Desert Night with Jesus: When Grief Feels Impossible

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We explore the barriers that prevent some people from fully entering the grieving process, particularly when complex relationships with the deceased create emotional blockages. Examining our hearts during Lent provides an opportunity to address unresolved wounds and cultivate the humility necessary for genuine healing and transformation.

• Complex relationships can create barriers to grieving fully due to unfinished emotional business
• Unexamined slights or forgotten relationship ruptures often prevent us from processing grief
• Lent offers a time to examine our spiritual life and relationships
• Those who guard their hearts most closely often struggle most with grieving
• Pride frequently stands in the way of honest self-examination and healing
• Humility puts our lives in proper perspective and opens us to growth
• Cultivating humility involves contemplating our true place in the order of nature

With thanks to Dr. Louis E. Newman and his book "Repentance".

As you listen, consider sending me your thoughts and questions on grief, both spiritual and practical, so we can walk this path together.

Listen every Friday on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Amazon Music for spiritual direction, art, and workshops shared through Santa Clara University, https://events.scu.edu/markey-center/event/332001-spiritual-accompaniment
You can reach us at: [e-mail].
SPIRITUAL DIRECTION WHILE GRIEVING IS AVAILABLE

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and  https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/candee-lucas

Music and sound effects today by:   via Pixabay

Episode Transcript

Candee (01:10):
Welcome to Solace
We're glad you're here.
My name is Candee Lucas.
I'm a Jesuit-trained chaplain,spiritual director, creator of
this podcast, as well as aworkshop on spiritual
accompaniment through SantaClara University.

(01:32):
We all recognize that the lossof a loved one causes tremendous
schisms in our life.
We lose our boundaries, we loseour place.
We lose our boundaries, we loseour place, we lose our loved
ones and we are lost withoutthem.
I created this podcast fouryears ago to address those

(01:58):
concerns.
I come to you with the voice ofa broken heart, having lost my

(02:22):
father, my employment, a dearpet and a relationship with my
sister last year.
Thanks for being with us.

(02:44):
You're always welcome in ourcircle of healing, love and
concern.
I wonder from time to time aboutpeople I meet in my grief
practice who seem to be unableto enter into grieving fully.
Many times the relationshipwith the person who has died is
so complex that there seems tobe no entry point into grief, no

(03:11):
moment they can say I am joinedwith you here and I can enter
in this space, in this sacredplace for the grieving.
It may be because of unfinishedbusiness, and by that I do not
mean commerce, but unfinishedtwists and turns in the

(03:36):
relationship here on earth.
It may be unexamined slights orlong-forgotten twists and turns
in our lives together that seemto have lost all significance
or all importance, except thefact that they were, and somehow

(03:59):
the relationships that we hadgrown and nurtured suffered a
rupture, or maybe just a slight,or maybe just a crack, and
somehow then we cannot grievefully for this person who has
left our sight, who has left ourearthly presence because of

(04:25):
these cracks or slights.
Lent is a time for us toexamine our lives, examine our
spiritual life, especially ourrelationship with our God and

(04:46):
our community, our relationshipswith ourselves and our loved
ones, and think about what's inthat lost heart, that fractured
heart, that broken heart thatmany of us carry.
You don't get too far in lifebefore your heart is broken.

(05:10):
Many of us consider ourselveslucky to have survived childhood
with only minor cuts andbruises of our heart, only minor
cuts and bruises of our heart.
But many have suffered deeplyand been wounded deeply as

(05:36):
children.
Those who keep their heartswrapped away in a box might have
the most difficulty in grievingthe death of a loved one.
So as we begin to grieve, wetake care to notice the quality
of our hearts, the nature of ourhearts, the nature of our

(06:00):
wounds and brokenness, how theyaffect our feelings about death
in general and about the deathof this loved one in particular.
Are there places in ourselvesguarding untended wounds,
unhealed regrets, words not said, actions not taken, apologies

(06:33):
ungiven?
For it is true that we are ableto say to another, I love you,
without having full healingbehind that statement, without
having a full heart behind thatstatement?
We should just recognize thatin ourselves.

(06:55):
As we travel with Jesus in thedesert this year, maybe we can
take some time to sit with himin a starry night and tell him
our concerns, tell him theconcerns of our heart, where our
brokenness lies, where ourhealing needs to begin our

(07:20):
travails, our failures, ourerrors, and ask for healing, ask
for his healing, love.
And as we sit there together inthe starlight, we can begin to
wander and wonder about the humof the earth and all its souls

(07:45):
as they heal, as they reach forhealing, as they reach for one
another across time immemorial.
There is no quick and easy wayto healing.

(08:05):
Brokenness is not so trivial,nor repentance so effortless.
The opportunity that God givesus to be freed from the guilt
and shame of our past is nobackstage door through which we
can escape unnoticed orunscathed.

(08:27):
Grief, and grieving andmourning require the hard work
of soul reckoning and genuineself-transformation.
The person who thinks otherwiseimagines that the goal is
simply to be magically cleansedof wrongdoing.
But the real goal is radicaltransformation, the sort of

(08:54):
reorientation of our lives thatcan happen only when we deeply
appreciate the roots of ourbrokenness and the difficult and
painstaking work entailed inrenewing our moral and spiritual
selves.
There are those among us who cannever admit that they have done

(09:17):
wrong.
They adamantly resist thesuggestion that they are to
blame.
When confronted with theevidence of their errors, they
resort to defensiveness and evencounterattack.
They seem to live surrounded bya kind of psychic armor that

(09:38):
prevents criticism in extremecases, even mild criticism from
penetrating.
They might admit in theory thatof course they are not perfect,
but in practice they cannot ownup to any mistakes.
Their problem is a problem ofexcess of pride.

(10:00):
Pride often stands in the way ofhonest self-examination and
self-disclosure.
It impedes healing, as it hasbeen described.
It prevents us from takingresponsibility for what we have
done and what we have failed todo, and it prevents us from

(10:20):
taking the very first step inhealing, but then it also closes
the door to feelings of remorse.
It won't tolerate publicconfession or apology.
It is ultimately opposed tosoul reckoning, to say nothing
of inner transformation.
Pride may not be the root ofall evil, but it may well be the

(10:45):
one vice that, more than anyother, precludes us from doing
the work of healing Mostdistressingly, when we are
really honest with ourselves, werecognize that we are all
guilty of pridefulness, at leastin some measure, at least

(11:07):
occasionally.
How, then, are we to combatpride?
Or, perhaps more helpfully, howdo we cultivate its opposite,
humility?
Medieval rabbis offered muchadvice about how to reorient
ourselves, to instill in usfeelings of modesty.

(11:29):
Often this involvescontemplating our true place in
the order of nature, as an 11thcentury Spanish rabbi noted,
--when one thinks of thetransient character of his
existence, how swiftly deathcomes, at which times his

(11:53):
desires and hopes are cut offand he must leave all his
possessions and relinquish theidea that he could take any of
them as provision for thehereafter or that any of these
will be of use to him.
When he is in the grave, hewill become humble and lowly.

(12:13):
He will not be proud.
His heart will not upliftitself in arrogance--.
The effect of cultivatinghumility is that it brings us
back into a dynamic relationshipwith ourselves and those around
us, where we had beenpreviously cut off from others

(12:36):
by the armor ofself-aggrandizement and even
self-delusion.
Humility puts our lives backinto proper perspective, where
pride precluded us from feelingremorse and so from taking steps
to improve ourselves.
Humility opens us to thepossibility of our own growth,

(13:00):
for it allows us to see ourshortcomings and resolve to
overcome them.
Pride leads to ossified, staticlife.
Humility opens our hearts andit enables us to embrace change,
and changing is the essence ofhealing.

(13:20):
However we choose to cultivateit, humility is the very first
essential virtue of healing.
Today, many of the ideas in thispodcast came from a book called

(13:41):
"Repentance by Dr Lewis ENewman.
That concludes another episodeof Solace.

(14:15):
Thank you for being here Again.
I'm your host.
Candy Lucas Tune in everyFriday when a new episode drops.
You can find it on ApplePodcasts, spotify and Amazon
Music.
More information about thebooks we've discussed scripture,

(14:44):
my artwork, spiritual directionand my workshops through Santa
Clara University in the shownotes.
God bless, Vaya con Dios,Namaste.
Thanks for watching.