March 2026

In this month's eBulletin, we’re honored to share Octavia's voice as we thank her for two and a half years as a core Praestolari/PCF team member. She was Praestolari's first steady hire, back in August of 2023, working 20 hours/week as Executive Assistant (the only paid positions prior to hers were seasonal part time Data Analysts, helping track resident locations for newsletter mailings). Octavia has grown and changed along with the organization, and this is part of her story...

The Gift of Unknowing

A story from Octavia, who's now focusing on Special Projects

“You don’t know what you don’t know,” barked Joe West, stepfather to The Flash. It has been at least 8 years since I watched that episode, but I’ve never forgotten those words. He was warning Barry about all the bad that could happen, but life has shown me the same is true about the good. 

I had no idea Centering Prayer existed when I applied for a job at Praestolari. Any previous attempt to meditate was usually thwarted by the idea that I had to quiet my mind. I had also never knowingly interacted with anyone who had spent time in prison. I couldn’t have known the gift the Spirit was bringing into my life, but now I have a practice that reshapes my relationship with surrender and relationships I will always treasure. 

I have grown to understand Centering Prayer as a discipline of letting go. And like any discipline, it develops because you practice it. You practice sitting in silence. You practice returning to your sacred word. You practice presence. And even if you don’t realize it, you’re practicing something much deeper. 

I do not know what happens within me as I sit in silence. I don’t have measurable outcomes, and sometimes I don’t feel any different than before I sat down. I consent anyway. My mind wanders time after time, and sometimes it wanders for so long I forget that I’m meant to let the thoughts go. Lawrence Hamilton once explained it as not letting your thoughts catch you—mine catch me all the time. I wonder if I’m doing it right. I consent anyway. 

And in practicing that consent, the unexpected has happened. I don’t know when it began, but I started to carry my consent outside my 20-minute sits. I have no certainty about where my journey is heading. At my ripe age of 31 in a world of “supposed to’s” life can feel unsettling. I consent anyway.

Centering Prayer has helped me trust that even though I don’t know what I don’t know, the Spirit does. My own aspirations have been influenced by my time on this team, opening me to possibilities and self-recognition I don’t know I would’ve found otherwise. Because I don’t know what I don’t know, life has been able to repeatedly surprise me. My unknowing has been shaped into capacity. 

In not knowing what I don’t know, I’ve replaced my lack of certainty with worthy exploration. I’ve replaced fear with trust. I’ve replaced performance with authenticity. Praestolari/PCF hasn’t only taught me a prayer practice. It has helped me understand myself and given me space to be unsure, to stop working against my nature, and to begin nurturing it instead. But the most important truth I’ve learned: it is by only grace that my troubles and trauma are lighter than someone else’s. It is wisdom I gained serving the formerly and currently incarcerated. Our worst mistakes are not a measure of our hearts and nothing could ever measure our worthiness or value. 

I’ve noticed how much the world expects immediate results without creating thriving conditions and how often I’ve expected the same from myself and others. If an experience isn’t producing, measurable, moving toward a clear outcome, it can feel like a waste of time. This practice has taught me to reposition myself within that way of thinking. Hearing stories about the women and men inside being slowly transformed with each other and creating a space to be unfinished and become is inspiring. And no one could be sure it would become what it has. 

The gift of not knowing creates space to explore, to try, to sow widely. Because you don’t know what might grow, you’re free to plant every seed. And while disappointment or hurt may come when things don’t turn out the way you hoped, consenting to being part of a bigger picture softens that blow. It allows you to trust in the unseen fruit. It allows you to believe that what is happening still has meaning, even when you don’t understand it.

When I was a kid in Sabbath school, we had to memorize Hebrews 11:1. “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” I could always remember the first part because I understood it. But the second part? It was always just words. Until now. Faith in the bigger picture the Spirit is quietly shaping is evidence that the bigger picture exists.

I didn’t know what sitting in silence was doing any more than I knew what getting into this work would do. But over time, both have reshaped me in ways only the Spirit could’ve known.

Tracing the Story, Trusting the Spirit

(3 1/2 minutes)

As we continue researching and telling the history of Centering Prayer inside prison walls, we’re reminded that this story has never been driven by strategy alone. It has unfolded through people saying yes, often without knowing what that yes would become.


Octavia has been deeply engaged in this work, helping gather stories, trace the early timeline, and piece together the voices that shaped these communities. In listening closely to those who were there — volunteers, chaplains, and residents — she has begun to notice a pattern: no one had the full picture. People went inside without all the answers. They showed up. They practiced. They consented.

In this short video, Octavia reflects on how the Spirit has been moving through these stories — and through her own unexpected journey into this work. Looking back, she sees what many of us recognize: we rarely know what is being shaped in the moment. We consent anyway. And over time, the Spirit reveals a larger picture.


📖 Visit our blog to read more reflections and stories from our community. 
 
What a blessing it is to be able to share these powerful examples of transformation quietly unfolding -- through stillness, community, and grace. They are welcome reminders that engaging contemplative practices opens us to profound transformation.

United in Prayer Day 2026: A Global Vigil held on Zoom

United in Prayer Day is an invitation for all who are connected, both inside and outside prison walls, to join together in Centering Prayer for a special day of extended prayer. Though separated by distance and circumstance, we enter the Silence as one body, remembering that contemplative prayer transcends time and space.

This year marks Contemplative Outreach’s 34th annual United in Prayer Day. The dates this year are March 6–7, 2026; as for the past several years, it will be marked through a continuous global vigil held on Zoom.



Rooted in the global unity of silence as God’s first language, this vigil honors the suffering of all creation, commemorates the birthday of Fr. Thomas Keating (March 7), and celebrates the growing presence of Christ among us. For eighteen hours, Centering Prayer practitioners across the world will host and participate in a continuous prayer vigil, with each hour led by a different group. Every hour includes at least twenty minutes of Centering Prayer along with a brief offering from the hosting community.

All are welcome to join at any time and for as long as they are able. No registration is required. The vigil begins on Friday, March 6 at 9pm Eastern Time, and the schedule and Zoom link will be posted on the Contemplative Outreach website a few days beforehand.

We invite you to give special attention to the hour hosted by the Outside the Walls Centering Prayer community, which will be held at 1pm Eastern / 12pm Central / 11am Mountain / 10am Pacific. During this hour, we will join together in prayer with our brothers and sisters both inside and outside prison walls, holding our shared contemplative community in silence and intention.

United in Prayer is a simple but powerful reminder of the invisible threads that connect us. Inside correctional facilities, in homes and churches, and across communities worldwide, we are united in a single intention: to consent to the presence and action of the Divine within us and among us.

Wherever you are, you are invited to take part in this global circle of prayer—whether by joining the Zoom vigil, sitting in Centering Prayer on your own, or holding this community in your heart throughout the day.

In the stillness, we remember: we are never alone.

Here is a short video from last year’s United in Prayer hour hosted by the Outside the Walls group, offering a glimpse into what this global vigil is like and how our community comes together in shared silence. We hope it gives you a feel for the spirit of the day and encourages you to join us this year.

(25 minutes)

Phil aka Frenchy (former resident) and Mike Kelley (former volunteer) were two of the original members of the Centering Prayer group at Old Folsom, which continues meeting to this day; this picture was taken on February 28th, at a restaurant in Sacramento

On Monday, March 2nd, Chandra was able to visit the group at Folsom with Grace Sternard and Alan Foster (not shown)

The first 20 years...

In our most recent issue of Centering Inside, we began tracing the early history of how Centering Prayer found its way behind prison walls across the United States. That newsletter — sent directly to residents across the country — is now unfolding a multi-part timeline of how this contemplative practice took root inside correctional facilities.

The first chapter focuses on the first twenty years.

It was nearly forty years ago that ancient contemplative practices were rearticulated for the modern world by three Trappist monks in Massachusetts and Centering Prayer began to move outward through individuals and small faith communities -- the growing network known as Contemplative Outreach. That growth found its way into men’s, women’s, and juvenile detention facilities. Indeed, evidence points to Centering Prayer groups taking root inside at least fourteen states between 1986 and 2006. 

In each case, the beginnings were humble: one or two volunteers willing to show up, and a handful of folks inside hungry for a different way of relating — to life, to themselves, to one another, and to the Divine.

Some of the names we know. Many we never will. And that is precisely why we are doing this research — to honor both the visible and the unseen threads that have carried this practice across time and place.

Mary Wyman (former Coordinator of Contemplative Outreach of Northern California) and George Biniek (long-time volunteer at San Quentin)

Our Executive Director, Chandra, has recently been in California meeting with people who played different roles in these unfolding stories. She has visited with Ray Leonardini, Mike Kelley, and Janice Boyd — who designed the Prison Contemplative Fellowship logo — as well as George Biniek, Mary Wyman, Sister Suzanne and Sister Judy (Sisters of Mercy). She has also spent time with Kenneth, Phil, and Josh, who were part of Centering Prayer groups while incarcerated and who are part of the Outside The Walls community today.

Each conversation adds texture and depth. Each memory fills in a piece of the timeline. Each person helps illuminate how Centering Prayer has moved, powerfully if quietly inside prison walls.

Terry Bridges (who volunteers at Folsom), Chandra and Janice Boyd (who designed the logo for Prison Contemplative Fellowship and continues to support our work as Co-Coordinator of Contemplative Outreach of Sacramento/Stockton Area, COSSA).

Chandra with Sister Suzanne Toolen and George Biniek (both of whom volunteered for many years at San Quentin)

The next chapter of Centering Inside will turn to Ray Leonardini’s time guiding the Centering Prayer group at Folsom Prison. Building on the foundation laid by Mike Kelley, other volunteers, and participant-leaders, Ray helped nurture a community that continued to grow through steady presence and shared practice. The Folsom “Contemplative Fellowship” became widely known not because of a grand vision, but because of faithfulness — volunteers and residents consenting together to silence, week after week. From that soil, Prison Contemplative Fellowship emerged.

As we research and record this history, we are reminded that Centering Prayer transcends time and space. In the Silence, we are joined not only with those practicing now, but with those who consented to the presence and action of the Divine decades ago and will in the future — inside chapel rooms, dorms, and small circles of trust.

The story is still unfolding. And we are grateful to be telling it, together. 

What's your why?

From residents inside to volunteers and members of our Outside the Walls community, we continue to witness how Centering Prayer transforms lives.

We’d love to hear from you. What inspires you to continue practicing Centering Prayer?

We invite you to share your story. Your voice helps us nurture a contemplative community that transcends walls.

Our Mission


Prison Contemplative Fellowship/Praestolari builds contemplative community that transcends walls. Journeying together as people affected by incarceration, we share Centering Prayer meditation and foster connections to support healing and transformation, both personal and communal.

We support contemplative practice inside and beyond prison walls by:

• Making Centering Prayer resources widely accessible
• Strengthening communication and connection across the walls
• Accompanying practitioners as they return home from incarceration
• Co-sponsoring annual retreats with COPOST

Support our Mission

We place great value on all actions and intentions that align with our mission and help grow/support the community.

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Resources & Materials



Our goal is to share contemplative resources as broadly as possible. We send a variety of materials inside locked facilities—responding to direct requests from incarcerated individuals, supporting volunteers and chaplains who accompany Centering Prayer groups, and sharing resources through our partnership with the Human Kindness Foundation. See some of our most requested materials below.

If you would like to receive books or DVDs, please contact us at hello@uspcf.org. Let us know if you are currently sharing Centering Prayer inside—or if you’re interested in learning how to get started.

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Your participation helps this work travel farther and reach those who may need it. When something resonates, engaging—by liking, commenting, or sharing—is one of the most meaningful ways to support this work.