by Jackie Bailey | Apr 6, 2020 | hope, women who write
If you were filling a spaceship with people who could found a human colony far from Earth, you would definitely pick my siblings. My family is jam-packed with health and education professionals. And then there is me, the writer. When I think of my sisters and...
by Jackie Bailey | Dec 9, 2019 | depression, funerals, hope, Interfaith, motherhood, Random insights, Taoism
If we become addicted to the external, our interiority will haunt us. We will become hungry with a hunger no image, person, or deed can still. – John O’Donohue[1] Something is missing I am married to a good man. I have a beautiful eight-year old...
by Jackie Bailey | Mar 10, 2018 | funerals, Interfaith
I conducted my first funeral this week. Conducted? Officiated? Celebrated? None of those verbs quite fit what it felt like, which was more in the realm of Journeyed, or Travelled With. It was almost the end of the working day when the phone rang. I contemplated not...
by Jackie Bailey | Feb 20, 2018 | Interfaith
“Honour thy father and thy mother” For my interfaith homework, I am reflecting on a chapter of the book, The Ten Challenges: Spiritual Lessons from the Ten Commandments, by Leonard Felder. So far I have got a lot out of reading this book. It has helped me...
by Jackie Bailey | Dec 20, 2017 | Interfaith
The goal of the Confucian project is to become fully human. Kung Fu-tzu (Confucius) understood the self as a “node” rather than an entity, a “meeting place where lives converge.” (Smith, 1991). This resonates with my theories of the gift circle. In my PhD dissertation...
by Jackie Bailey | Dec 20, 2017 | Interfaith, Uncategorized
Reflections on Islam and the Koran la ilaha illa’Llah “There is no god but God” Background of Islam The word “Islam” is derived from the root s-l-m. which means “peace” or “surrender”: “the peace that comes when one’s life is surrendered to God.” “Allah” comes from...
by Jackie Bailey | Dec 20, 2017 | Interfaith
Anokhee Yud-Hei-Vov-Hei, Eloheykha, Asheyr hohtseitikha mei-eretz mitzrayim, me-beit avadeem. “I am the mysterious and unknowable name of God (the one who is and will always be your God), who [can] bring[s] you out of a narrow way of seeing things, out of your...
by Jackie Bailey | Dec 20, 2017 | Uncategorized
I think most Christians understand that Jesus was not actually born on 25 December in the Year 1 AD. Like the Queen’s Birthday, Christmas Day is a symbolic date rather than a literal one. Christmas is thought to originate as a festive season from a number of...
by Jackie Bailey | Dec 14, 2017 | Uncategorized
*Caveat: Some of my best friends are white people, and they definitely fart. This post is not about them. It is about those who do not fart. And when I say “do not fart,” I mean, of course, “Do behave in a racist fashion which implies that...
by Jackie Bailey | Oct 13, 2017 | Interfaith, Taoism
There is a being, wonderful, perfect; It existed before heaven and earth. How quiet it is! How spiritual it is! It stands alone and it does not change. It moves around and around, but does not on this account suffer. All life comes from it. It wraps everything with...
