SOLACE: Soul + Grief

Send us Fan Mail

The hardest part of grief is not always what happened. Sometimes it’s what it demands from you afterward: action when you have no tools, or patience when there’s nothing you can do at all.

We share a story drawn from the documented life of Jesuit priest Pedro Arrupe, told as historical fiction, set at the Jesuit novitiate outside Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. Arrupe has enough medical training to be dangerous and just enough to be useful, and after the blast he finds himself responsible for young men and for a stream of wounded people when the city can no longer send help. With no supplies and no clean answers, he learns what compassionate presence really costs and why “staying” can be the most meaningful form of care.

Then the story widens to Nagasaki and the destruction of the Urakami Cathedral district, home to one of Japan’s oldest Catholic communities. Arrupe doesn’t witness it with his eyes, and that becomes the point. Hiroshima puts work into his hands. Nagasaki leaves him with only something to carry. We talk about that difference as a map for mourning, trauma, and spiritual direction: the gap between fixing and witnessing, between helping and simply holding grief without escape.

If you’re searching for grief support, Jesuit spirituality, or a clearer understanding of Pedro Arrupe’s “faith that does justice,” this episode offers a steady, human place to start. Subscribe, share with someone who needs gentleness this week, and leave a review with the line that stayed with you most.

CONTACT ME AT:  [email protected]

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 

Send us Fan Mail

Grief comes with a lot of advice, and most of it has the same hidden goal: get away from the pain. Stay busy. Distract yourself. Find a lesson. But what if the more honest move is the opposite, not as a dare, but as a practice of compassion?

We talk about Tonglen, a Tibetan Buddhist “sending and taking” meditation that turns our usual instincts upside down. On the in-breath, we breathe in the real texture of suffering, our own or someone else’s. On the out-breath, we breathe out relief, spaciousness, and tenderness. I walk through why this can be a powerful grief support practice, especially when you’re sitting with someone who is mourning and you don’t know what to say. Instead of fixing, we learn how to make room for grief to be exactly as large as it is, while still offering warmth.

We also get specific about what Tonglen is not. It’s not a technique for the rawest hours of acute trauma, and it’s not martyrdom or emotional self-sacrifice. The out-breath matters, and depletion is a signal to rest, not proof you’re doing it right. If you’re navigating overwhelming bereavement, I also share why pairing spiritual care and meditation with trauma-informed therapy or grief counseling can be the most supportive path.

Subscribe, share this with someone who shows up for others, and leave a review if it helps. What’s one thing you wish people would stop saying to grieving 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

 Music and sound effects today by:   via Pixabay

Send us Fan Mail

Some rooms don’t reward you for showing up. The person you’re there to support might be frightened, angry, sarcastic, or completely shut down and if your ability to care depends on being liked, you won’t last long. Today we are naming the kind of love that can actually hold up under end-of-life care, hospice chaplaincy, and bereavement support: agape.

Agape is love that doesn’t hinge on affection, attraction, familiarity, or shared theology. It’s a decision, repeated moment to moment, to extend care simply because someone exists and is suffering. That shift matters for compassion fatigue and burnout prevention because it keeps us from unconsciously rationing our presence, giving our best only to the “easy” patients or the most agreeable grieving families. We also talk about why agape frees us from measuring support by whether it “worked” whether the person felt better, thanked us, or received our words the way we hoped.

There’s a harder, honest layer too: agape isn’t something a finite person can manufacture forever from willpower alone. Sustainable spiritual care requires replenishment through supervision, community, prayer or spiritual practice, and rest that isn’t optional. And for survivors, agape means we can receive the full truth of grief guilt, rage, unfinished business, even relief without flinching, correcting, or pulling away.

If you’re walking with loss, supporting a dying loved one, or serving others as a caregiver, listen, share with someone who needs steadiness, and subscribe, rate, and leave a review so more people can find Solace.

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

Send us Fan Mail

“Good faith” sounds like a legal phrase, but what happens when you treat it as a spiritual practice instead, especially in grief? Slow the phrase down until it shows its older meaning: *bona fides*, a kind of fidelity kept without proof. When life hurts, when doubt gets sharp, when the future won’t cooperate, good faith becomes less about winning an argument and more about how we stay authentic, honest and present with each other.

Explore what good faith asks of the person doing the accompanying, whether you’re a spiritual director, chaplain, pastor, or the friend someone trusts at 2 a.m. It means admitting you don’t already know where their story is going. Pattern recognition can be useful, but when we rush to the “helpful part,” we can quietly shift from accompaniment to management. Be uncomfortable with the clarity good faith requires: naming your limits, your differences, and your real vantage point so support doesn’t slip into persuasion with a hidden destination.

Good faith is asked of the seeker too. Are you bringing the real question or a safer version that feels more acceptable? Can you stay in the room when the guidance isn’t what you hoped to hear long enough to tell the difference between thoughtful disagreement and reflex? Underneath it all is a “third partner” that shares the search for what is true, even when proof is missing.

If this resonates, subscribe for new Friday episodes, share Solace:  Soul + Grief with someone who needs a gentler kind of support, and leave a review so more grieving hearts can find us.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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