John Chmaj, The TOTAL Experience

We're of mixed persuasion,
we're the Gospel Invasion
Here to blow your mind with our music and rhyme

A living testament that will make you whole

So check it out, this is us, this is how we roll -



We got a Jay, a DJ, and a Tyrone too

We bring our voices from God on high direct to you

We got Victoria, yes you can lean on her,

DeShe's your Hero today, he's God's own soul brother

Gena’s gratitude pulses deep in your heart
and
Lou’s piano licks play a heavy part

Camila’s Sparrow Girl, her runs launch to the sky

And now Miss Pastor Pat will tell the reason why -
 


We sing of love and hope and possibility

We mean to rock your soul and set your spirit free

So raise yourself in praise and get up off your seat

We slide from side to side to get you on your feet

It's service time, a time to praise and give

A world of harmony’s the only one to live



Just raise your eyes, your ears, your earthly soul in song

And give your heart to Jesus, now it won't be long.

The revolution’s come to lighten up your soul

A ministry through music is our central goal



So clap your hands, rejoice! – it’s all most Excellent

Come take the ride with us, ‘cause we are heaven-bent 

The awesome power of love is how we will survive

Since we all have each other now while we are alive

So open up and let the Total Experience in 

Our music grooves and moves are just the place to begin –

John Chmaj

John Chmaj, Live at Pleasant Valley, August 11, 2008

In ones’ lifetime one is privileged a few precious times to participate in a happening – an event where the hearts, souls and intentions of those present are so focused and attuned that for a brief time a timeless, transcendental reality takes shape. As a result we are all uplifted together, and can build and view a new potential for ourselves as a people capable of eternal connectedness and joy. Such a happening took place at Pleasant Valley Baptist Church in Carthage Texas on the evening of August 11, 2008. The event was the return of Pastor Patronelli Wright to the place of her musical upbringing, her father’s church and her original musical center. Pastor Wright has been on a long adventure since she last set foot here in 1961 as a young adult – she has built one of the most successful gospel choirs in the nation, performing in dozens of countries and winning numerous awards. Yet each time she performed since then she was in some sense a visitor – tonight she was coming home to Carthage. For months it was clear to those who would be accompanying her and the choir that this was a precious and blessed event. It would be a chance to bring the gift of her choir community back to the altar of her home as an offering: the children she had raised musically, spiritually and personally into the choir, the precious relationships and voices so carefully nurtured and matured.
Carthage is a small town, in eastern Texas, a quiet corner of the South, yet the faith and passion for God and Jesus is a sustaining force and a thread which binds much of the community together. Performing in the church would be at once familiar and new – gospel is the universal musical language spoken here, but Carthage had not yet heard the honed, focused and downright spiritual force that IS the Total Experience Gospel Choir. This version of the choral group is relatively compact (12 singers total with piano and drum accompaniment), but their tone is focused and sharp, the sound is strong and clear, and the group sings as one voice, rising, falling and swaying under Pat’s expressive hands. Those of us who have enjoyed the choir in concert knew this was to be a treat, and had heard them sing in service in nearby Walnut Grove just the previous day to great effect. But tonight was to be something different – it was a testimonial to the source of the choir’s power, in the very crucible where its founder was reared, and in the context of praise and prayer to God. The choir was presenting itself as an offering to God, and we were all to bear witness to this sacrament.
The Pleasant Valley church community was warm and engaging. They filled the church and brought their own singers and performers to bless the evening, including some very talented vocal soloists and their own choir and organist. The congregation demonstrated from the first note that they were there to truly ‘have church tonight’, and supported every praise and plea from the musicians. It was clear how Pastor Pat’s sound could originate here, as the same boisterous, joyous energy flowed from these singers as from Pat’s voice whenever she sings even a single line. Many of her kin, teachers and family friends were in attendance and the energy and expectation built as we moved towards the main performance.
The offering for the evening was to support the TEGC’s mission, their reason for the trip south – to continue work on homes devastated by Hurricane Katrina in the long-neglected Gulf Coast area of Mississippi. This group of folks from this small town offered up, on this one night, over $1000 from their resources to support this mission, an act of love and generosity that showed incredible support for the choir and its work.
Finally it was time to unveil the main act. Early on the choir had warmed up and teased the crowd with its reverent rendering of the Lord’s Prayer. Now it was time for serious praise – starting with “Excellent” and proceeding through a virtuoso run of ballads, choral hymns and downright funky stuff (all the way through to their Electric Slide at the end) the group sang like a force of nature. It was clear that Pastor Pat was giving prayer to God in the presence of her family and father, and the choir’s focus was intense and absolute. Every voice was strong, every phrase clear and precise, and each soloist inspired and arresting. Tears were shed throughout, both on the stage, between performers and among the audience, for any number of reasons. For it was clear that here, tonight, the echoes of Carthage were passing through Pastor Pat and her instrument – the choir – back through to the very people of Carthage themselves. The cycle of spiritual communication was completing itself through all those present. All had come with open hearts and ears to God; even so the choir provided something more, a sense of an ever-present heavenly host, of infinite, never ending praise that washes over, through and around each soul. Pastor Pat herself was transported, and sang as I have never heard her sing, adding runs, expostulations and exclamations with a force and power that shook the ceiling and the walls. This was something more, much more, than music. It was the soul’s return to itself, the Song of Songs, a living prayer of purpose and potential. At the end she invited the youth she had included in this journey from East Shore Unitarian to come up and join, and as the choir administered hugs and hope through the audience, the music rang far and long in a continuous echo of appreciation to both God and those assembled. Ironically it was the choir who sang of gratitude after administering such a powerful musical memory.
I cannot say how the good folks of Carthage experienced this event - though it was plainly clear that the concert was a great success as a concert, and many in the crowd could not bring themselves to move until long after the event had officially ended. At least two dozen people sat and continued to absorb the energy of this extended musical prayer. All present had been moved by Pats’ deeply personal confession of love and fealty to God and her family. Great music communicates such powerful feelings and prayers that it imprints its messages directly on the soul. There can be no more powerful medium for heart to heart communication, and when many hearts come together filled with such love, gratitude, and respect the outcome is creative joy – the kind that continually adds to itself, ever outward, ever inward – the electricity of our souls forming a mutually reinforcing generator of infinite power. THAT is the message of love, of music and of community, when we reach and realize the true ‘church’ in ourselves and in so doing bind to each other as brothers and sisters.
This was Pastor Pat and the choir’s gift to us: the experience of ALL coming home together, and channeling our connections to create a shared community of love, for a few short hours musically, but in spiritual terms tilting towards eternity. I will always hear Carthage in Pat’s voice now, as I’ve had the good fortune to be there when she returned to her musical roots and shared the fruits of the tree that had grown so tall and so far from there over so many years.
Blessings to you all – John Chmaj

Michelle Conklin, DRE We are here! What a day!

This is Monday Morning and we are finally resting.
We traveled on Saturday and the only snafu we hit was losing one piece of luggage. Our dear Maya had to borrow clothes; the other girls were great and helping her. We told Maya she was a walking example of our beloved community.

Sunday morning we attended worship at Walnut Grove Baptist Church, where we were welcomed with open arms and an inspiring message- for more reflections on the message of the church check-out the reflections part of the blog.

We then attdended the Town reunion, we were guests of Pastor Pat Wright. We were fed some wonderful food and played basketball.

On Sunday evening we had a check-in with the Total Experience Gospel Choir. We are able to talk about our experience at the church and reflect on how our work together is groundbreaking.
We are building partnership through race, class and gender.
This trip is transforming lives and spreading love and justice, I am humbled and it is only the second day!

John Chmaj- Hallelujah! The Miracle of Worship in Walnut Grove

Hallelujah! The Miracle of Worship in Walnut Grove
Coming back around to Christianity

We UU’s are very astute at probing weaknesses, inconsistencies and inherent paradoxes in faith traditions. It’s part of our makeup to be wary and suspicious about faith traditions that appear to require us to submit part or all of our precious religious freedom. It’s also, true to say, all too easy to find hypocrisy and dogmatism in every faith tradition if we look carefully enough. As a result we modern UU’s tend to do a pretty good job of discounting the Christian message as a general rule. Our history with Christianity has been a complex one, born directly from the Christian roots of Unitarianism, yet in a continually renewed struggle to reconcile UU principles with the constraints of Christian fundamentalism. Christianity in the fundamentalist extreme requires an ‘all or nothing’ acceptance of the framework of creation (the Bible), the meaning and direction of life (expressed as God’s plan), and the exclusive place of Jesus Christ as the only Son of God and Savior.
Seen from the purely high-level doctrinal point of view these criteria would seem forever at odds with the UU principles of religious freedom, openness, acceptance, and the primacy of individual spiritual experience. Yet as we come closer into contact with real folks, real Christians who have achieved a vision of Truth and Faith that resonates directly from their hearts, we begin to find a commonality of purpose and perception that should not be as surprising as it is. After all, it was our founder William Ellery Channing, who wrote - in DEFENSE of Unitarianism as not being heretical Christianity(!), but declaring it in fact a valid faith tradition in his Letter to Samuel Thatcher (1815):
“Our great and constant object has been to promote the spirit of Christ, and we have been persuaded, that in this way we should most effectually promote the interests of Christian truth.”
AND
“If there be an act which, above all others, is a transgression of the Christian law, it is this. What is the language of our Master? ‘A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another. By this shall all men know, that ye are my disciples, if ye have love to one another.’ ‘Bear ye one another's burdens,’ says St. Paul, ‘and so fulfill the law of Christ.”
Our youth group visit to Carthage Texas has provided just such an experience of the loving bond that we share with our American cousins, the Baptists:
Today our youth group and leaders had an extraordinary experience – thanks to the generosity and open-heartedness of Pastor Pat Wright, the Total Experience Gospel Choir, and the residents of Carthage Texas we were given a rare and privileged opportunity to participate in an authentic and intense Baptist service. Carthage is a very small town in eastern Texas where Pastor Wright grew up, and the service was held at Walnut Grove Baptist Church, a small but comfortable facility well off the beaten trail. The occasion was the annual reunion of townspeople, a big celebration, and as a result many parishioners were present, as well as multiple pastors and reverends from around the region. The minister gave a heart-felt, passionate and direct appeal to us to let Spirit into our hearts. He spoke of the power of love, the transforming power of personal connection, how “the kingdom of God travels from heart to heart”. He spoke of unconditional love, of the pure freedom of the unfettered heart to love others, how he loved US, and “there wasn’t a thing we could do about it”! His sermon was from the book of Luke, the parable of the prodigal son. As he spoke with the classic gospel preacher’s cadence – every phrase a lyric, a rhythm, a pulse added to the pyre of the fiery vision he slowly built in our imagination – he outlined the lesson of unconditional acceptance, of the importance of bringing that which is lost home again, of including ALL of us in our account of humanity. At the pinnacle of his preaching he rendered the vision of Christ on the cross, the horror and the grace that emerged simultaneously from the epic event. Stone by stone, above, below, behind, in front, he built for us the vision of the tomb, and of the eventual stairway to heaven trod by Jesus to ascend the clouds. He invited us all to participate in breaking through our own spiritual barriers, to use our ability to love to transcend ourselves and build a new kingdom of community for ourselves and our children. He served as our channel and witness to the mystery of the Christ, of how Jesus’ complete surrender to his deepest truth serves as a beacon of faith to souls today.
Here was truly a house of God – a place where we all built our truth together, in the sanctuary, with the pastor as our catalyst and guide, where EVERY person present was a part of the tapestry of worship. In short, a journey of the highest energies we can summon forth when we testify to one another. In the hearts of the congregation were embodied the Truths of all great faith traditions: direct participation in the experience of the Divine, Joy and Exultation in its expression, and the dynamic building of Community in our mutual experience and acceptance of the message within and among each other. The people of the congregation were beyond friendly - we were “radically welcomed”, as Michelle put it. There was delight, gratitude, and an immediate sense of our mutual membership in the human family as we were integrated into the service. It’s hard to describe complete acceptance but we all know it when we feel it, and here we who had come from such a different place were brought into community with the sense of mutual empowerment and respect – a true coming together.
According to Pat white folks don’t come to black church in this part of the country, so our presence and participation was not only unusual, I believe it created additional energy and awareness of this special moment for all of us. We watched an inaugural presentation of their young Spirit Dancers, four small children led by one of the congregation’s youth acting out the love of God with simple dance. The Total Experience Gospel choir added its own strong, clear and transcendental power to the proceedings, an amazing musical testament that only heightened the sense of divine Presence and Possibility. Throughout it all the congregation murmured, chanted and shouted encouragement and feedback, punctuating each new revelation and bearing witness to their commitment to take the message in. As this all washed over me I had my own personal cultural revelation – that here I was watching an authentic American faith tradition, not adopted, not transplanted, not filtered, but a living tradition grown directly from the soils and toils, the souls and history of the people of Carthage. Our youth group has visited over 30 different sanctuaries, temples, mosques, shrines, and cathedrals in the past four years. Here, more than any other place I have personally experienced, I participated in a faith tradition in its pure form, delivered by the culture which created it, and being transmitted to all who would have it as a living, dynamic thing. When the pastor asked the youth to step forward to bless them the altar and aisle was crowded all the way to the back of the church with the dozens of youth, well over 50% of those present. It was truly a special day in Carthage, and even though as Pastor Wright explained later most folks were there for the reunion, it did not diminish the power and purpose that all who were present felt. As one of the elder choir women exulted early on, we had us some CHURCH today!
This is certainly not a unique Baptist experience, although the minister was particularly skilled and inspired today. There are over 70 Baptist churches listed online in the Carthage area alone. What was unique for today was the natural connection we Unitarian Universalists present were able to make with those things so central to our own faith tradition, how much we really have in common with the Christian message, and how accessible it is to us when delivered with true faith and openness. We needn’t be afraid nor judgmental about the Christian tradition. All we need to do to ‘have us some church’ is to apply the same criteria to our selection of Christian participation that we – AND these Christians – do:
We seek the spiritual in our hearts
We acknowledge the potential transforming power of Truth and Faith
We develop and share our experience in loving community
Yes, sir, we had us some church TODAY!
Christ be with YOU,
John Chmaj