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. 6d ago

    Eulogy for Mom

    Send us Fan Mail A funeral recording fails, years pass, and a question refuses to let go: what did I say, and what do I wish I had said?  I’m offering a do-over eulogy for my mom, Joanne Frances Kimmel Lucas, who died from cancer. If you’ve ever wanted a second chance with your words, this story meets you right where you are.  Grief doesn’t stay polite.  We sit with Yeats’ line, “All changed, changed utterly. A terrible beauty is born,” and unpack why “terrible” belongs in our vocabulary of bereavement and coping with loss. The ache of parent loss is real, unapologetic, and allowed to sound that way. And still, beauty can exist alongside it, not as a lesson or a fix, but as love that refuses to disappear.  What changes when a parent dies, especially the loss of the lifelong witness who carried your earliest chapters, and what does it mean to carry legacy forward in small, human ways? If you’re looking for grief support, spiritual care, and honest language for mourning, press play. Subscribe, share with someone who needs gentleness today, and leave a review so this space of healing can reach more people. 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 ('Old Rugged Cross' was her favorite hymn and she sang it in the car often) Music and sound effects today by:   via Pixabay

  2. Sep 4

    He Left His Sandals at the Door

    Send us Fan Mail Grief can make your life feel like a place you don’t recognize. The sky looks different, familiar rooms tilt, and the road under your feet seems to belong to someone else.  Walk down the Emmaus Road, where two grieving disciples leave Jerusalem after everything they hoped for collapses. A stranger joins them, listens before speaking, and stays with them mile after mile until a simple breaking of bread opens their eyes. Then comes the sting and the mystery: at the exact moment of recognition, Jesus disappears. We talk about why that pairing mirrors bereavement, and how presence can be real even when you can’t feel it yet. A surprising image carries the heart of the message: Jesus leaves his sandals at the threshold. Not instructions. Not a neat explanation. Just something worn by real distance and real sorrow, still warm, already broken in. We explore what those sandals mean for Christian grief, spiritual care, and practical grief support: you are not walking barefoot, and you are not the first to cross this terrain. If you’re grieving, let this be a companion for a few minutes of your day. Subscribe for more, share this with someone who’s hurting, and leave a review so others can find the show. What part of the road are you walking right now? 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. Aug 28

    Your Broken Place Is Sacred

    Send us Fan Mail (This one is best heard alone in private and not while driving.) Some losses don’t just hurt, they shock the whole body. If you’re carrying a death that came too suddenly, too violently, or too unfairly, you may know that lonely feeling of waking up at 3 a.m. with grief in your throat and no words that fix it. We’re not going to make it easy. We’re going to make it honest and we’re going to stay with you. We begin with an anchor from Psalm 34:18: “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” We sit with what that does and does not promise. Then we turn to the shortest, sharpest grief line in the Gospels: “Jesus wept.” Even knowing how the story ends, Jesus chooses presence over bypassing. If your faith feels strong, worn thin, or somewhere in between, you’re welcome here exactly as you are. From there, we share practical support from an emergency response toolkit for trauma and traumatic grief developed by Patricia Mathes Cane, PhD. (Dr. Cane's website is: www.capacitar.org) If this brought you even a small sense of steadiness, subscribe so you don’t miss new Friday releases, share it with someone who’s grieving, and leave a review so more people can find a place to breathe. 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. Aug 21

    A Better Map For Grief

    Send us Fan Mail Grief doesn’t follow a clean five-step route, and a lot of people feel worse because they think it should. We start from a different place: Psalm 23 and the honest promise of walking through the valley, not around it. Here is something practical and gentle map that doesn’t pretend the terrain is easy, but helps you find your footing when life after loss feels unreal. We talk about where the “five stages of grief” story came from, why it was never designed to describe the grieving, and why real mourning can look like accepting the loss at 9 AM and raging against it by noon. Instead of treating grief as a linear checklist that ends in closure, we reframe the grieving process as a landscape: quiet stretches, sudden cliffs, anniversaries, triggers, and blank spaces no one else can chart for you. If you’ve been searching for grief support that doesn’t shame you for cycling emotions, this perspective can be a relief. Here are three landmarks you can return to. First, the weather changes even when the land stays, so a stormy day doesn’t mean you’re going backward. Second, Lois Tonkin’s model shows how grief may not shrink, while your life expands around it through new routines, relationships, and capacity. Third, modern grief research on continuing bonds gives you permission to keep a healthy connection to what you lost, through ritual, memory, and the voice you still carry. If this resonates, subscribe, share the episode with someone who’s grieving, and leave a review so more people can find this kind of steady companionship. 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. Aug 14

    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

  6. 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

  7. 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

  8. 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

Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
4 Ratings

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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