Whether or not we are conscious of it, and unless we explicitly reject any notion of it, we are fellow travelers on the spiritual journey of our life. This journey involves penetrating questions like who am I and what is my life really all about. Spiritual notions of depth. These inner issues are difficult to grasp and hard to express. The core of the journey revolves around the notion of conversion: what the Gospel calls metanoia, an invitation to a radical change in the way we see our life and the direction in which it ought to go. In Prison Contemplative Fellowship circles, it is described as the movement from relating to God as outside of ourselves to finding God dwelling within us. A God outside of us is the God that requires, first and foremost, our obedience and loyalty. The God we discover within is the God that invites us to wordless, personal intimacy. Progress in this spiritual conversion depends on individual abilities we already possess: a reflective inner experience, a supportive circle of fellow travelers, and the use of music and story to show us our inner terrain.
Practitioners of contemplative prayer become routinely familiar with the stream of narrative constantly playing in the background of our minds. This is the constant stream of judgment, stereotype thinking, prejudice, and ignorance. It is the stuff of contemplative prayer that teaches us we are not our thoughts and judgments. We learn there is another ‘me’ inside that is separate from these thoughts.
This notion of a separate ‘me’ inside is supported whenever we sit in the Circle of Contemplative Fellowship. The circle can be an actual gathering, like the one at Folsom prison, or a gathering in some other form. Reading particular wisdom teachers invites us into their ‘circle’. Reading this blog invites us into a cyber-circle of like-minded, interested persons. We learn that although I am unique in the world, and have my own distinct, individual relationship with the Divine, still I am with fellow travelers who experience similar inner realities. Their stories and insights support my journey. Without them, I flounder, lose my bearings and direction. Our circle becomes integral to our progress. We share our ‘story’ in the Circle, and witness the change in our notion of who is actually ‘brother and sister’. Often these notions are beyond race and religion.
Since our inner experience is below words, inspiring music and story helps us grasp the enormity of our personal conversion. We sense the depths and drama of music that bypasses our intellect to allow us to ‘feel’ birth, or death, or suffering, or resurrection in a part of ourselves separate from our brains.
We can listen with new ears to the stories and narratives of spiritual masters who down through the centuries have trod these paths before us and left us their considered wisdom. For those with a Christian background, Jesus of Nazareth, the ‘Jesus before Christianity’, becomes the prime interpreter of our inner experience of the ‘presence and action’ of the God Within. His are not new commandments we need to add to the list. Rather his stories are a simple means of explaining the transformations going on in the depths of our being.
I invite you into this experiment of finding a cyber circle, as a way to expand the transforming experience I have witnessed in the prison circle where we grapple with the notions of who we are, who God is, and how God lives in us.
I’m so grateful to have been made aware of this website and about Prison Contemplative Fellowship. Just becoming involved with prison ministry. Have been practicing Centering Prayer for about 25 years. Looking forward to discovering opportunities to introduce CP as part of prison ministry. God’s blessings upon us all!
I’m interested in prison ministry. So, I will be coming to this site to read what is posted. thank you.
Well said, Ray and Donna.
I will be entering confinement at Montgomery (AL) FPC next week and am looking forward to the opportunities offered in this new environment. I trust that I will be able to communicate with Ray and others, but do not know. Time may tell what God has in mind for these trials.
In any event, thank you for your efforts, and may you be blessed and have peace in Christ!
Frank A. Baker
Had been involved with Kairos prison ministry for about 5 years . Found out about PCF thru reading the Mendicant article, put out by the CAC, written by Ray Leonardini.. Very much interested in learning more about this association and how to participate..
Some of the members of our congregation in Harrisburg PA have young family members in prison. Our Episcopal congregation has a part-time priest – who we love dearly – who is already stretched thin with 2 jobs, and who does not have the time to help us get involved in prison ministry. If there is training materials or mentoring available, I would be very interested in getting involved. Thank you.
Yesterday at CCI one of the men shared one of the fruits of his meditation practice. He said that he was sitting down praying when someone swept dust right into his face. Ordinarily he would get angry and “deck the guy,” but instead he thought, “That was rude,” and then he let it go. He was amazed at the change he saw in himself.
I’m from Michigan and interested in volunteering,any info anyone could give would be helpful
Rusty,
My reply will go on record as being the tardiest ‘reply’ possible. Please forgive me and chalk it up to my own intimidation of my own website. (Not a pretty picture.) Anyway, may I ask you to write to me at [email protected] and I’ll respond my carefully. Promise.
Ray Leonardini
I am from the UK. I’m not sure if we have anything like this in our penal systems. All I know is it is a revolving door scenario with little chance to change and learn to love one another and themselves. I’m very humbled by the work being done and pray you get more help. With love in Christ Jackie frost.
Hi Jackie,
Many thanks for your kind words. Just within the last few weeks I’ve had several inquiries regarding Centering Prayer in the UK. May I ask you to write to me at [email protected] so we can begin a dialogue?
Thanks,
Ray Leonardini
Having spent the last 7 years visiting prisons with Kairos, I realize the necessity of prayer. Private prayer and public prayer plus singing is so important for the individual to try an overcome this de-humanizing experience of prison. All of us are saved when we learn to forgive ourselves and others.
Please continue this most needed ministry.
Many thanks for your support. I interact with lot of folks who participate in Kairos in prisons and jails. Great work. I see Centering Prayer as a worthy amplification of their prayer experiences, particularly as a way of gaining distance from the self-loathing and dehumanization of incarceration.
Thanks again.
Ray Leonardini
I’m revisiting your website as I write a letter to the courageous public defender who spoke with compassion to the media about the brokenness of her client (the accused in this week’s tragic high school shooting). I only saw the interview because one of the men in our prayer circle spoke about how powerful it was for him to hear her words — he immediately recognized and related to that brokenness. He spoke very beautifully about how grateful he is for the new understanding he is coming to through the practice of Centering Prayer and the study we are doing of Invitation to Love, your book, etc.
What a tremendous grace it is to have resources we can offer inside those walls to people who are opening their hearts, seeking change, facing and grappling with — and seeking healing of — the broken parts of themselves that, as this fellow put it, “led that young man to do what he did, led me to be here, let you all to be here”.
Thank you very much for all you do to facilitate hope and healing through making these resources available. I’m going to include your contact info in my letter and hope that you and others in the PCF circle will lift up this attorney and her client in prayer. Nothing any of us has done or can ever do has the power to separate us from the God who is love. How incredibly important it is that we support one another in witnessing to that, and that we resist the temptation to judge and to vilify.
Peace, Chandra