the sun because the sun isn’t out yet. It’s just an expression, you know?

I’m working to add other times during my day to write too because, like I say–oh so many words. I have stories and prose and poems and songs that all clamor to emerge to the light, and I’m committed to giving them each their day.

I don’t know if I could enumerate all the works I have considered writing. Even those I have determined I will certainly write is a vast number. Oh so many words, and oh so many works.

There’s a hymn called, “How Great Thou Art,” that has a line that says, “When I in awesome wonder, consider all the works thy hand hath made…” (emphasis mine). And in the hymnal I grew up using, there was an asterisk by “works,” that led to a note, saying, “or worlds.”

I’ve always had a little fascination with this, but never researched it. Somehow I’ve just always intuited that it makes sense that these could be interchangeable because a big part of God’s work is that of creating worlds. Noteworthy too is that God used words to speak worlds into existence.

I told someone on a recent evening that I was getting up early the next morning. They asked me whether I had to work. Without stopping to explain that I would be writing and I was between paid gigs, I simply said, “yes.” It felt good to recognize my writing as work. I am, after all, creating worlds with my words.

21 Mar

It’s Good to Get Outside

Posted by Jennifer Clark Tinker in Inspiration. Tagged: , , , .

I composed this song with my toddler, James, 23 months, on a little jaunt outside the house. It’s a simple ditty about a simple idea: “It’s Good to Get Outside in Spring.” I think, in these strange times, the simple things are worth singing about. And even as we practice “social distancing,” there’s nothing bad, but a lot good about getting outside, breathing fresh air, and communing with nature.

Your turn: what’s something simple yet good in your life right now? Please share with us in the comments below.

20 Mar

Creativity Beckons

Posted by Jennifer Clark Tinker in Inspiration. Tagged: , , , , , , .

Greetings, Dear Reader,

It has been literally years since I last wrote here and I’m feeling drawn back to this space. Back to writing. Back to my creative self.

Some things have changed and some have stayed the same. It would be difficult to summarize all that has happened with me, my life, my family, and…the world since I last wrote. So I won’t try to sum up all the things in their entirety in one neat little blog post.

I will tell you this: my mental health is better than ever, I have had some interesting starts and stops in my vocational journey as a minister and theologian, and I finally had that baby I had been praying for (he’ll be two years old next month). It’s quite likely that more about these matters will come out on the blog sooner or later. Time will tell.

And the world…well, I won’t elaborate on what you what you already know. These are strange times we are living in with a pandemic afoot.

What I do want to say here and now is that this is the fullness of time for my creativity. I want to go on record about this–just as I did in the beginning with my writing. I’m claiming this as my call.

I’ve been feeling the call for a while now to get back to the blog. And to get back to writing in general.

I’ve missed my creativity as I have felt somehow out of touch with it for some time now.

But especially as the world feels as if it has entered The Twilight Zone, my creativity is beckoning like never before. A writer has to write. I have to write. And I need to be creating to make sense of my experience and maybe…maybe to inspire a few people along the way too.

It’s good to be back to the blog and to respond to this prompting I feel as creativity beckons.

 

Your Turn: What’s calling to you in these strange times?

11 May

I Am A Lover

Posted by Jennifer Clark Tinker in Community. Tagged: , , , .

IAmALover

I am a lover.
This is who I am at my core.

My love is wide, so wide.
I care deeply even for people I’ve never met in person, maybe never will.

My heart is open, gaping open.
You can walk right into it.
Anyone could, but here you are.

You could work your way from my heart to my head and I wouldn’t be able to quit caring about you.
Not ever.

You would be a part of me.

There are so many of y’all here now.
Too many to count.
And I don’t know how y’all keep getting in.

Because even though my heart is open,
Sometimes my arms are closed,
Sometimes my eyes are closed,
Sometimes my ears are closed.

Sometimes I want to tune you out a while,
Turn off the steady flow of pilgrims to my heartland.

Sometimes it feels like I’ve had enough of y’all.
I’ve loved enough of y’all for one lifetime.

I am a lover, but how can I love well when more and more of you keep coming?

I still mourn those I have loved and lost, you know?
Part of my heart, part of me died when they departed.

And my heart,
Oh it has been hurt by some I have let in,
Some I have loved.
That ache interferes with my loving–makes it hard for my heart to go on.

My heart isn’t what it once was.
But still my heart is open, so wide open.

And I want to let you in.
I have let you in.
Because I am a lover.

« Older Entries