Terra McDaniel: Rediscovering Lament as a Practice of Hope

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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