The Little Griefs That Shape Us

Some losses don’t arrive like a thunderclap. They slip in quietly when you realize you don’t live there anymore, you don’t talk to those friends anymore, or you’ve outgrown a version of life that once felt permanent. That kind of change can bring real grief, even when nothing “tragic” has happened. 

Spend time with words that help many people breathe again: readings from Khalil Gibran’s The Prophet --on Joy and Sorrow, and on Time. When Gibran writes that joy and sorrow are inseparable, it challenges the way we try to split our lives into neat categories. If you’re grieving, that tension may feel familiar: love makes life bigger, and loss makes it ache. Rather than treating sorrow as a problem to solve, explore how faith can help us hold both truths without breaking.  Turn to Ecclesiastes 3 and its steady reminder that there is a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance. That wisdom gives us permission to be human, to recognize our memories, and to keep walking with God as time moves forward. 

ATTEND MY SUMMER WORKSHOP ON "SOULFUL LISTENING" THROUGH THE MARKEY CENTER AT SANTA CLARA UNIVERSITY VIA ZOOM.

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Transcript

Welcome And Why We Gather

Candee 0:17

Welcome to another edition of Solace Soul Plus Grief. I'm Candy Lucas, your host. When we started this ministry, we had hoped to reach out to those who are grieving. We know how difficult a journey that can be, and we have found through our experience that traveling with God assists us in so many different ways we hadn't understood previously. So I wanted to share that journey with you. Remember, you're always welcome in our circle of healing love and support.

The Quiet Grief Of Growing Up

Candee 1:28

And so jokingly, as he's about to turn forty-nine, we talked about the grief of middle age. Because as we grow, we learn new things, we meet new people, we find new loves, and we leave things behind. Sometimes the leaving of things behind is growth. And even though it might be sad, we need to do it to move on. But there's always a loss and a sadness that attends that leaving things behind. We no longer live in the houses we grew up in, most of us. We no longer have the friends we had when we were seven, or eighteen, or twenty-eight, or even thirty-eight or forty-eight. You get what I mean. So these are little grief practices, these little losses, these little leaving of things behind. But it's also the lesson that leaving things behind, we take part of those things with us. We remember the wallpaper in our kitchens we grew up in. We remember Friday nights with our parents or Sunday mornings going to church. We remember family reunions. We don't see those family members every day. And lots of them, if you look at an old family photo, the faces have disappeared over time. So today's episode is about those little griefs, those little losses. We've probably experienced them. We have experienced them our whole lives. Not that they get us ready for the first great griefs that we'll suffer, the loss of a parent or a child, or a sibling or a loved one, a husband or a wife. Not that any of that prepared it for us. But it made a place where grief can live in our hearts without breaking.

Gibran On Joy And Sorrow

Candee 4:21

Today's readings come from the Prophet by Khalil Gabron. And we start with on joy and sorrow. Then a woman said, Speak to us of joy and sorrow. And he answered, Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears. And how else could it be? The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain. Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven? When you are joyous, look deep into your heart, and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy. When you are sorrowful, look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight. Some of you say joy is greater than sorrow, and others say, Nay, sorrow is greater. But I say unto you, they are inseparable. Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed. Verily, you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy. Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced. When the treasure keeper lifts you to weigh his gold and his silver, needs must your joy or your sorrow rise or fall.

Gibran On Time And Timelessness

Candee 6:43

And so we come to measure the time of our days, our birthdays, glorifying another trip around our sun. And the prophet speaks of time. And an astronomer said, Master, what of time? And he answered, You would measure time, the measureless and the immeasurable. You would adjust your conduct and even direct the course of your spirit according to hours and seasons. Of time you would make a stream upon whose bank you would sit and watch its flowing. Yet the timeless in you is aware of life's timelessness, and knows that yesterday is but today's memory, and tomorrow is today's dream. And that which sings and contemplates in you is still dwelling within the bounds of the first moment which scattered the stars into space. Who among you does not feel that his power to love is boundless? Yet who does not feel that very love, though boundless, encompassed within the center of his being, and moving not from love thought to love thought, nor from love deeds to other love deeds, is not time even as love is, undivided and spaceless? But if in your thought you must measure time into seasons, let each season encircle all the other seasons, and let today embrace the past with remembrance and future longing.

Ecclesiastes And Seasons Of Life

Candee 9:03

So it is that both the Jewish and Christian Bibles in Ecclesiastes Book Three talk about the marking of our human lives with time. There is an appointed time for everything, and a time for every affair under the heavens, a time to be born, and a time to die, a time to plant, and a time to uproot the plant, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace, and a time to be far from embraces, a time to seek, and a time to lose, a time to keep and a time to cast away, a time to rent and a time to sow. A time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time of war and a time of peace. So you see that even from ancient times, our human lives were marked, and as we went from time to time, we learned to grieve, we learned from our losses, we took away lessons, and we grew.

Support The Podcast And Closing Blessing

Candee 11:41

If you'd like to support us, please subscribe to this podcast on Spotify or Amazon Music. I'm Candy Lucas. Remember, we offer spiritual direction while grieving. You can contact us at the email in the show notes. We welcome your feedback. Be gentle to yourselves and go with God.