SPIRITUAL DIRECTION
SOUL FRIENDSHIP
A person without a soul friend
is like a body without a head
— Gaelic saying often ascribed to St. Brigid
INTERESTED IN SPIRITUAL DIRECTION?
Presently, due to the COVID-19 virus, I am meeting with people for spiritual direction online. If you are curious or interested, feel free to contact me here and we can set up an appointment for an initial conversation.
SPIRITUAL DIRECTION
For a description of my understanding of spiritual direction, CLICK HERE.
PRACTICAL ISSUES
After being contacted by the potential directee, I will schedule an initial conversation. This conversation gives directees a chance to tell me about themselves, especially touching on their faith life and explaining why they are seeking spiritual direction at this time. It gives directees an opportunity to ask me questions and provides me some time to explain my understanding, style, and approach to spiritual direction. If it is agreed that spiritual direction is the appropriate relationship (as opposed, for example, to psychotherapy, pastoral counseling, mentoring, coaching, etc.), and if the potential directee feels comfortable with me as their prospective director, then a formal spiritual direction session is scheduled.
I ask for a suggested sliding scale fee which I discuss in the initial conversation. I turn no one away for lack of funds. Out of common courtesy, any cancellation of an appointment, with the exception of sudden illness or an emergency, must be made 24 hours in advance without forfeiting the fee. Typically, I meet with directees for 55 minutes in length beginning on the hour and usually once every four weeks unless the directee asks to meet more often. All communication within the spiritual direction session is confidential unless the directee chooses to discuss it outside the session.
DAN MILLER, PH.D.
I have been a spiritual director since 1988. One of the lead instructors in the Art of Spiritual Direction program at the Center for Spiritual Development in Orange, California from 2002 – 2011, and presently a lead teacher at the Opening and Closing Residencies for CenterQuest’s School of Spiritual Direction, I also have experience teaching, mentoring, and supervising spiritual-directors and directors-to-be. It was my good fortune to train with Gerald May, Tilden Edwards, Shaun McCarty, and Rosemary Dougherty in the Spiritual Guidance Program at the Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation in Washington, D.C. from 1986-1988.
I am a Catholic Christian with an ecumenical spirit and an appreciation and reverence for any serious spiritual seeker or practitioner. Presently it is my privilege to offer spiritual direction to people who identify themselves as Catholic, mainline Protestant, non-denominational Christian, Jewish, and unaffiliated seeker. I am open to sitting with any genuine spiritual journeyer, honoring each person’s spiritual heritage and soul path.
My commitment and joy are to accompany people who desire to live significant lives, to make their way through life with its difficulties and dilemmas as a person of faith, to become more fully alive, to experience inner healing and growth, to cultivate lives of spiritual depth, to learn what it means to be the beloved of God, and to discover and offer their gifts for the good of others and all the earth.