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Singing and quilting for peace By Bill Varble James Twyman had a dream. It was 1998, and the singer/guitarist had been performing peace songs for refugees in a camp in Kosovo. In his dream, he saw the United Nations building wrapped in a giant quilt made of millions of swatches of cloth that carried prayers of peace from all over the world. On Sept. 19 Twyman presented the quilt, by then nearly a mile long, in a ceremony at United Nations headquarters in New York City. The next day, he strung it along one side of the Capitol in Washington. Two days later he presented it at the Pentagon. If you go Who: James Twyman, author and peace troubadour. What: Peace concert. When: 7 p.m. Wednesday; presentation of Cloth of Many Colors begins at 6. Where : Windmill�s Ashland Hills Inn. Getting in: Concert admission is $10 general, $7 seniors, children under 8 free; 6 p.m. outdoor presentation is free. On Wednesday, a 150-foot piece of the quilt will visit Ashland, where Twyman plans a peace ceremony and a concert. In a telephone interview from Spokane, Wash., Twyman, 38, says he�s been in Alaska and is heading to Portland, Eugene, Ashland and on to California. He asks those who come to the quilt event to bring a small piece of cloth they have blessed for peace. The pieces will be sewn into 36-inch squares to help the cloth keep growing. For the ceremony, people form a circle and hold the cloth. "They turn it outward and radiate it out, blessing the town and the area," he says. Most of the ever-growing quilt � it�s now three-quarters of a mile long by 36 inches wide � is in storage in Joshua Tree, Calif., when Twyman is on the road. Twyman has collected hundreds of thousands of cloth pieces from people in more than 50 countries and done peace concerts in the world�s most troubled spots: Iraq, Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Kosovo and Jerusalem. It was setting peace prayers from a dozen religions to music in 1994 that put Twyman, who�s also a guitarist, on the road to being an ambassador for peace, he says. The goal was to show that all spiritual paths can point to peace. Originally from Chicago, he�d kicked around different jobs since graduating from Loyola University in 1984. "I sold those Craftmatic adjustable beds you see on TV," he says. As part of a 1998 prayer event in New York City that Twyman called "The Great Experiment," an estimated 5 million or more people in 80 countries attended local prayer circles timed to coincide for 10 minutes. In England on a book tour that year, Twyman said in a radio interview he�d like to go to Iraq and sing a Muslim peace prayer. Word reached the Iraqi Embassy. "The next thing I knew I was on a plane to Jordan," he says. Then came a 10-hour taxi drive and a show at a theater in Baghdad. Saddam Hussein was to have come, but canceled. "It was incredible," Twyman says. "There were thousands of people praying." On Sept. 20, Twyman laid the peace quilt on the ground on the west side of the U.S. Capitol with the help of several hundred volunteers. Two days later he presented it at the Pentagon, where he says the chaplain had a "peace pole" with the legend, "May peace prevail on earth." "It was amazing to walk through this building with nothing but military people bringing this quilt that�s like a vibrating prayer of peace," he says. Twyman has a theory about prayer. "When we pray for anything, what we are really doing is focusing our attention on the fact that we don�t have it," he says. "And since whatever we focus on expands, we are actually promoting the energy of �not having.� "The experience of praying peace is to focus our feelings on the peace that is perhaps hidden, but which is present nonetheless." Twyman is the author of "Praying Peace," (Findhorn Press, $12.95) a book in the form of a conversation with a computer scientist and a psychologist. For more, visit www.emissaryoflight.com. Reach reporter Bill Varble at 776-4478 or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2000 Mail Tribune, Inc.