The Sacred Braid

Helping Persons and Communities Weave Lives of Spiritual Depth.

Main menu

Skip to primary content
Skip to secondary content
  • Home
  • About
    • About The Sacred Braid
    • About Dan Miller
    • What People Are Saying About Dan
  • Programs
    • About the Programs
    • Parish Missions
    • What People Are Saying About Dan’s Parish Missions
    • Presentations and Retreats
      • Living Advent, Living Lent
      • Living Deeply and Fully
      • Living Contemplatively and Prayerfully
      • Living Through Difficult Times
      • Living Wisdom of Soul Guides
      • Living the Liturgy of Life
      • Living Compassionately
      • Living in Kinship with the Earth
    • What People Are Saying About Dan’s Presentations and Retreats
  • Spiritual Direction
    • Interested in Spiritual Direction (Online)?
    • Interview of Dan for MysticMag
    • Presentations on Spiritual Direction
    • What People Are Saying About Dan’s Presentations on Spiritual Direction
  • H & H
    • 2016 – 2017
    • 2017 – 2018
    • Winter/Spring 2020
    • What People Are Saying About H and H
    • Resources
  • The Written Word
    • Poems
    • The Almond Tree
    • Articles
    • Prayers
  • Donate
  • Contact

Post navigation

← Older posts
Newer posts →

A Rendezvous with Love

Posted on November 2, 2015 by Daniel J. Miller
Reply
"I'm letting God love me." ~ Archbishop Raymnd Hunthausen To be loved, to open oneself to receive love, makes us capable of loving others. More and more I realize the need for us to understand prayer as a rendezvous with love, as the receiving and Read more [...]
Posted in Prayer | Tagged Archbishop Hunthausen, Love | Leave a reply

The Fourth and Fifth Aspects of Love

Posted on October 31, 2015 by Daniel J. Miller
Reply
On the Human Person “The fourth aspect of love is celebration,” writes Vanier. “It is not enough to reveal to people their value, to understand and care for them. To love people is also to celebrate them. . . . [E]very child, every person, needs Read more [...]
Posted in Becoming Human | Tagged Celebration, Empowerment, Jean Vanier, Midwife | Leave a reply

The Second and Third Aspects of Love

Posted on October 29, 2015 by Daniel J. Miller
Reply
On the Human Person The second aspect of love according to what Vanier has learned living in L’Arche communities, is the call to understand. The world often seems saturated with judgment and seriously lacking in understanding. What’s worse is that Read more [...]
Posted in Becoming Human | Tagged Communication, Jean Vanier, Love, Understanding | Leave a reply

End of Year Reflections

Posted on May 30, 2015 by Daniel J. Miller
Reply
Note: I have decided to upload this [edited and abridged] end-of-the-year letter to the H&H community in the hopes that it might have something of value to those outside this gathered community. Our focus for the year was "Embracing Life, Engaging Read more [...]
Posted in Spiritual Formation | Tagged Christ-ening, Embracing Life, Engaging Death, Openness, Paschal Mystery, Resistance, Transformation | Leave a reply

The Madness of March, the Audacity of April

Posted on March 31, 2015 by Daniel J. Miller
1
"There is no resurrection that is not the resurrection of love" ~ Dan Miller The Madness of March, the Audacity of April In the culture, at least the American sporting culture, these past two or three weeks and this week especially are considered Read more [...]
Posted in Triduum | Tagged Divine Love, Dying, Holy Foolishness, Life, Resurrection | 1 Reply

Taking Stock

Posted on February 28, 2015 by Daniel J. Miller
Reply
Saturday, The First Week of Lent, YEAR B I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not Read more [...]
Posted in Self-Exploration | Tagged Conscious Living, Embracing Life, Engaging Death, Thoreau | Leave a reply

The Audacity of Hope

Posted on February 22, 2015 by Daniel J. Miller
2
Contrary to the gloom and doom atmosphere that sometimes is assumed to be the proper mood of this season, the word Lent comes from the word meaning to lengthen and refers to the coming of springtime, the coming of more and more daylight. Admittedly, it Read more [...]
Posted in Hope | Tagged Darkness, Julian of Norwich, Lent, Spiritual Practice, Spring | 2 Replies

Making Room

Posted on February 20, 2015 by Daniel J. Miller
Reply
Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era (1868-1912), received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen. Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor’s cup full, and then kept on pouring. The professor watched the overflow until he Read more [...]
Posted in Lent & Easter | Tagged Almsgiving, Creating Space, Emptiness, Fasting, Lent, Prayer, Spiritual Practice, The Poor | Leave a reply

How’s Your Love Life?

Posted on February 18, 2015 by Daniel J. Miller
Reply
Ash Wednesday Rend your hearts, not your garments, and return to the LORD, your God, For God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and relenting in punishment                                     Read more [...]
Posted in Lent & Easter | Tagged Ash Wednesday, Divine Love, Love | Leave a reply

The Work of Christmas

Posted on December 29, 2014 by Daniel J. Miller
Reply
When the song of the angels is stilled, When the star in the sky is gone, When the kings and princes are home, When the shepherds are back with their flocks, The work of Christmas begins: To find the lost, To heal the broken, To feed the hungry, To Read more [...]
Posted in Advent & Christmas | Tagged Advent & Christmas, Anawim, God's Dream, Howard Thurman, Incarnation | Leave a reply

Post navigation

← Older posts
Newer posts →

Sample of Writings

  • What a Christian Looks Like
  • The Life of Sigh
  • The Song That Refuses to Sing
  • A Word to the Wise – Kindness
  • To Bless and Be Blessed
  • Listening to the Wind in the Wheat: A Meditation on the Eucharist
  • Being Human—Being Moved
  • In Gratitude for the Wild and Precious Life of Mary Oliver
  • TheGift Who Was Claire Wineland

Sayings of Brother Weeps

  • Brother Weeps Says Good Night
  • Brother Weeps and the Secretary of State
  • Brother Weeps and the Man in the Back
  • Brother Weeps on the Withness of God
  • Brother Weeps, the Hermit and His Dogs
  • Brother Weeps Speaks on Silence
  • Brother Weeps Drives Up a Hill
  • Brother Weeps and the Do-Si-Do

Recent Posts

  • We the People February 17, 2026
  • A Prayer of Martin Luther King, Jr. January 19, 2026
  • This is True December 22, 2025
  • Lectio Poetica No. 13 — We Will Be Known How? February 25, 2025
  • Shouldn’t Christians Try Christianity? February 10, 2025

Topics

Abraham Heschel Advent Aliveness Anawim Awe Beauty Becoming Human Being Present Blessing Brother Weeps Children Christ Christ-life Christmas Compassion Contemplative Seeing Courage Creation Death Divine Love Earth Faith God Gratefulness Hope Incarnation Jesus Joy Justice Kindness Lent Listening Love Music Nature Peace Poetry Prayer Silence Spiritual Practice Suffering Thomas Merton Transformation Wise Sayings Wonder

Topic Categories

  • Advent & Christmas (49)
  • Art (1)
  • Beauty (4)
  • Becoming Human (19)
  • Blessed Tension (5)
  • Blessing (10)
  • Boredom (1)
  • Breakthrough (1)
  • Christian (2)
  • Christian Spirituality (2)
  • Community (4)
  • Compassion (17)
  • Contemplative Living (9)
  • Cosmology (1)
  • Creation (8)
  • Darkness (1)
  • Death (6)
  • Descent (4)
  • Desert Abbas & Ammas (2)
  • Earth (6)
  • Ecology (2)
  • Epiphany (1)
  • Exemplars of Faith (6)
  • Faith (2)
  • Fear (1)
  • Forgiveness (1)
  • God (22)
  • Gratefulness (17)
  • Holiness (6)
  • Hope (10)
  • Hospitality (1)
  • Humility (1)
  • Imago Dei (2)
  • Incarnation (6)
  • Jesus (3)
  • Joy (9)
  • Judgment (1)
  • Justice (7)
  • Kindness (5)
  • Lent & Easter (26)
  • Life & Death (1)
  • Listening (16)
  • Liturgy of Life (3)
  • Living (1)
  • Love (19)
  • Mary (1)
  • Music (3)
  • Mystery (1)
  • Mystic (8)
  • Non-Violence (10)
  • Paschal Mystery (3)
  • Passion (2)
  • Peace (2)
  • Pensées (1)
  • Poetry (36)
  • Praise (1)
  • Prayer (39)
  • Presence (7)
  • Remembrance (2)
  • Renewal (1)
  • Resurrection (2)
  • Reverence (4)
  • Sacred Journey (3)
  • Saints (9)
  • Sayings (1)
  • Scripture (1)
  • Self-Compassion (1)
  • Self-Exploration (3)
  • Significant Living (6)
  • Silence (18)
  • Simplicity (11)
  • Solidarity (3)
  • Solitude (3)
  • Song (3)
  • Soul-Work (2)
  • Spiritual Formation (1)
  • Spiritual Growth (3)
  • Spirituality (11)
  • Stillness (4)
  • Story (32)
  • Suffering (4)
  • Transformation (5)
  • Triduum (13)
  • Trust (1)
  • Truth (1)
  • Uncategorized (440)
  • Universe (1)
  • Waiting (1)
  • Wakefulness (1)
  • Wholeness (1)
  • Wisdom (2)
  • Wonder & Awe (14)
  • Word to the Wise (11)
  • Words (4)
  • Woundedness (1)
  • Yearning (2)

The Almond Tree

Programs


Interested in having Dan come to your community to teach, preach, or lead a retreat? Dan offers Parish Missions, as well as Presentations and Retreats, in a variety of formats .

Read More ►

Spiritual Direction


Interested in Spiritual Direction? Dan is based on Whidbey Island north of Seattle, WA. He meets with people online and occasionally in person. He also is available to teach in spiritual guidance programs or to give talks about spiritual direction.

Read More ►

The Human & the Holy


Interested in being part of a spiritual formation community? The Human & the Holy is an ecumenical community that comes together once a month to share simple ritual, contemplative silence, reverent dialogue, attentive listening, presentation, and spiritual practice.

Read More ►

© Daniel J. Miller, 2013-2026. All Rights Reserved.
For more information contact Dan Miller.