Jerry Garcia and The Greatest Truth of All

I solve life’s riddles with the help of a stringed instrument. — Psalm 49:4

“Good music…is like oxygen to me,” Mike Kerrigan wrote.

“What is true, good and beautiful objectively exists outside the self. This is true in time and—far more important—true in eternity,” he continued. “The greater the truth, the greater the longing to know it, and the greatest truth of all is God.”

He didn’t write that for a Bible Study.

Here’s where those excerpts originated —

Good music, and the Grateful Dead particularly, is like oxygen to me now, but the Grugahalle show date called to mind something obvious yet important: The Dead jammed before me, the Dead jammed in my lifetime, and the Dead’s sound will echo long after they, as Jerry Garcia sang, “Lay me down one last time.”

The lesson of this distant concert was anything but disconcerting. It’s assurance that what is true, good and beautiful objectively exists outside the self. This is true in time and—far more important—true in eternity. The greater the truth, the greater the longing to know it, and the greatest truth of all is God.

The Grateful Dead helps me see how the earthly beauty I appreciate is but a foretaste of joy outside time that is to come. Thank you, Jerry. [https://www.wsj.com/articles/eternity-and-the-grateful-dead-death-life-concert-songs-jerry-garcia-bob-weir-god-heaven-afterlife-11642800396?mod=opinion_major_pos4]

— That appeared in The Wall Street Journal.

In the interest of full disclosure, I’m not a DeadHead. I’m not even a moderate fan; there are probably only three of their songs I could name and/or recognize. A roommate of mine went to a concert of theirs and left after about half an hour.

That article speaks to something much greater than any one band or style of music. Using what it says as a starting point, where does it take you?

I’d love to hear from you about this in any of the usual ways we all reach each other.

And I’ll see you back here tomorrow.