Moving performances at First Baptist Church.
Moving performances at First Baptist Church.

Recently, a friend shared a short-notice invitation to a concert at First Baptist Church, organized to address Asheville’s racial tension.

by Meta Commerse

Lizz Wright, local resident and jazz recording artist, had reached out to the church. My remaining words attempt to capture the simple purity of that experience jam-packed with important symbols. For it seems to me that beauty so timeless, defying description or the praise of mortals, demands poetry.

Bread. Buttered rye toast, hoecakes, crackers with cheese. What is there to love or crave of bread? Substance, comfort, fullness. Wonder. Butternut. Roman Meal. Cornbread. Dinner rolls, “brown-n-serve.” Latimore’s Alabama melt-in-your-mouth yeast rolls. His flaky biscuits. Mama’s mini flapjacks. The dry, soft, buttery assurance that everything would be all right. The basketful of warm, assorted rolls wrapped in a linen cloth, and butter on the side, while you relax, chit-chat, have something to drink and wait for your meal to be served. Bread is staple, mainstay, unchanging, never out of fashion. Glue, gluten holding it together for the Alaga. Memories of love start here and will stay here, with the bread.

Moving performances at First Baptist Church.
Moving performances at First Baptist Church.

Spirit of a people who have seen and endured it all. Touch, grab a hold, at the tail end of African American History Month, and River Guerguerian, respectfully, thanked them. Tell me more about this soundtrack, this perfect timekeeper. One more divine gift hidden away in us most of the time, taken for granted. Our celebration started there. In our voices, in the arms of our music, wrapped tightly around us. And we sang together, lifted and heard every voice led by clapping, bouncing, dancing sound from off of hide pulled across carved wood, the voices of all our daughters big, small, miss to mother resonant, from Verve to parking lot, to poet, to choir member, to mayor, to Sunday School teaching, to blue rainbow, representing us. And we received the bread and wine of our music, marched in and belted out! Sometimes, besides our own bodies and each other, it was all we had, it was all we needed.

Irrepressible. Ballad balm for brokenness, for a wound now demanding light, fresh air and rinsing, in the truth of humanity’s oneness. Oneness breaking the chains of shame on each end and ministering to us, welcoming, receiving us, putting all our pieces back together again, and we did not shout in these moments. We let the stunning silence be there this time. Our music is angelic, the world knows and craves it, covets it, and will even eat the crumbs of it, just like the warm bread in the basket. We have finally evolved to the truth and, all the way, Music has been our teacher. I am certain about the church’s potential, alive only in my dreams until now… The Music brought us along, delivered us from History to the pew and choir stand. The doors swung wide off their hinges and, as we opened and closed with “This Little Light,” we gratefully knew this truth.

Roll up your sleeves, Asheville. The rest is up to us.

Asé