Blog

Stories of Transformation

Stories of healing, inner change, and lives shaped through contemplative practice.

Featured
Finding Peace in Life's Storms: Encouragement from Members of the OTW Community
Stories of Transformation
Finding Peace in Life's Storms: Encouragement from Members of the OTW Community
Stories of Transformation

This video features short excerpts from conversations with members of our Outside the Walls community. These brief reflections offer glimpses into their experiences and the ways Centering Prayer has helped them find steadiness and peace in the midst of life’s storms.

Read More →
Stories of Transformation
From Holding On to Letting Go: Michael on Centering Prayer and Change
Stories of Transformation
From Holding On to Letting Go: Michael on Centering Prayer and Change
Stories of Transformation

In this conversation, we sit down with Michael, a member of the Outside the Walls community, for a heartfelt reflection on presence, prayer, and inner transformation.

Read More →
Stories of Transformation
The Happiest and Saddest Day
Stories of Transformation
The Happiest and Saddest Day
Stories of Transformation

About halfway through my twenty-year prison sentence, I told my mom, “The day I leave this place will be the happiest and the saddest day of my life.”

The happiest—because I would finally regain my liberty after decades behind bars. The saddest—because by then, prison had also given me brothers. Men I lived with, worked with, prayed with. Men whose presence softened the daily dehumanization of incarceration. Without those relationships, many of us would not have survived.

That paradox has never left me.

Read More →
Stories of Transformation

Roots of the Practice

Stories of origin, lineage, and the history that continues to nourish this work.

Featured
Five years of showing up together
Roots of the Practice
Five years of showing up together
Roots of the Practice

Contemplative life brings us, again and again, to the recognition of our deep unity — the oneness that lives beneath every division we imagine. And at the same time, we live inside the human condition, where division is part of the texture of almost everything we do.

Read More →
Roots of the Practice
A Conversation with Mike Kelley and Phil Darghty
Roots of the Practice
A Conversation with Mike Kelley and Phil Darghty
Roots of the Practice

Mike Kelley:

I recently visited with Phil, and we were talking about the good old times, including the very first meeting of the Contemplative Fellowship (at Folsom Prison). And he told me that John, who was very instrumental at the time (a very charismatic guy), went over to him and said, “I've got a program we’re just starting, and you're going to it.”

Read More →
Roots of the Practice
Creation of the logo for Prison Contemplative Fellowship
Roots of the Practice
Creation of the logo for Prison Contemplative Fellowship
Roots of the Practice

I visited the centering prayer group at Old Folsom Prison in the late spring of 2013. It was scary to go into the prison — its gothic-like architecture with medieval-looking gates and huge granite stones was intimidating. We had to go through several gates, walk by the men's cells, by the showers, and then across the yard in order to reach Greystone Chapel, where the centering prayer group meets.

Read More →
Roots of the Practice

Contemplative Reflections

Essays and reflections on prayer, silence, and the deeper movements of the Spirit.

Featured
What might it mean to say there is a “spirituality of incarceration”?
Contemplative Reflections
What might it mean to say there is a “spirituality of incarceration”?
Contemplative Reflections

“This is the freedom Centering Prayer is going to,” says Father Thomas Keating. Every return, every act of consent to the presence and action of the Divine, fosters detachment from stubbornly following our own path, our own will.

Contemplative Reflections
The Look of Mary Robillard
Contemplative Reflections
The Look of Mary Robillard
Contemplative Reflections

In the spring of 1961, I was a senior at St. Ignatius High School in San Francisco. At that time a notorious killer was awaiting execution in San Quentin’s gas chamber.  Two years previous, Alex Robillard was stopped in a stolen car by Hillsborough police officer Eugene Doran. Alex was 19 at the time and a professional criminal. He shot Doran six times, the last bullet fired in the neck to insure death.

Contemplative Reflections
Cows, Correctional Facilities, and Contemplatives
Contemplative Reflections
Cows, Correctional Facilities, and Contemplatives
Contemplative Reflections

Precisely a week ago, four volunteers descended on an Airbnb in Graceville, Florida, making final preparations to spend the next day in prison. Sue, Linda, and William traveled over 300 miles to join Chandra, one of two volunteers who support a Centering Prayer group inside Graceville Correctional Facility (GCF), a medium security prison housing nearly 1900 men. 

Contemplative Reflections