We have been silent. My mother is gathering small pine cones. We cross a wooden bridge and look down at the water. The mud hens come toward us, dragging a ripple of light across the water. Never in my life have I brought anyone to this sacred place. I have come here for its silence, early in the morning. And she, for the first time in our life together knowing exactly what I need, enters with me in silence.
As I read the prayer I began to sense something amazing. I could hear music, as if someone were playing an instrument in the next room. Then I realized that I wasn't hearing the music with my ears, but with my heart. It was prayer. The prayer was singing itself to me. I picked up my guitar and played along. The music was beautiful, and it continued until I finished the entire song . . . When it was over I realized I had just received an amazing gift. I also knew that one is never given a gift of this magnitude unless one is meant to share it.
~ from THE SECRET OF THE BELOVED DISCIPLE by James Twyman
Love by its very nature is a gift freely given. And yet, this gift is known only as it is given again . . . Give as love gives -- just as the sun that gives its light to all who ask, or the sparrow that sings for the song itself. When you give love, love is your reward. When you judge some people worthy of your giving and other people as undeserving, you have forgotten love's law . . . The secret of unconditional love is that we are all the same, holy beyond imagine. This is what the release of fear reveals . . . This is what you will find when you open your heart to every element of creation.
I invented what I call the Invisible Art and Light technique. In normal light the painting appears one way, and when you turn on the black lamp, the beams of light emerge. It is also a brilliant metaphor. If we look with our physical eyes we see only the surface of the message. But when we look with our spiritual eyes we see so much more. We see the light that is given as a gift from Heaven. And isn't it interesting that a black light is used to see the whole picture? In the same way we must go into our own darkness, the things we hide because we are ashamed, in order to unleash the light within. It is only when we give our whole selves to God--the positive and the negative--that we are enlightened.
~ Jacqueline Ripstein in THE SECRET OF THE BELOVED DISCIPLE by James Twyman
