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Peace: It's an Inside Out Job
by Nabella Shunnarah

     James Twyman is a spiritual leader who combines music and prayer to carry his message of peace. He writes his own special brand of music to prayers, especially the peace prayers of the twelve religions of the world. In his travels, he spent time in Bosnia during the war and met a society of people who call themselves the Emissaries of Light.

     “They are thirteen people living in the mountains of Bosnia. They are spiritual masters who live in complete seclusion - no one knew they were there. They trace their lineage back two thousand years to the apostle John.

     “The emissaries had a particular type of meditation that went from midnight to noon every day. They are very esoteric and secret, but when I went to be with the emissaries, they said that their role in secret was coming to an end after two thousand years; now it was up to us to do in the open what they had done in secret -which is being spiritual peacemakers.”

     Twyman's spiritual journey with the emissaries is chronicled in a book, The Emissary of Light. Twyman also carries with him a quilt of peace called, The Cloth of Many Colors, and wraps it around churches and governmental buildings in hopes of promoting peace all over the world.

Q. How did you become a Peace Troubadour?

A. In 1994 a friend gave me a sheet of paper that had the peace prayers from the twelve major religions of the world on them. As I read the peace prayers I literally heard music playing, and I realized that the music was going with the prayers, and I wrote music to all twelve prayers; it was the most effortless thing I'd ever done before. I immediately began traveling around as the Peace Troubadour. So in that moment, I felt that my two passions came together as one thing - my music and my love of God. I knew I'd spend the rest of my life sharing these prayers through music.

     I first journeyed to Bosnia and Croatia during the war. It was the first chance I ever had to take these prayers to a country where war was the prevalent energy. I felt that if people could hear these prayers through music, maybe they would hear the message of peace in a different way. That's what music does for us, it touches us in a way that words never will. While there, I found myself on this amazing adventure that became the book, The Emissary of Light. I was brought into the mountains of Bosnia
to be with the secret society of spiritual masters called the emissaries of light. They had a very simple message that they wanted the whole world to understand. Ultimately the message is: you are ready. That is the most important message we can hear today, because when we accept that we are ready for this time and this new shift in consciousness, it begins to happen by itself; we just have to allow it to occur through us. Accepting that we're ready is how that happens.

    Since then I've traveled to Iraq, northern Ireland, Jerusalem, Kosovo, Serbia, Mexico, places where war seems to be the victor, to bring this message of peace. Every time I would go to these countries, we had a network of people around the world praying at the same time that I would do the concert. In Iraq I was invited by Saddam Hussein to come to perform the concert when we had begun bombing again, and while I was there, millions of people stopped to pray peace and we could really feel the shift; I think what we're demonstrating is that prayer is not only a powerful force, but it's THE most powerful force. That is the core message - that we have the power and the opportunity to change the world - to change the world into a place of compassion rather than conflict. We all feel something changing, something shifting, and I believe that is what it's really all about - discovering compassion for ourselves and for the world. Even though situations as in Israel are still occurring, the sense of compassion we're finding at the core of our being is very powerful.

Q. Why is the shift occurring now?

A. I don't know why now, all we can say is that this is the time because obviously, that's what's happening. Many civilizations pointed to this time and said that this would be the time of the great shift: the Mayan calendars, the Egyptians, the Native Americans, all have stories about this particular time of history and they all cite for about a 20 or 30 year period about right now is when the great shift will take place, for instance, the white buffalo in the Native American tradition. The important thing to realize is that nothing is happening out here, outside of us; all the change that is taking place is within us and it moves to the outside. Peace is not an outside in job, it's an inside out job.

Nabella Shunnarah is a freelance writer from the Birmingham, AL, area.
She can be reached at nabella@mindspring.com