“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.

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.

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.