Teri DeSario Revisited

The first time I heard Teri DeSario was on a sampler that Word Records released in 1985 called Take 'Em With You. I was only ten years old, but there was something about the song that made it stand out to me. I saved my allowance and finally got Voices in the Wind. While I enjoyed the album, it's depth would not sink in until I listened again in my late teens.

Every listen since that revisitation has been a revelation.

I would scour the creates in used record stores until I found her other Word release, A Call To Us All.

I would daresay that these two albums have been the foundation of my personal theology.

Teri DeSario landed in the contemporary Christian genre after beginning her career with Casablanca Records as a disco diva. She recorded with Barry Gibb, but landed her first international hit duetting with KC of KC & The Sunshine Band on the Barbara Mason remake "Yes, I'm Ready".

Not much is known about the innerworkings of Teri's career as press has been slim to none, but she re-emerged in 1983 on Word Records' DaySpring label, producing two of the most important collections of spiritual music of the 80s.

I would like to be able to sit down with Teri and find out exactly what inspired such a unique, conscious spiritual perspective within the traditional Christian structure it seems she was in the midst of. Even moreso, I would like to know how she convinced a Christian record company to release these albums.

I would daresay that these are some of the first musical recordings officially released within the Christian music industry that share a perspective deemed as The Gospel of Inclusion, a controversial theology that has had those who align themselves with it deemed heretics (Most recently, Bishop Carlton Pearson).

In my mind, the Gospel of Inclusion is nothing that should be controversial...To me, it is more like common sense. The Gospel of Inclusion is very simple: we are already reconciled to God and we are loved by the Divine. But, that mindset is jarring to the Christian Hierarchy because it levels the playing field, establishing an equality, removing the need for a patriarchal authority, rather opening the floodgates for an individualized relationship with the Spirit Force.

When I was growing up, I was not aware of anyone preaching this doctrine...I didn't even know that it had a name, so hearing Teri DeSario sing:

There's a call to us all to love all humanity

Every race on the face of earth come to unity

Reach a hand to the Hindu mother

And a hand to the Buddhist father in love

Hold the hands of a Muslim baby

and you'll see we're all created by God

--in the image of God--

was the beginning of an awakening for me.

I listened to these two albums compulsively...like I did The Prodigal by Reba and The Turning by Leslie...I felt like there were hidden messages and only by listening and absorbing could I decode them.

While "A Call To Us All" transformed my perspective on monotheism, it also shook my perspective on humanity, my place in it, the commonality of the human experience and in the same breath, the diversity of it.

The mainstream Christian perspective seeks to convert, while this perspective, already sees everyone as one: unity in diversity.

Through thick and thin

the master weaves us in

Young and old

We are the colors of the rainbow

Our lives are short and long

but together we hold strong

in this everlasting tapestry

from "Tapestry"

Teri's gospel was incapable of unconsciousness. While she celebrated the beauty of the freedom of her belief, she also confronted the monotonous, generations-old perspective that made the Christian experience synonymous with war and fighting, Having grown up in the midst of the "spiritual warfare" era, hearing Teri's message was pivitol.

I don't wanna be a soldier

marching off to war

justified by a manmade cause

all in the name of the Lord

And I won't carry any banner

or step out proudly to the drum

or ravage others when I disagree

just to win and overcome

all in the name of the Lord

These lyrics are no less poignant 23 years later as we sit in the midst of a war instigated by a President who swears he is God's man, while a candidate who proposes a Peace Department is considered laughable. We have been so indoctrinated to live by a philosophy of war that the idea of pursuing a lifestyle of peace is comedic to those who do not have ears to hear. But Teri's ideals are a clarion call:

A haunting universal melody

One that's ringing out the theme of peace

Thought I may be slapped upon the cheek

I pray to love my enemy

All in the name of the Lord

But above all, these albums are documentation of Teri's quest for truth and honesty in one's spiritual quest...and how that quest impacts every aspect. "Voices In The Wind" explores core belief systems, proposing that, perhaps, we were not "born in sin and shaped in iniquity", as King David suggested, but rather, in the image of God.

As a surivor of sexual abuse as a child, and spiritual abuse throughout my life, "Voices In The Wind" was a breakthrough moment for me when I finally got it. "Voices" awakened all that was right and good inside of me, tipping the scale from focusing on all that I thought was wrong to the realization that everything was actually right.

I remember listening to this album with my friend Joann, parked in the front yard of her house, and being conscious that I had just had a realization: a dawning: that would never allow me to walk as a traditional Christian again. My eyes were opening and the consciousness was opening to me.

I have clung to these albums since that day. My steps have been influenced by them and I see the results of my steps mirrored back at me when I listen again, gaining further understanding of the path.

I have searched high and lo for Teri in hopes that I could extend an "attitude of gratitude" for two albums that were bold and daring in the 80s...and still would be in 2008. Albums such as these are birthed only on the wings of courage...a knowingness that the message will change the paradigms of the special ones whose ears are tuned and ready to catch the message. Like most lunar poets who fly through the galaxies, Teri has seemingly disappeared...saying what she needed to say and moving on...but I'd love 20 minutes to talk philosphy, poetry and spirituality with her.

So, hopefully she sees this, and knows that I'm one of the ones this work was intended for.

Self-knowledge is of such importance that even if you were to be raised to the highest heavens, I should not want you to stop your cultivation of it.

Teresa of Avila (1515-1582)