SOLACE: Soul + Grief

Candee Lucas

This podcast is sponsored by SOULPLUSGRACE serving the San José/Santa Cruz area, offering grief support and grief journeying with spirituality.  I hope to help you travel through grief with God at your side. "I am a trained Spiritual Director for those who seek to complete the 19th Annotation of St. Igantius’ spiritual exercises OR seek spiritual direction while grieving.  I have also worked as a hospital/cemetery chaplain and grief doula. I believe all paths lead to God and that all traditions are due respect and honour. I take my sacred inspiration from all of my patients and companions–past, present and future; the Dalai Lama, James Tissot, St. John of the Cross, the Buddha, Saint Teresa of Ávila, and, of course, Íñigo who became known as St. Ignatius. I utilize art, poetry, music, aromatherapy, yoga, lectio divina, prayer and meditation in my self-work and work with others. I believe in creating a sacred space for listening; even in the most incongruous of surroundings." BACKGROUND Jesuit Retreat Center, Los Altos, CA -- Pierre Favre Program, 3 year training to give the Spiritual Exercises of Saint IgnatiusCentro de Espiritualidad de Loyola, Spain -- The Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius of Loyola -- 30 Day Silent RetreatCenter for Loss & Life Transition – Comprehensive Bereavement Skills Training (30 hrs) Ft. Collins, COCalifornia State University Institute for Palliative Care--Palliative Care Chaplaincy Specialty Cert. (90 hrs)Sequoia Hospital, Redwood City, CA -- Clinical Pastoral Education19th Annotation with Fumiaki Tosu, San Jose, CA, Spiritual Exercises of St. IgnatiusSanta Clara University, Santa Clara, CA M.A. – Pastoral MinistriesCONTACT ME:  candeelucas@soulplusgrace.com with questions to be answered in future episodes.

  1. 1d ago

    How Deep is the Ocean?

    Send us Fan Mail Grief can knock you under when you least expect it, in the middle of a normal day, with no warning and no permission asked. A way to talk about loss is not as a wound you “get over,” but as an ocean you learn to swim in. When the waves hit, you are not weak. You are human. Why does our culture’s timeline pressure make mourning harder, from casual expectations to clinical labels that sound like a countdown? The ocean doesn’t care about deadlines, and neither does love. Share the heart of the ocean metaphor, first named by grief counselor Lois Tonkin: grief doesn’t get smaller, we get bigger. That shift challenges the idea that acceptance is a finish line and replaces it with something truer, a life that slowly grows around what you carry. You’ll also hear three practical anchors for coping with grief that show up in both research and lived experience: naming what you feel, finding “other swimmers” who can sit with you without fixing, and choosing continuity instead of chasing closure through continuing bonds. Learn to name the undertow that can come with traumatic loss, suicide, ambiguous loss, estrangement, or disenfranchised grief, and why therapy, grief groups, and crisis support can be a lifeguard, not a last resort. If you’re grieving, fresh or old, you don’t have to feel better on command. Press play, share this with someone who needs gentle language for loss, and subscribe, rate, and review so more people can find grief support when the waves return. Art, Artifacts, Fabric and Design:  https://www.etsy.com/shop/vasonaArts?ref=seller-platform-mcnav and  https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/candee-lucas and https://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/vasonaarts ELECTRONIC BOOKS:  1000 IMAGES OF JESUS  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F2SFH4Z6 Music and sound effects today by:   via Pixabay

  2. Aug 7

    What I Learned About Grief from The Odyssey

    Send us Fan Mail Grief has a way of slipping into the everyday, not as a problem to solve, but as a thread you keep discovering in your own hands. I watched the movie Odyssey with a fairly neutral reaction, yet one thing stayed with me: how clearly it portrays mourning as something communal, honest, and deeply human. That portrayal opens a fresh way to talk about bereavement, spiritual care, and what it means to carry love after loss.  We walk through The Odyssey’s grief scenes with care: Odysseus weeping as his past is sung back to him, Penelope’s decades of waiting as a form of loyalty and resistance, and Telemachus living inside ambiguous loss without the certainty of a body or an ending. Along the way, we notice how the epic treats storytelling, meals, hospitality, and shared witnessing as part of survival. The takeaway is simple but countercultural: isolated grief can be more dangerous than shared grief, and community can help us bear what we cannot fix.  Then we pull on the episode’s central image, weaving. Penelope’s shroud becomes a living metaphor for how mourning often works, making and unmaking, hoping and doubting, trying to shape meaning without rushing into false closure. That thread leads to a parallel story from 2 Samuel 21, where Rizpah keeps vigil in sackcloth for months, refusing to look away.  Subscribe for weekly support, share this with someone who’s grieving, and if the words meet you in a tender place, leave a review so more listeners can find this circle of care. Art, Artifacts, Fabric and Design:  https://www.etsy.com/shop/vasonaArts?ref=seller-platform-mcnav and  https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/candee-lucas and https://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/vasonaarts ELECTRONIC BOOKS:  1000 IMAGES OF JESUS  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F2SFH4Z6 Music and sound effects today by:   via Pixabay

  3. Jul 31

    Postscript to Sandi’s Story

    Send us Fan Mail Grief does not end when the service is over, it keeps echoing in ordinary places, in old friendships, and even in the way we fall in love again. I’m Candee Lucas, a Jesuit-trained chaplain and spiritual director, and I wanted to add a postscript to my recent conversations with Sandi Moran Brafford, because people who are grieving deserve to hear a simple truth: there is life after. Not a neat life, not an unscarred life, but a real one. We talk about why telling the story matters, especially when your mind keeps circling the details trying to organize what happened. Sandi shares a surprising and tender thread from her own grief journey: she worked at a funeral home, and that is where she kept running into John at funerals and visitations. Out of repeated moments of shared community and shared mourning, a relationship began, one honest conversation at a time. If you’re looking for grief support, bereavement resources, spiritual care, or a gentle place to land, come join this circle of healing, love, and support.  Subscribe for weekly support, share this with someone who’s grieving, and if the words meet you in a tender place, leave a review so more listeners can find this circle of care. Art, Artifacts, Fabric and Design:  https://www.etsy.com/shop/vasonaArts?ref=seller-platform-mcnav and  https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/candee-lucas and https://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/vasonaarts ELECTRONIC BOOKS:  1000 IMAGES OF JESUS  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F2SFH4Z6 Music and sound effects today by:   via Pixabay

  4. Jul 24

    God of the Living and the Silence Of Grief

    Send us Fan Mail Silence after a death can feel like the cruelest part, not just because you miss their voice, but because the world keeps asking you to “move on” while your heart refuses. Today we are holding space for that reality with a powerful reading from theologian Karl Rahner: “God of the Living” from Encounters with Silence. If you’re looking for grief support that doesn’t rush you, this is a steady companion. Rahner paints an unforgettable picture of life as a long highway where the ones who began the journey with us slowly slip away into the night. He names what many grieving people know in their bones: there is no substitute for the one you loved. True love is specific, unique, and irreplaceable, which is why loss can feel like a piece of your own heart has gone missing. We explore how grief can become quieter without becoming smaller, and why “looking okay” doesn’t mean things went back to normal. Turn toward the hardest questions of bereavement and faith: how do you live with the dead, and what do you do when they are silent? What do you do when God feels just as silent? Rahner offers a daring reframe, seeing silence not as abandonment but as the space where faith has room to exist, where love proves itself without constant reassurance. We close with prayer, gentleness, and a call to remember the dead as living in God. Subscribe for weekly support, share this with someone who’s grieving, and if the words meet you in a tender place, leave a review so more listeners can find this circle of care. Art, Artifacts, Fabric and Design:  https://www.etsy.com/shop/vasonaArts?ref=seller-platform-mcnav and  https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/candee-lucas and https://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/vasonaarts ELECTRONIC BOOKS:  1000 IMAGES OF JESUS  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F2SFH4Z6 Music and sound effects today by:   via Pixabay

  5. Jul 17

    The Horizon You Seek Is Already Here

    Send us Fan Mail Death can feel like a doorway into total uncertainty, especially when grief is fresh and your mind keeps searching for a clear picture of “where” your loved one is now. Take a different approach by leaning on Catholic theologian Karl Rahner and his claim that transcendence is not a special experience for a spiritual elite, but the basic shape of human consciousness. If you have ever felt pulled toward something infinite in the middle of ordinary life, Rahner would say you are already living that orientation, even before you can name it. According to Rahner’s 'Vorgriff auf esse',  the idea that every act of knowing or loving happens against an unlimited horizon of being. From there, reframe Sheol and the intermediate state: not as a cosmic waiting room, but as a way to talk about whether the soul’s openness to the infinite is complete or still obscured. Rahner’s view of dying becomes less about relocation and more about fulfillment, the moment when the direction in which your life has been moving becomes definitive. As we build a bridge to Tibetan Buddhism and the Bardo Thodol, where the instructions around recognizing the clear light and resisting fearful projections also treat after-death “realms” as something deeply tied to mind and the death-preparation during life.  Recognize the real differences without pretending they disappear: personal God versus emptiness, resurrection and the redemption of history versus rebirth or liberation, and Rahner’s enduring subject versus the no-self doctrine.  If you’re navigating grief and searching for language that is honest, spacious, and practical, this conversation offers a way to trade afterlife maps for a deeper focus on consciousness, love, and the horizon we move toward. Subscribe for new Friday releases, share this with someone who’s asking hard questions, and leave a review so more grieving listeners can find the circle of support. What part of this comparison lands for you, and what still feels unresolved? Art, Artifacts, Fabric and Design:  https://www.etsy.com/shop/vasonaArts?ref=seller-platform-mcnav and  https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/candee-lucas and https://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/vasonaarts ELECTRONIC BOOKS:  1000 IMAGES OF JESUS  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F2SFH4Z6 Music and sound effects today by:   via Pixabay

  6. Jul 3

    Afterlife

    Send us Fan Mail A single word can quietly rewire an entire faith’s imagination of death. We start with Sheol, an ancient Hebrew concept that originally meant the realm of the dead, a shadowy destination shared by everyone rather than a place of reward and punishment. From there, we follow the translation trail that turns Sheol into Hades in Greek and infernum in Latin, and how that collapse of distinct ideas helps “hell” become a catchall in English, creating confusion that still shapes Christian afterlife theology today.  We also talk through the major ways early Christianity reshapes Sheol: the harrowing of hell, the idea of an intermediate state, and the later distinction between a temporary abode of the dead and Gehenna as final judgment. Along the way, we name how different traditions handle these questions now, including purgatory, the grave as a metaphor, conscious waiting, and soul sleep. If you’ve ever wondered why Christians disagree so strongly about what happens after death, this language history is a big part of the answer.  Then we widen the lens into comparative religion by bringing in the Tibetan Buddhist Bardo from the Bardo Thodol, often called The Tibetan Book of the Dead. We explore striking parallels with a Christian intermediate state, including transitional “between” space, imagery of reckoning, encounters with light or divine presence, and the role of prayers for the dead. And we get honest about the differences that matter: resurrection versus rebirth, a persistent soul versus no-self, and whether there is meaningful agency after death.  If this kind of theology, grief support, and spiritual reflection helps you, subscribe, share the show with someone who’s curious, and leave a review so others can find it. What do you think: are Sheol and the Bardo pointing to the same threshold experience, or are they describing fundamentally different realities? Art, Artifacts, Fabric and Design:  https://www.etsy.com/shop/vasonaArts?ref=seller-platform-mcnav and  https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/candee-lucas and https://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/vasonaarts ELECTRONIC BOOKS:  1000 IMAGES OF JESUS  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F2SFH4Z6 Music and sound effects today by:   via Pixabay

  7. Jun 26

    Broken Faith? Sandi's Story Concludes

    Send us Fan Mail Grief can change what you believe and how you talk to God, even if you never stop believing God exists. Candee sits down with Sandi Moran Brafford for a candid, tender conversation about faith after devastating loss: Sandi’s son died, and only a few months later her husband died too. What follows isn’t a clean spiritual comeback story. It’s the honest middle many people live in, where prayer feels different, trust feels risky, and your old religious instincts don’t fit the life you have now.  Sandishares her path into Catholicism, from growing up with little formal religion to building a Catholic household, raising children in Catholic schools, and serving as a Eucharistic minister. We also talk about how disillusionment can start long before a death, including the shock of learning that a priest she trusted had harmed others. That kind of spiritual betrayal matters, because it changes the ground you stand on when grief hits.  From there, we go straight to the hard questions: what happens when you make a bargain with God and it feels like God doesn’t keep His end? Sandi describes how her prayer life “contracts” rather than disappears, showing up in small rituals like saying a Hail Mary when she hears a siren and praying while making a bed with hospital corners. We explore why the saints can feel more accessible than God, why “I’ll pray for you” can sound hollow, and how forgiveness and attachment to God can remain even when the relationship feels clouded.  If you’re searching for bereavement support, grief and faith resources, or a compassionate Catholic perspective on doubt, this conversation will meet you where you are. Subscribe for new Friday drops, share this with someone who’s hurting, and leave a review so more grieving listeners can find us. ATTEND MY SUMMER WORKSHOP ON "SOULFUL LISTENING" THROUGH THE MARKEY CENTER AT SANTA CLARA UNIVERSITY VIA ZOOM. https://events.scu.edu/markey-center/event/359741-soulful-listening-workshops-on-the-ministry-of Art:  https://www.etsy.com/shop/vasonaArts?ref=seller-platform-mcnav and  https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/candee-lucas https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F2SFH4Z6 Music and sound effects today by:   via Pixabay

Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
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About

This podcast is sponsored by SOULPLUSGRACE serving the San José/Santa Cruz area, offering grief support and grief journeying with spirituality.  I hope to help you travel through grief with God at your side. "I am a trained Spiritual Director for those who seek to complete the 19th Annotation of St. Igantius’ spiritual exercises OR seek spiritual direction while grieving.  I have also worked as a hospital/cemetery chaplain and grief doula. I believe all paths lead to God and that all traditions are due respect and honour. I take my sacred inspiration from all of my patients and companions–past, present and future; the Dalai Lama, James Tissot, St. John of the Cross, the Buddha, Saint Teresa of Ávila, and, of course, Íñigo who became known as St. Ignatius. I utilize art, poetry, music, aromatherapy, yoga, lectio divina, prayer and meditation in my self-work and work with others. I believe in creating a sacred space for listening; even in the most incongruous of surroundings." BACKGROUND Jesuit Retreat Center, Los Altos, CA -- Pierre Favre Program, 3 year training to give the Spiritual Exercises of Saint IgnatiusCentro de Espiritualidad de Loyola, Spain -- The Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius of Loyola -- 30 Day Silent RetreatCenter for Loss & Life Transition – Comprehensive Bereavement Skills Training (30 hrs) Ft. Collins, COCalifornia State University Institute for Palliative Care--Palliative Care Chaplaincy Specialty Cert. (90 hrs)Sequoia Hospital, Redwood City, CA -- Clinical Pastoral Education19th Annotation with Fumiaki Tosu, San Jose, CA, Spiritual Exercises of St. IgnatiusSanta Clara University, Santa Clara, CA M.A. – Pastoral MinistriesCONTACT ME:  candeelucas@soulplusgrace.com with questions to be answered in future episodes.

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