We talk with spiritual director Terra McDaniel about how to rediscover the lost practice of lament, so we can heal and hope again. Most people don't know how to process personal or communal mourning and instead struggle to honor our tears, vulnerability, and the full weight of these disillusioning times. But tending our grief is exactly what we need to reimagine a way forward.

Terra's book Hopeful Lament: Tending Our Grief Through Spiritual Practices makes space for the powerful act of crying out before a loving God and offers provoking reflection questions, embodied practices, and applications for families with children. Learn how to journey gently through suffering.

Terra McDaniel is a spiritual director for adults and children. She spent two decades as a pastor and ministry leader and earned her MDiv at Portland Seminary. McDaniel wrote More Than Ordinary with Doug Sherman and is a regular contributor to the Companioning Center blog. She lives with her husband in Austin, Texas, with her twin grandchildren nearby.

You can connect with her and her work on her website.

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Matt posted something on Facebook recently about people who attempt to "police" those going through deconstruction, who seem to:

1. equate deconstruction with de-conversion,
2. say people deconstruct so they can sin,
3. say people deconstruct to 'be cool or hip or trendy or for street cred',
4. criticize 'giving up' on the local church, and
5. blame deconstruction on bad teaching.

Matt received a response from Aaron Gardner, a friend who is right in the middle of a painful deconstruction process, and we decided to record a podcast conversation about what it's actually like to be right in the middle of deconstruction.

You can connect with Aaron on his Facebook page for further conversation.

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• Join the Gravity Community to interact with other listeners, and get our list of curated links each week to all things edifying and interesting.
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In their new book Beyond Justification: Liberating Paul’s Gospel, Douglas Campbell and Jon Depue address a growing frustration among many Christians of how to understand what seems to be contradictory messages from Paul about the Gospel.

On one hand, Paul usually talks about a participatory, transformational good news full of freedom, resurrection, love, and being ‘in Christ’. On the other hand, about 10% of the time Paul’s language speaks of retribution, punitive justice, and a conditional transaction at the cross. What to make of this disjunction in Paul’s thought?

Jon Depue joins us for a provocative conversation seeking a way through this quagmire that has consistently confounded Christians for many years. Making use of historical backgrounds and utilizing a close reading of Paul’s rhetoric and argument in the book of Romans, Doug and Jon propose a compelling and unifying way forward to a clear articulation of Paul’s Gospel.

Jon DePue is a graduate of Duke Divinity School and has served churches as director of Christian education for several years. He currently works as a learning community support specialist for Indianapolis Public Schools.

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