Jackie Bailey Funerals, Spiritual Care, Death and Dying, Author

06/10/2025

A line from Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer has always stayed with me - in the US, “every man is Presidential timber.” When I was at high school I wanted to become the UN’s first female Secretary General. Anything less would be a failure of vision on my part.

My article in today’s Guardian is me accepting I will never speak French.

Image description:
Picture of a bishop and a couple of ladies chatting.
Making sense of it
Positive thinking can make success feel like the only acceptable option. But humility allows for grace.
Jackie Bailey

Link in bio and story

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/oct/06/positive-thinking-can-make-success-feel-like-the-only-acceptable-option-but-humility-allows-for-grace

08/09/2025

Amusing to see my article on virtue come up next to this article about Putin and Xi. Maybe they should read it?

Image ID: screenshot of the guardian app, on left “Jackie Bailey
Al Aristotle and Confucius agree: virtue is good in moderation”
On right “Ageing
Does science back up Putin and Xi’s longevity claims?”
Link in story
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/sep/08/across-cultures-and-centuries-aristotle-and-confucius-agree-virtue-is-good-in-moderation

04/06/2025

Book YES. ‘A Prayer for the Crown-Shy’ and ‘A Psalm for the Wild-Built’ by Becky Chambers.

These books are a hopeful parable for a post-apocalyptic universe. Here is the passage I most want to share, in a conversation between the human Dex and the wild robot Mosscap. Dex asks,

“…how does the idea of maybe being meaningless sit well with you?”

Mosscap considered. “Because I know that no matter what, I’m wonderful.”

03/06/2025

Book yes - FLESH by David Szalay

Very compelling lit fic set in Eastern Europe and UK. Had me staying up late, even though (or maybe because) I never seemed to really get to know the lead character (as the title suggests, the reader sees what the flesh does, not what it thinks…)

…opening chapter is a gut punch. Phwoar.
thanks Deb and Amanda for the recommendation

19/05/2025

Here is me quoting myself: “Spiritual surrender is not the same as doing nothing.”

My article in today’s (link in bio and story and also below)

Title: My sister was diagnosed with cancer - and it taught me the meaning of surrender
Jackie Bailey
Image: illustration of open palm up hands and a woman wearing a head veil with hands in prayer position



https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/may/19/my-sister-was-diagnosed-with-cancer-and-it-taught-me-the-meaning-of-surrender?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

16/04/2025

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/apr/16/my-sister-died-10-years-ago-heres-what-i-wish-i-had-known-about-dementia-when-she-was-alive

I think back to my 20-year-old self and my sister, lost in her imagined worlds, and I feel compassion for us both

07/04/2025

My piece in The Guardian today, about waiting as a spiritual act

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/apr/07/waiting-for-godot-can-boredom-be-a-kind-of-spiritual-practice

Image description: Making sense of it
Waiting for God(ot): can boredom be a kind of spiritual practice?
Jackie Bailey
Illustration collage of hand holding and cups of tea

No one likes the discomfort of doing nothing. But as a pastoral carer, it’s my job

25/03/2025

After you watch the Budget speech tonight, switch over to SBS and watch Insight at 8.30pm. 'Navigating Widowhood.' Some beautiful stories of how people live and love, after their person has died. SBS On Demand SBS INSIGHT

24/03/2025

Tuesday 25 March 8.30pm or on demand, SBS Insight on Widowhood.

20/03/2025

It looks like Meta trained its AI using my little book! And all my academic articles. I wonder if I can get it to write my next book for me, in the style of Jackie Bailey? thanks for alerting me. .literarymgmt maybe we should like, tell them off?

Author friends, search LibGen to see if your work was used. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2025/03/search-libgen-data-set/682094/

Image ID: Headline in The Atlantic: Search LibGen, the Pirated-Books Database That Meta Used to Train AI
Millions of books and scientific papers are captured in the collection’s current iteration.
Bv Alex Reisner

12/03/2025

Happy birthday Ally

16/02/2025

Local people, come along and chat.

MEET OUR PANELISTS....

DR JACKIE BAILEY will be joining us as part of our Panel for our next movie screening of Live the life you please
22nd February from 5.30pm

Tickets available online: https://events.humanitix.com/live-the-life-you-please-entelechy

Jackie Bailey from Jackie Bailey Funeral Whisperer is the author of 'The Eulogy,' winner of the 2023 NSW Premier's Literary Multicultural Award and shortlisted for the 2023 NSW Premier's UTS Glenda Adams Prize for New Writing. Jackie has a PhD in Creative Writing.

When she is not writing, Jackie spends her time helping families to navigate death and dying. Jackie lives and works on the land of the Wodi Wodi people of the Dharawal nation in the Illawarra. She is a pastoral care practitioner, a funeral celebrant, and an ordained interfaith minister with a Masters of Theology. Jackie is working on a non-fiction book about spirituality in a post-religious world.

To find our more about Jackies work you can visit her website: https://jackiebailey.com.au/