Welcome to The Sacred Braid,
a spiritual formation ministry and website featuring the offerings, writings, and images of Dan Miller. The purpose of The Sacred Braid is to support the flourishing of persons, communities, and the earth in fulfillment of the dream of God through spiritual guidance, spiritual enrichment series, retreats, writings, dialogue, and collaborative projects.

Imagine a river. Imagine one river with interlaced channels. Like a braided river whose source, flow, and destination is Divine Love, the sacred work of becoming human and holy involves four interwoven movements that make up, what I call, The Sacred Braid:

• the movement toward a genuine vital self,
• the movement toward reverent and mutually enhancing relationships with other persons,
• the movement toward intimacy and sacred kinship with the natural world, and
• the movement toward God—the Holy One who is simultaneously Indwelling Presence and the Embrace of Grace in whom we live and move and have our being.

A Catholic Christian rooted and nurtured in the contemplative and prophetic traditions, my commitment and work are to help persons and communities weave lives of spiritual depth. Tending and interlacing the four movements of The Sacred Braid are essential for cultivating a spirituality with integrity. The hallmarks of an integral spirituality are that it is mature, holistic, enlivening, communal, dialogical, responsible, liberating, and in service to love. Its chief characteristics and practices will be its commitment to weaving radical amazement and deep sympathy, grief and praise, death and resurrection, contemplative engagement and compassionate action, personal transformation and social justice, gratefulness for the earth’s care of us and our reverent care of the earth, the works of mercy and the grace of God.

If you are someone commonly wooed by wonder, someone who takes notice of the rhapsody of rain or delights in the simple, elegant choreography of geese in flight, if you are someone who is increasingly awake to “the great advantage of being alive” despite being practiced in the art of falling down and getting up, if you favor sitting with burning questions more than offering ready-made answers, if you are weary of Religion Right and leery of Spirituality Lite, if you are easily moved to tears or not easily moved to tears by the sight of human kindness or an armless child who doesn’t understand the logic of smart bombs, or if like me you yearn to know more deeply what it means to become human and holy, to live in kinship with the earth, and to participate in the dream of God, you might find this site and these offerings of interest.

In any case, welcome fellow wanderer, traveling companion, and dialogue partner.

Extravagant Blessings!

Dan

BLESSING

May the Source of Life
enliven you.
May the Divine Embrace
encircle you.
May the Holy Breath
inspire you
to love, compassion, and joy.

Amen.

© Daniel J. Miller, 2015. All Rights Reserved.