Ja-lene Clark

I am a wife, mom, and nana living in the beautiful state of Oklahoma. On my website, I offer my musings on spirituality, creativity, writing, family, and food.

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Beyond Compromise

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A Musing on the Art of Collaboration

I’ve been thinking about compromise.

We are taught that compromise is the secret to getting along. Each person gives a little, each person sacrifices something, and somewhere in the middle, we arrive at an agreement. But what if the middle isn’t where the magic lives? What if, in our eagerness to reach an agreement, we settle for something smaller than either of us imagined?

I’ve begun to think that true collaboration asks something entirely different of us. It asks us to listen—not simply to find the places where we agree, or to prepare a defense of what we believe, but to discover what might be possible because someone else sees the world differently.

An idea is offered. Another person turns it slightly, revealing something its creator hadn’t seen. A new possibility emerges. And suddenly, neither person is defending the idea they brought to the table. They are both reaching toward something neither could have created alone. And, magically, no one has to lose for something extraordinary to be born.

It can be difficult because it requires the courage to offer an idea without insisting that it remain untouched. It also requires the freedom to say, No, that doesn’t feel right. But what if we tried this?  With collaboration, the goal is not to win. Nor is it to meet halfway. The goal is to keep building until something emerges that surprises both collaborators.

Compromise finds the middle. Collaboration discovers what lies beyond it. Collective creativity can build new universes.

Isn’t that an extraordinary thought?

Are YOU Destined to Become a Visionary Writer?

Ja-lene Clark’s The Journey of the Visionary Writer: The Five Phases of Experiential Writing illuminates the path from idea to publication. Filled with brilliant insights and deeply personal stories, this book guides visionaries through the spiritual and emotional complexities of sharing their wisdom. Not a typical how-to, it’s a remarkably advanced, healing, and expansive journey.

Take the leap. Dare to share your wisdom. Purchase your copy today!

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Truth Belongs to the Reader

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Every now and then, something happens that quietly changes the way I see the world.

It isn’t usually a dramatic revelation or some earth-shattering event. More often, it’s an ordinary moment that suddenly causes a hundred unrelated pieces to fall into place. That happened to me this week while I was creating a birthday tribute for my Dad.

As I sorted through decades of photographs and home videos, I assumed the most meaningful moments would be the obvious ones—the birthdays, graduations, anniversaries, and holidays. After all, those are the moments we usually preserve because we think they’re the most important.

Instead, I found myself lingering over something entirely different. It was the photograph of my dad laughing without realizing someone had taken his picture. It was the way he instinctively reached for one of us. It was the look on his face while carrying a child on his shoulders. None of these moments would ever make the front page of a scrapbook, yet together they told me more about who my Dad is than any milestone ever could.

As I watched those memories unfold, I realized that I wasn’t simply editing a video. I was witnessing the story of a life, and that realization led me to a thought I haven’t been able to shake.

The best stories—the ones that stay with people—aren’t built from grand revelations. They’re built from honest moments that reveal a person’s character. Character is the vessel. Story is the journey. Truth is what each reader intuits and discovers for themselves.

The more I sat with those words, the more I realized they have very little to do with writing. They have everything to do with being human.

CHARACTER Is the Vessel

Whether we’re writing a novel, teaching a class, raising children, leading a business, or simply trying to live a meaningful life, it’s easy to become preoccupied with the message.

What do I want people to learn?

What point am I trying to make?

Am I even qualified to say this?

Those are reasonable questions, but lately I’ve begun to wonder if they’re the wrong ones. People certainly appreciate good ideas, but ideas alone rarely change anyone. What changes us are people. We remember the teacher who believed in us before we believed in ourselves. We remember the friend who quietly stayed when everyone else walked away. We remember the parent whose everyday actions consistently reflected kindness, patience, and love.

Character gives ideas a heartbeat. Without it, even the greatest philosophy remains an abstraction. With it, ordinary moments become unforgettable.

STORY Is the Journey

The older I become, the less interested I am in stories that tell me what to think.

The stories that have stayed with me invited me into another person’s life. They allowed me to celebrate, question, grieve, laugh, and wrestle alongside the characters. They didn’t rush to explain themselves because they trusted me to make the journey.

Perhaps that’s why we rarely remember every detail of a favorite novel or film years later. We remember how it changed us. We remember how it made us see ourselves differently.

Isn’t that true of life as well?

Years after someone is gone, we rarely remember every conversation. We remember how they made us feel. We remember how they lived. Their story continues long after the details have faded.

TRUTH Belongs to the Reader

This may be the realization that surprised me the most.

For a long time, I thought the responsibility of a writer was to communicate truth clearly enough that readers couldn’t possibly miss it. I’m not so sure anymore. Perhaps our responsibility is much simpler—and much more difficult. Perhaps our responsibility is simply to be authentic. Every reader approaches a story carrying a lifetime of experiences, disappointments, hopes, fears, joys, and unanswered questions. No two people will ever read the same book in exactly the same way because no two people have lived the same life.

The story remains the same. The readers do not.

One person may discover forgiveness where another discovers courage. One may find hope while another finally gives themselves permission to grieve. Neither response is wrong because story was never intended to dictate a conclusion. It was meant to create space for discovery.

The more I think about it, the more convinced I become that stories lose something precious the moment they begin telling readers what they must believe.

The stories that change us invite.

They don’t demand. They ask questions. They create space.

And in that space, readers often discover something no author could have placed there. The reader’s own truth.

 

The Greatest Gift a Story Can Give

When I finished my dad’s birthday tribute, I realized the video wasn’t really about birthdays. It wasn’t even about memories. It was about his character.

My dad has spent a lifetime teaching us, but not primarily through words. He has taught us through the way he lives—with kindness, generosity, acceptance, and love. Those lessons weren’t simply spoken; they have been woven into thousands of ordinary moments that, taken together, have become the story of his life…and ours.

Perhaps that’s why the stories we never forget aren’t the ones that explain everything. They’re the ones that awaken something within us. They remind us of who we are. They invite us to become a little more compassionate, a little more curious, and a little more fully ourselves. And perhaps that is why the best stories never truly end. Long after we’ve closed the book—or watched the final scene—we continue writing them into the narrative of our own lives.

Are YOU Destined to Become a Visionary Writer?

Ja-lene Clark’s The Journey of the Visionary Writer: The Five Phases of Experiential Writing illuminates the path from idea to publication. Filled with brilliant insights and deeply personal stories, this book guides visionaries through the spiritual and emotional complexities of sharing their wisdom. Not a typical how-to, it’s a remarkably advanced, healing, and expansive journey.

Take the leap. Dare to share your wisdom. Purchase your copy today!

Order at Amazon

The HOLLYWOOD Cure for Indifference

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The greatest danger isn’t the stranger; turns out it is my own perception.

In October of 2006, I met an author I had been working with in New York City. We planned to attend a workshop with a very special Irish teacher. Financially, funds were limited for both of us, so we chose frugal accommodations and split the cost of a room. Rebecca and I found a deal online for a room close to the event on the edge of Soho for only $100 a night. A bargain, huh? That rate was one we could afford!

We flew to New York—me from Tulsa and her from Santa Fe—and met at the airport so we could save more money by sharing a cab to our hotel. It was late in the evening when we checked in at our bargain hotel. After we got our keys, we were informed that the hotel had no elevator, so we had to schlep our luggage up three flights. Our room was modest and clean, with the smallest bathroom I have ever seen. But the room had an even more funky twist…it was an interior room with no windows! That was especially creepy. Rebecca called it our “tomb” rather than a room. We agreed we could deal with it because it wasn’t about the room—we were two women on an adventure in NYC!

The next morning, Rebecca and I walked to the workshop to check in. In the daylight, we realized just how close to the edge of the Bowery, or the edge of danger, we were. The map online made it look like we were in a safe place, but here, in the daylight, all we could see was a dirty street lined with filthy people in misery. We realized this was not a safe place for two non-citified women to be. We deliberately made no eye contact. Not looking was a challenge, but not judging the street people was even harder. I knew they all had a story, a reason they had ended up there, but I was afraid to engage a single one of them in chit-chat to discover why.

Thankfully, we arrived safely at the event and checked in early. I had spotted a Starbucks across the street from the workshop and talked Rebecca into going there with me. I certainly didn’t feel safe going alone. I was happy to have a comfortable place to enjoy a smoke with my strong coffee. (I did eventually quit smoking two years later.)

It was a sunny autumn Saturday morning in the big city! We sat outside and Rebecca tolerated my smoking by sitting downwind. The courtyard at Starbucks was full. The atmosphere was light. You could hear the hum of the city, along with people engaged in conversation in the courtyard. Lovely!

Suddenly, the collective mood darkened when one particular man entered the courtyard. He looked disheveled in his army jacket and dirty pants. A little white poodle was so alarmed by this man’s presence that he barked nonstop while pulling on the leash held by an obviously startled woman. The disheveled man pulled a silver flask out of his coat pocket and took a big swig. Wow, I thought…it wasn’t even nine a.m. yet.

He screamed at the woman with the dog. “What are YOU looking at?” The woman cowered and turned her eyes away from him. He went from table to table yelling and harassing people. Everyone was frozen with fear. No one spoke to him. I wondered whether someone from Starbucks would come to our rescue or whether a police officer would hear the ruckus and save us from this obviously dangerous man.

I looked at Rebecca and somehow felt safer if we just kept our eyes on each other. Maybe he would go away and not approach our table. I could see him coming up behind Rebecca and I quickly turned my eyes down and away. No eye contact seemed like a good plan to me! It had kept us safe in the Bowery…but next thing I knew, I was staring down at a pair of filthy combat boots. What was I going to do? What was he going to do? He was standing right in front of me, much too close, and he wasn’t moving away. I had to do something.

I raised my eyes to meet his while he towered over me, and I felt very fragile. I smiled genuinely and said, “How are you doing today?”

He took a step back, smiled, laughed and pointed toward our table, “I’d be doing better if you gave me one of them Marlboros.”

“Sure!” I said, then gave him a cigarette and lit it for him.

It was a miraculous and surreal moment because in a flash, I watched as he instantly went from angry to laughing. He took a puff from the cigarette and looked down at me again and said, “You are beautiful!” He walked backward away from me, still facing me, continuing to meet my eyes. I was smiling by this time while the people in the crowded courtyard were silent, stunned, and watching. Even the barking poodle was quiet.

Just before he passed the fence, he turned back to me again and, screaming as he faded from view, “You are beautiful, honey! You ought to be in H O L L Y W O O D!”

After he was gone, once Rebecca got her breath back, she said, “What the *##@ was that?”

I laughed, sighed in relief, and nervously lit another cigarette….

It wasn’t until that evening that the absolute power of that experience hit me. I thought about it…What did that man want? What did he expect to gain by harassing and intimidating the people in that courtyard? One could easily think it was attention, or that is just how he entertained himself. I believe those answers are reasonable assumptions. I think he was hungry. Not for food, though. Maybe he was hungry for someone to acknowledge his presence as a human being and look him in the eyes? Maybe he was there to teach us to face our judgment and indifference to others?

What did I get from the experience? I was part of something extraordinary. I received the cure for indifference from a disheveled man in combat boots. And when I look back at that event today, twenty long years later, I can clearly acknowledge that the homeless man was my teacher.

“Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.” ―Hebrews 13:2

Are YOU Destined to Become a Visionary Writer?

Ja-lene Clark’s The Journey of the Visionary Writer: The Five Phases of Experiential Writing illuminates the path from idea to publication. Filled with brilliant insights and deeply personal stories, this book guides visionaries through the spiritual and emotional complexities of sharing their wisdom. Not a typical how-to, it’s a remarkably advanced, healing, and expansive journey.

Take the leap. Dare to share your wisdom. Purchase your copy today!

Order at Amazon

React with Awareness

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The situation does not matter; my reaction is everything.

Do I let this situation take me on a loop of fear and worry? Or do I simply acknowledge its existence? I find it best for me to acknowledge, because that means I am not hiding, repressing, or pretending to be ignorant.

Yesterday, I was shocked to see a “wake” of turkey vultures feeding on a deer. At first, I felt disgust. But then I reflected: the vultures were not villains. They did not kill the deer; they were simply there doing their role, cleaning up. Vultures wait until something dies and then they fly in to clear the carcass. It sounds callous, but it is actually a beautiful system designed by God. I can imagine the vultures coming to me right now to eat away all the things that are dead inside me and that I am ready to let go of—like my fears and imaginings of potential monsters could be cleaned up and taken away forever.

I could have reacted to the vultures with distaste and disgust, but instead, I chose to react with awareness. I let the beauty of this terrible situation wash over me until I could see the majesty of God’s creation and feel peace.

Join me. Pause, reflect and let peace be with you.

Listen to this wonderful song from Avi Kaplan.

Are YOU Destined to Become a Visionary Writer?

Ja-lene Clark’s The Journey of the Visionary Writer: The Five Phases of Experiential Writing illuminates the path from idea to publication. Filled with brilliant insights and deeply personal stories, this book guides visionaries through the spiritual and emotional complexities of sharing their wisdom. Not a typical how-to, it’s a remarkably advanced, healing, and expansive journey.

Take the leap. Dare to share your wisdom. Purchase your copy today!

Order at Amazon

The Infinite Wonder of Words

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Beyond definitions and dogma, what infinite wonder can we unlock when we truly listen to the words of others?

I have a book I’ve cherished for many, many years—truly, my favorite. Its paperback cover is tattered and worn, spine reinforced with tape to keep it from crumbling. When melancholy settles in, I simply pick it up, read a section, and without fail, my spirits lift.

The book is Arthur Gordon’s A Touch of Wonder: An Invitation to Fall In Love with Life. Arthur possessed an amazing ability to extract extraordinary insights from the simplest human experiences, distilling his wisdom into short essays. Most were written in the 1950s and 60s, originally published in Guideposts and Reader’s Digest. The world was vastly different then, yet his perspective remains timeless. When sadness calls, reading “The Stranger Who Taught Magic” or “The Answer” never fails to uplift me.

Prayer of a Writer

Lord of all things, whose wondrous gifts to man include the shining symbols known as words, grant that I may use their mighty power only for good. Help me to pass on small fragments of Your wisdom, truth and love. Teach me to touch the unseen, lonely heart with laughter, or the quick release of tears. Let me portray the courage that endures, defiant in the face of pain or death; the kindness and the gentleness of those who fight against the anger of the world; the beauty hidden in the smallest things; the mystery, the wonder of it all…

Open my ears, my eyes, unlock my heart. Speak through me, Lord, if it be Your will. Amen.

Ja-lene’s tattered copy of A Touch of Wonder by Arthur Gordon

I adore this prayer. Its power resonates deeply. “Let me use the mighty power of words only for good.” Beautiful. Yes. I will!

In the 50s and 60s, this prayer was absolutely perfect. Today, however, we face a challenge, particularly in traditional publishing. A publisher might actually debate if a single word in that prayer—”Lord”—could offend their targeted audience. Depending on the house, they might consider changing “Lord” to “God,” “Jesus,” “Christ,” “Universe,” “Source,” “Great Spirit”… a list of potential choices that could spark heated discussions and disagreements between editors and authors!

In my book, The Journey of the Visionary Writer, I share the importance of expressing a writer’s preferred term. If an author wants to use the word “Lord,” they should be free to do so. Honoring another person’s unique perspective is an act of respect. I want to know their uncensored truth. While I guide authors to ensure their message is clearly articulated, I refrain from insisting they alter their beliefs or conform to standards of cultural, religious, or political correctness for fear of marketplace rejection.

There is a better way forward. What if, when reading books or discussing spiritual beliefs, we simply respected one another’s point of view and listened without censoring? I may say “God” and you may say “Source,” but are we not truly referring to the same overarching presence? Does “God,” “Christ,” “Jesus,” “Buddha,” “The Universe,” “Source” truly prefer us to debate terminology? Have we reached an apex in human history where we can stop debating words and start seeking the intersection of our shared beliefs? I pray we have. Let’s use the shining symbols known as words for good!

“Some criticism, no doubt, is constructive, but too much is a subtle poison.”

― Arthur Gordon

Are YOU Destined to Become a Visionary Writer?

Ja-lene Clark’s The Journey of the Visionary Writer: The Five Phases of Experiential Writing illuminates the path from idea to publication. Filled with brilliant insights and deeply personal stories, this book guides visionaries through the spiritual and emotional complexities of sharing their wisdom. Not a typical how-to, it’s a remarkably advanced, healing, and expansive journey.

Take the leap. Dare to share your wisdom. Purchase your copy today!

Order at Amazon

The Nature of Maturity

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What if everything we’ve been taught about “growing up” is subtly steering us away from our true power?

Kate Solisti, author of Conversations with Dog, offers a profound insight into canine behavior that extends far beyond our pets. She observes that, as our companions for millennia, dogs have been “entrained” into a perpetual state of puppyhood. Their core nature is hardwired to please—a role they fulfill with playful fetching, quirky fascinations, and that unmistakably adoring gaze, even when they’ve been “naughty.”

This human preference for childlike behavior in animals isn’t exclusive to dogs. Captive dolphins, too, adopt “puppy-like” antics to please, as if programmed with the mantra from The Hitchhiker’s Guide: “thanks for all the fish!” While wild dolphins thrive through communal hunting, their captive counterparts are subtly trained into a state of arrested development, much like domestic dogs. We seem to prefer this “toddler-like” innocence, inadvertently denying them the vital opportunity to learn adult consciousness from the elders of their wild pods.

As an American woman, I realize this widespread conditioning has shaped my own views. It’s not just about superficial tricks but about deeply rooted, centuries-old beliefs that women should stay “younger.” The relentless marketing for anti-aging products, the pressure to shed pounds, or consider plastic surgery reinforces this idea, and has created a multi-billion dollar industry that profits from our efforts to stay forever young.

This perpetuates the common, yet flawed, belief that women hold power only when young and attractive. But how can we genuinely feel content with ourselves if we’re constantly striving for a past version? The late Brenda Kinsel, in her transformative book 40 Over 40: 40 Things Every Woman Over 40 Needs to Know About Getting Dressed, confronted this head-on. She taught women to shift their gaze from perceived flaws to existing beauty, fostering renewed confidence. This practice is so crucial, especially for women in their forties, that Brenda dedicated an entire book to this vital issue.

The idea that youthful beauty equals feminine power is rooted in history. I believe this conditioning often keeps women from embracing, or even celebrating, maturity, pushing us toward that very “puppy-like” behavior. Now in my sixties, I celebrate the joy of maturity, embracing my years as a wise woman and grandmother without feeling pressured to look a certain way. A grandmother’s heart is her true beauty; her soul shines uniquely, radiating outward. While models of historically wise women—crones or grandmothers—exist, they are often so disconnected from our cultural stories that they are hard to relate to. For example, the Celtic legend of Sheila na gig, where a king gains power only by sexually pleasing this “crone” figure, is a stark reminder of how “unattractive” power in mature women can be misinterpreted or reimagined.

December 31, 2024. Ja-lene celebrates her 61st birthday with her children and grandchildren.

It’s time to transcend this ancient conditioning.

By recognizing the true nature of maturity, as exemplified by the collective wisdom of a wolf pack or a wild dolphin pod’s elders, we can realize feminine power not as perpetual youth, but as the rich, vibrant, and truly compelling joy of a fully realized adult woman.

“Our souls should be like a transparent crystal through which God can be perceived.”
—Hildegard of Bingen

Are YOU Destined to Become a Visionary Writer?

Ja-lene Clark’s The Journey of the Visionary Writer: The Five Phases of Experiential Writing illuminates the path from idea to publication. Filled with brilliant insights and deeply personal stories, this book guides visionaries through the spiritual and emotional complexities of sharing their wisdom. Not a typical how-to, it’s a remarkably advanced, healing, and expansive journey.

Take the leap. Dare to share your wisdom. Purchase your copy today!

Order at Amazon