Category: Writing


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Filed Under: General, Life, Voice, Writing by Julianne McCullagh — 2 Comments
September 3, 2010

Last week I did something I hadn’t done before. I removed a blog post. Why? Because it was ill conceived and poorly constructed. And, I have come the point in life, or the age, in which I think it is not only a good idea to admit my mistakes, but it is necessary. Necessary? Yes. Because if we stick to our mistakes and if our egos are too fragile to take correction, then we have just added a traffic jam to any meaningful conversation.

Meaningful conversation is one of the treasures of life. I enjoy a good conversation about as much as I enjoy reading. And I enjoy reading quite a bit.

As Craig Ferguson (comic and naturalized American citizen) likes to say, in America you get a second chance. And a third chance. And if you are tenacious, as many chances as you want.

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A Nice Problem to Have

Filed Under: Artisitic Process, Creativity, Writer's Block, Writing by Julianne McCullagh — 1 Comment
August 22, 2010

A writing friend of mine sent me the following quote:

A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people. ~Thomas Mann, Essays of Three Decades, 1947

Well, that sounds a little self serving, doesn’t it? I mean, if you are having trouble writing, if the spigot won’t spig and no words or clever phrases pour forth, then you can claim association with the likes of Thomas Mann, and say, I’m having trouble writing because I am a WRITER. (Back of hand to forehead, profile to the audience, a loud sigh and eyes pleading to the heavens for a more productive muse.)

This friend of mine is a marvelous writer. Reading her work you might think she sits at her computer and great characters and dialogue jump from her fingertips and appear on the screen, ready for publication in one draft. That’s because she’s a master craftsman. By the time we get to read her work she has gone over each and every word, phrase, telling detail of character and place with deftness and we laugh or cry rolling along her narrative arc to a clever conclusion. Then we want more.

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Blaze of Light

Filed Under: Artisitic Process, Creativity, Inspiration, Spirituality, Writing by Julianne McCullagh — 7 Comments
August 16, 2010

[For Sophia Ann]

There’s a blaze of light in every word, it doesn’t matter which you heard, the holy or the broken hallelujah! Leonard Cohen

In the beginning was the Word. Gospel of John

And God said…Book of Genesis

When I taught Adult Ed courses on spirituality and theology, one subject, theme, if you will, that I kept coming back to was: God spoke us into being. Our name thundered in a mighty whisper and here we are. Romantic view of conception? Perhaps. But it resonates with me. Resonates as in resounds somewhere deep within. Deep within beyond my conscious mind. Further back. Then further back from there.

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It Makes Us The Right Size

Filed Under: Life, Odyssey, Writing by Julianne McCullagh — 4 Comments
August 6, 2010

One of the best arguments I’ve ever read for kneeling in prayer is from Mary Karr’s latest memoir Lit.

Here’s a paraphrase of the passage:

Why kneel? The author asks while attempting to work out her recovery from alcohol.

Because it makes us the right size, replies her sponsor.

On the list of reasons I have removed myself from the parish in which I spent years being very active is the fact that they removed the kneelers and preached that if we kneel during the consecration then we are removing ourselves from the community!! They justified our lack of kneeling at the consecration and after communion by teaching that kneeling puts us in a penitential and “lesser” position.  Well, duh!!

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Soul Work

Filed Under: Artisitic Process, Writing by Julianne McCullagh — 4 Comments
June 26, 2010

“Soul” is not a thing, but a quality or dimension of experiencing life and ourselves.  Thomas More, Care of the Soul

I’m in a soul searching group.

It’s disguised as a food optimizing, weight loss, slimming group.  But, really, it’s a soul searching group.

Kind of a high-falutin’ term for a weight loss group, you say?

Could be, but, I’m sticking to my terminology.

I’ll try to explain.

Soul work and truth work are close relatives. Writing and soul work are Siamese twins.  Over the last several years, I have been writing, commenting, observing on paper (or whatever this medium is) on subjects ranging from theology & spirituality, raising children, marriage, growing up in an Irish-Catholic New York City community with all the gifts and baggage that entails and bringing that with me to a suburb in Dallas.

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