The convicts and I, a volunteer, sit in a circle in the prison. We do this every Thanksgiving. Eyes closed, we imagine sitting around a table in a clearing surrounded by a woods in which the parts of ourselves we have exiled live a furtive life.

We sense inside for any exile who might feel safe enough with us now to step out of the woods and join us at the feast. We also sense for whoever else with which we want to reconnect.

Rafael breaks our silence. "I invite the part of me that hides its pain and smiles. It even smiled at my mother's funeral. My father liked that. 'You're strong,' he told me. But that part of me has been hurting alone for more than 40 years."

James invites his co-defendant Kevin, an armed robber, to the Table. Kevin is undergoing chemotherapy for cancer at another prison.

"We all heard about Kevin and how tough he was," Khalid says, glad to welcome Kevin. "But when I first walked into the joint, Kevin came up to me and gave me soap, toothpaste and shampoo. He said to me, 'I don't want nothing from you! All I ask is, when you see someone coming in and he don't have soap and toothpaste and shampoo, you do the same for him.' I never forgot Kevin."

After a long silence, Ted speaks: "I was always told 'shut up!' when I was a kid trying to express myself. Now I invite the part of me that's afraid to speak up."

Rafael calls out: "I invite the light that shines in my darkest moments."

The light appears. I feel it shining against my closed eyelids.

Charlie welcomes to the Table a guard ("cop") who treats him with contempt.

"I get angry at how bad he treats me," Charlie says. "But now it hits me: Why is it wrong for a cop to treat me with disrespect when I treat parts of myself even worse? It's not any more right for me to disrespect myself than it is for a cop to! I throw parts of myself in a garbage can and then walk away feeling like I've got holes in my heart where those parts used to be. I don't want to treat myself that way anymore. "

Along with the guard, Charlie's sudden compassion for himself joins our Table.

"I welcome Love to the Table,' says Khalid, a powerful poet in the oral tradition.

After silence, he speaks again: "I couldn't read or write when I came to this prison. I took some classes and they were so hard, I cried. The books were too big and there weren't any pictures! I invite the part of me that despaired back then. I'll sit it right here beside the light that shines in Rafael's darkest moments."

The words of Barry, an African-American whose hair I've watched turn from black to gray, land like bullets in my belly: "I invite the man I shot and killed 30 years ago."

Barry can never forget his victim. Growing up in prison, he has wrestled all these years with the act he committed as a teenager on drugs.

He has more guests to welcome: "I invite all my ancestors going back to Adam and Eve because sometimes I feel so alone. But I'm not alone. I need to remember that. All my ancestors are here with me."

As millions of Barry’s ancestors sit down with us, the Table expands, reaching throughout the visible and invisible worlds.

This Table is a resonant field. Here, there is no “now” and “then,” no “today” and “long ago,” no “inside” myself and “outside” in the world.

The way in which I treat the different voices within me—my interior “selves”—is always connected to the way I treat my friends, neighbors, and enemies—my exterior “selves,” explains Sufi scholar Neil Douglas-Klotz, whose work helped inspire the Table.

In the Semitic language view, he adds in The Hidden Gospel, “there is a single community that includes everything from planets to the voices of the subconscious.”

As we treat exiled parts of ourselves kindly, we are increasingly able to bring home exiled parts of our “outer” community, recognizing them as vital parts of our wholeness. Those exiled include not only the millions in prisons and in hidden detention centers, but the ones Khalid now invites:

“I welcome to this Table all the people who feel themselves exiled. The homeless. The depressed. People with AIDS. Refugees from wars. The disabled. The elderly segregated away from us. All those who feel they don’t have a table to come to. I want to welcome them to this Table, to our Table.”

As the silent minutes pass punctuated by one of us calling out an invitation to a fragment of ourselves or to a shunned group, the Table expands. I feel stronger surrounded by allies, exiles, grandmothers departed and loved and enemies now embraced.

After our meal, Rahim, a lifer like so many in our circle, sighs as he opens his eyes.

"I feel so full, I need to let my belt out a couple of notches."

Every Thanksgiving, this foodless feast nourishes us, reminding us that, no matter what we have done or endured, we are not alone. We are connected to others in Sacred Unity. When we remember who we truly are, how joyous is the feast.