Love Letters from the Community
Dear Grateful Dead Heads,
I just wanted to write you a little love note,
that is, a note about love. We in the Community
love you and we understand some of the thoughts
and feelings you might be going through now
with Jerry’s death. There was a time when I was on tour and I would
think about what it would be like when Jerry died. Oh, it would make
me feel so sick! I felt like if he were to die then I would, too. At
that time I was traveling and searching. The shows, the great feelings
of life, and being with the family heads was satisfying, for a time.
Eventually I realized that the kind of love I really desired deep down
wasn’t being fulfilled at the Grateful Dead shows anymore. I didn’t
want to have to go home any more after the show, or try to figure out
where to go anymore. I wanted a life with friends that lasted always!
A place where we never had to leave, we would always be together, taking
care of each other — that would be true love! Not just a feeling of
love.
I have been living here for five years and
I am sooooo grateful! Even though Jerry is
now dead, the life I found here will never
fade away! For years as a community we have gone to the Grateful Dead
shows believing that we have many sisters and brothers out there who
share the same hopes and dreams that we do to see peace and justice
come about on the earth. Please keep reading, we have found the way!
— Sara
Have you ever watched a pot of water boiling? The steam vapors billow
up and then dissolve into thin air. With no trace of ever having existed,
they are gone. They look furious coming up from the pot, but then they
just melt away. I have often heard life referred to as a vapor — how
one day it will all be over in an instant.
Life seems so short and without purpose. But
it doesn’t have to be that way. Life doesn’t have to be a vapor that
vanishes. It doesn’t have to be meaningless and empty, without substance.
The God of heaven really didn’t want man’s
life to end. He loves life. He wants life to go on and on — a life
of loving and caring and giving. He didn’t intend for man’s life to
vanish like a vapor. He wants man to live forever and fill the universe.
— Elizabeth
If I knew the way I would take you home.
He knew he didn’t have all the answers, but
was willing to soothe us with his music, and at the time it was good
enough for us. After all, he could relate to us and we didn’t want
to listen to some plastic, spandex-shod rock star! Jerry had a somewhat
unpretentious approach to music. Listening to his music was like
listening to an old friend give advice and tell stories.
I kept listening to Ripple realizing I just
wanted to go home. But no one knew the way. Jerry was humble enough
to admit it. Maybe others weren’t, but I don’t think they knew the
way either. I cried and cried and cried.
Home was all I wanted, not the rat race where
the northern sky stinks with greed. Jerry offered some consolation
in the words, I love you, but Jesus loves you best. Phil Lesh in Unbroken
Chain said, Listening for the secret, searching for the sound, but
I could only hear the preacher and the baying of his hounds. He alluded
to the truth in the scriptures, although most of us were keenly aware
of the hypocrisy in Christianity. So I knew there was truth to this
man, Jesus, but I still found no home in the ranks of Christianity.
— Matthew
I have friends that I know will never leave me alone in a parking
lot. Nor would they leave me at home just because they’d rather not
hang out with me tonight. I have true friends who won’t let me do things
that hurt me, and it gives me courage to do the same for them. We live
together and speak of important things, eternal things, things that
promote life and peace, not death or fleeting pleasures. We laugh together
and cry together and sing nice songs, too, all the time.
Love is real and God is love. That’s all I
know, so I want to repay the love I have received. It’s going to take
the rest of eternity, but that’s ok; I’ve got time. Our Master Yahshua
is patient and he has had his eye on me since before the foundations
of the earth were laid. He has known me and I want to know him. I want
you to know him. Please come and see what we have found.
— Jonathan
Have you ever had a true friend? Someone who would never let you down?
Someone you could trust with your entire life? Someone you desired
to be like? Someone you were sure would always be there for you? Someone
with many words of wisdom and a heart of compassion?
After 28 years of all different types of life
experiences and all different types of friends, I finally found the
greatest friends. We are all together because we have come to know
the greatest friend of all, the one who laid down his life for his
friends so that they could be set free from sin and death and live
together in peace and joy forever. His name is Yahshua.
— Ryan
Where do we go from here?
Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead led us out
of the trap in our youth — the trap of a dull, meaningless existence.
We escaped the snare of living a wonderless life, doing things for
the sake of tradition, doing it because Daddy did it and all his
friends did it, too. Jerry expressed deep feeling. He strummed just
the right chords to make us feel whole. He meandered through streams
of melodic notes to set our rhythm on course. He made us feel alive,
in love, hopeful, bright, and worthwhile. And now he’s gone.
Where do we go? Did he leave us with something
lasting? Was his presence in our lives only meant to last one brief
moment, or will it endure? Will his influence hold on in our lives
like a tree does with its firm roots?
Are we going to be just like the Woodstock
Nation that never got off the ground and never went anywhere? The hope
that generation had that life would take a drastic turn towards love
and peace and freedom didn’t last. The quills of personal flaws drove
us apart. When the vibes weren’t good, neither was our love, because
we had been led into an all-out pursuit of personal fulfillment, walking
hand in hand with drugs and music. Really, how can anything lasting
be built on a foundation like that?
Even the words of Jesus which sparked hope
in many in the aftermath of our psychedelic days soon proved disappointing.
As a generation, these believers could never quite believe in him enough
to actually transcend their own self-lives to produce the radically
different society that Jesus himself spoke of. The Jesus revolution
never brought about a society living in love, peace, and unity every
day — a place of love and healing that didn’t have to come to an end
when the music stopped, or the drugs wore off or the vibes got hard.
So where do we go now? What do we do? Where
do we find a life together that doesn’t have to compromise our ideals?
Well, for many years we have been working hard
to find our way through the web of cynicism and indifference that fills
our world. We want to let you know that we have found an answer. Since
the early seventies we have been growing as an open community of love,
peace, and unity. We are actually giving ourselves to bring about a
society where people can find what they’ve been seeking since the beginning.
We are a community of people who follow Yahshua. We’ve traveled with
you for years in the big maroon bus that does first aid at the shows.
Our hope is still alive and real and growing everyday. Our foundation
is being built to last. The healing in our lives is proving to be real
and enduring. Our life draws us wholeheartedly to give ourselves to
our God, and our future is alive. We hope you will come and see us
at any of our Communities.
— Daniel
I am grateful for Jerry Garcia. If it wasn’t for him and the circumstances
that came about in my life because of the Grateful Dead, I might not
be living in the Community. I live with the most wonderful people.
I’ve heard Jerry sing, If I knew the way, I
would take you home. I really think he wished that there was a way
that we could be together and really love and care for each other.
I think Jerry was a pretty deep and sensitive person, and it must have
torn him up inside the way the world is. It must have hurt him so bad
to see what is going on. Drugs may have started out as a recreational
thing for him, but it must have turned into the only way he could cope
with a sick society, by getting comfortably numb.
I wish so much that Jerry had found the way
to take people home to life and peace. I wonder who would have come.
I’m so thankful that I’ve found the way and now I’m a part of a people
who are being gathered into a new society of communities where we work
and live together. We are in cities and towns in a growing number of
locations. And little by little, day by day, we are becoming more like
the one we follow — Yahshua.
He is the most loving man who ever lived on
the face of the earth. Many people have tried to substitute an impostor
for him, called Jesus. Yahshua, our Master, is the real one. You can
tell by the spirit in his people. Yahshua is so wonderful because of
what he did for us. The life he has given and continues to give to
us is so wonderful that I couldn’t begin to do it justice by writing
it on paper. But if you would like to come for a visit, we would be
glad to share it with you.
— Jeff
Jerry was our hero. What would we give to hear his voice one more
night? What wouldn’t we do to see him in all his hoary-headed splendor,
wave his ax on that stage, directing a thousand streams of electricity
and emotion directly through our being, uniting us as one man (or so
it seemed) for just one more night? He could raise us to the pinnacle,
the edge of our soul, and drop us with the same intensity of a roller
coaster — only to catch us again and carry us back up to the heights
to soar with him once again, once again.
— Rose
Taking hallucinogenics is a short cut to being spiritual. Due to the
lack of a moral foundation, there is no capacity to fulfill the spiritual
revelation.
— Yehudah
Before we met the Community many of us found friends and purpose in
the life that revolved around the Grateful Dead. For some the excitement
of tour was the partying:
The Dead were like a giant heartbeat. The band
was like the heart and we were like the lifeblood. When the band came
into town, it was like the heart on its upbeat, drawing in the blood
from all the various veins. Deadheads would be gathered from all over
into one place, like blood drawing to the heart. The show was like
the beat. It was the climax. The blood would receive its life, and
at the end of the beat it would be scattered through all the different
arteries, only to be drawn back on the next beat — a giant pulsating
party that never seemed to end. (Daniel)
A place of high-spirited fun
What I was engulfed in ... was mesmerizing.
I was reeling in the rhythm of the moment.
The people, the colors, the music, the drugs,
the love — it all seemed too mystical, but
so real. The band and its intimately connected audience brought me
to a place I had never known existed. I wanted to go back. (Scott)
To many it was the way out of boredom:
The Dead were like an oasis in the desert.
There were always so many people around who
had nothing better to do than enjoy life together. I think there was
something in all of us that knew there was more to life than what we
had seen. We could sense that life was never meant to be a drag. No,
there was more to life than that.
Life was youthful and flowing. Life took on
new meaning with the Dead. Life was exciting,
colorful, full of expectation and inspiration.
We were young and without a care. (Daniel)
To others it was the hope that we could change
the system:
Revolution was in the air... like our forebears,
we resembled pioneers and revolutionaries:
our hair was long and loose, or banded or pulled
back in pony tails. Around me in the ancient
sanctuary my brothers and sisters were wearing dungarees, striped
overalls, work shirts, army jackets, long wool great coats, and boots.
Some day soon these very ones might be taking over America. Ever
since Woodstock our music had gathered us together. We’d been pioneering
a new nation, going back to the land, overturning colleges, stopping
the war. It was time for a change. Maybe we would run the country.
Maybe some of us would be its new leaders. Stoned, tripping Deadheads
would be the new elite who would end the war, the hate. We’d dance
and sing and love forever. (John)
...even the beginning of a love that might
fill the whole earth:
We’d always talk about traveling together indefinitely,
getting more buses and people, selling crafts,
and just loving everybody and life. We’d say
how we would take care of each other and grow
old together. I think we all had hope that maybe something really special,
something really big was about to happen. It seemed like people were
really ready. Maybe it would start with the Deadheads and alternative
people and spread all over the planet and the universe. I was sure
that this must be what every Deadhead wanted. I was sure that it was
just what Jerry and the band wanted. (Jeff)
...with a people:
Human beings were created to live in tribes.
We are tribal people. We were all meant to
live as a people in unity of heart and purpose.
There is a shadow of this in the Deadheads,
a shadow of the unity of a people.
I loved that experience of being united with
a people. The problem is that people are filled
with thousands of idiosyncrasies and reasons
why they can’t live together in love, peace,
and unity.
But a wise man once said, “Unless a grain of
wheat falls to the ground and dies it remains
alone, but if it dies it bears much fruit.”
If we were truly dead then we would be free
from strife and insecurity, from trying to get our own way, from dreaming
of selfish ambitions. But who do you trust enough to let them touch
these hidden places in your heart? We need true friends who aren’t
driven to move on, but driven to stay together. Only the Spirit of
truth is able to communicate the love that will cause us to trust and
let down our guard so that we can be healed of all the sicknesses and
scars that we have, that make it impossible for us to live together
in love. (Gene)
If only there were some way that all the sincere
ones could gather together in such a way that
would be powerful enough to change the course
of history. But instead, many of those with
a heart are fleeing, scattering, heading for the hills as the only
escape, leaving a dying world on a crash course for destruction. (Daniel)
In many of our experiences we came face to
face with death:
One day I fled to the mountains because I was
so frustrated. I ended up squatting at the
edge of a cliff thinking how quickly I would
be forgotten if I died. My friends would freak
out for a day and my family would be upset
for a year or so, but life would go on and
my name would soon become a faint memory. I jumped up and ran because
death was so real and I didn’t want to die.
One of the first steps towards any kind of
freedom is knowing what’s got you trapped.
If a man were to try to escape from a jail
without knowing where the exit was, he would
break out of his cell only to get lost in a
maze of hallways. Once I began to see how I
was trapped by my own strife, greed, and selfishness, I began to see
a way out of it instead of a way around it. (Daniel)
The harder we tried to live a life of love,
the harder it became to live with the corruption
in our own hearts that caused our love to fail:
I get so deep into myself and how I am walking
and what I am wearing, it drives me crazy.
There always seems to be someone else, another
Deadhead who I want to be just like. I am never
content with who I am. Who am I anyway? I would
like to change the world by my own strength.
I turn off lights to save electricity; I don’t use styrofoam to save
the ozone; I don’t eat meat to save the animals. I think it is me who
needs to be saved, more than any of those things. (Alison)
I dreamed of a place that would take my gifting
and show me the way to increase, not to decrease.
I needed friends who would be patient with
my faults and show me the way to help and be
patient with others. I was filled with sooo
much extra baggage. I needed to let go of all
the strife, hurt, and mistrust that I had collected
over the years. I had a cup only love could fill. (Michael)
In the Community we discovered a way to grow
up and be healed; a place to hear the truth,
to find a purpose, to be saved from our self-concern
and come into unity.
Throughout my life I had sought to be connected
to people through the sharing of a common experience.
As long as our souls were being stimulated
by the same external source, it felt like we
were in unity. But when the music stopped,
the illusion of oneness faded away. Unity is
a spiritual thing. We must be filled internally
with the same spirit. God is one. His Spirit
has the power to make us one. Every attempt to find fulfilling love
or lasting peace without God will only result in disappointment. We
will never be fully satisfied until we find our Creator and make peace
with Him. (Michael)
Everyone wants to give themselves to something. Some people give themselves
to many different things. It is fulfilling in your soul to give all
you have. Even if you’re left totally exhausted, you are still somehow
happy because you gave all you had.
This is how I would describe the way I felt
when I left a Grateful Dead show. I would leave
totally exhausted with no strength left,
my dress soaked with sweat, and my legs and feet aching from dancing
on concrete or the hard earth. Still there was something in me that
was satisfied. I had just lifted up my heart and soul, given all I
had. To what and to whom?
One day I asked my sister, who, like myself,
felt the same way about these shows. “When
you dance, who are you dancing for?” Somehow, when we gave ourselves
this way, it was more than just for ourselves. She answered me, “I
don’t know. Who are you dancing for?” I thought for a moment and said,
“I’m dancing for Jesus and Jerry.” She answered, “Yeah, me too. I wish
we could go see Jerry every Sunday, just like church.”
We weren’t godly women. We knew very little
about God or how he created us to be. I didn’t
even think about how I answered her or what she said back to me. Somehow
we related the two — Jesus and Jerry. Maybe because, at that point
in time, going to see Jerry was our life. We thought about it, talked
about it, and this was what gave us incentive to work, to make money
to go see Jerry.
My sister and I lived this way for about one
year — leaving for a month to go on tour, going
home for a month to make more money to go on tour. We loved it. Going
to sleep in Ohio and waking up in Albany, New York was exciting to
us. We saw lots of places, met lots of people, and saw lots of shows.
There were some things that bothered us about
tour. Seeing the little children not properly
cared for hurt us the most. We continued to do tour, thinking, “Not
everyone is like that. I would never be that way.”
My sister ended up getting pregnant halfway
through this year we spent touring. There was
never a question as to what she would do. She was going to have the
baby. We would take him on tour with us. He would help us get our tickets.
He would grow up knowing Jerry, talking about him, and loving him the
way we did.
We continued to do tour. Going out to California
for a month, things got harder. My sister got
bigger and more uncomfortable. Reality started setting in. We started
thinking and talking about things we never did before. Where would
we live? How could this man who got my sister pregnant ever be a real
father to the baby? Would we be able to raise the baby the right way?
What was the right way?
I started seeing things I had not seen before.
I saw the selfishness that was in the people
around me, that was in me. I saw strife and mistrust in others and
myself. I started thinking about what I was doing, what I was giving
myself to.
It became easier to not give all I had. I started
to see I wasn’t getting anything back. This
hurt me. Even if it had only been a short time, I had given it all.
This had become my life. It is a harsh reality to realize what you’ve
poured everything into is not anything at all.
I wanted to give myself to something that would
last, something that would never fade away,
but always be growing and increasing. I wanted there to be something
to show for what I had given. There was something in me to know I needed
to give my life to someone.
I had been under an illusion. There was a little
bit of truth in what I’d given myself to, but
it wasn’t the truth. It is right that people would be gathered together,
that they would love each other. I started to see that this was not
happening.
The next couple of months were amazing. I had
met a people almost one year before in New
York City. They told me they followed Yahshua, the Son of God. They
lived together and loved one another the way God loved them. I saw
these people again. They were so kind to me. When they talked to me
and told me about Yahshua, there was no doubt in me they were telling
the truth. I saw the way they lived, the love they had, and I wanted
it. I thought about everything I had given myself to, how I had desired
to give myself to something real. Finally, I had found it, or it found
me. I had a heart to want to know the truth. I cried out to God to
show me what I should do, where I should go, and he did. Now I have
this life. I am part of a people.
People are going to end up like the person
they follow. I follow the Son of God. I have
hope to become like him. Whom do you follow?
— Abigail
There was this man who lived 2000 years ago who really affected people.
People seemed to always want to be around him. He was kind and taught
people what true love was. He was a very sensitive man. You could talk
to him about anything and he understood where you were coming from.
Because of the love in his heart, he helped a lot of people who were
sick, and gathered them together to give them hope. People would hear
about him and the things he did and hope would enter into their hearts
— something that was foreign to them. From then until today, this man’s
life has made a profound impact on the world. — Andy
I was so amazed when I met this people who follow Yahshua. They were
completely different from any group of people I had ever met. They
talked about the same man I had heard of growing up, but they had passion.
They had zeal. There was nothing boring about what they were saying.
Somehow, for the first time in my life, I was able to understand our
Creator’s purpose for our lives. These people loved each other. There
love was intoxicating.
I felt closer to my new friends on that bus
than I did to anyone outside in the cold and
dreary parking lot. These people were clean
and they wanted to share all they had with my brother and me. They
called us to leave behind all that we knew and become disciples. This
blew my mind. How can you leave your entire life behind? How could
these people be so sure that what they believed in was the truth?
My soul was in torment over the thought that
I would have to give up all that I had attained
to. But what had I become? I saw my involvement
in the scene as harmless. I sensed from the people on the bus that
they didn’t agree with the Grateful Dead. I couldn’t figure out why.
I told them that I just went to the shows because of the music. One
brother told me that I was lifting my soul up to a spirit, and it wasn’t
the Holy Spirit. I disagreed. He told me I was just as accountable
for leading people into the scene as Jerry was. I disagreed again.
I didn’t want to believe what he said was true.
Then he asked me a question: “What did you
think when you were at your first show and
a long-haired, bearded Deadhead walked by and said, Peace, brother?
You wanted to be just like him, didn’t you? That is who you are now.
You are the one that other young, inexperienced, aspiring Deadheads
want to be like.” I knew it was the truth. I was following a path and
others were following me.
— Scott
This man, the Messiah, told people that if they wanted to follow him
they had to deny themselves, give up everything they owned and live
a life as a servant. He told people about what the kingdom of God is
like and said that if a man loses his life for his sake, he will inherit
eternal life, but if a man saves his own life, he would lose it.
He walked right up to the apostles Peter, James,
and John while they were fishing and told them to follow him: they
pulled their boats on shore, left everything, and followed him. What
he began wasn’t a hypocritical religious system: He condemned systems
like this! What the Jewish system was 2000 years ago is exactly the
same as modern-day Christianity!
He told people that he didn’t come to bring
peace to the earth, but a sword. He came to gather all human beings
who totally wanted to give their entire lives to following him and
the one true God. He came to start a fire on the earth, not a lukewarm
religious system. This fire was in a people who had given up everything
and lived their lives together, helping one another to be a demonstration
of God’s true love on the earth. This was to be the light to the entire
world, revealing the corrupt, greedy, selfish condition of the world.
I happily dropped out of college and left everything
I owned to become a part of what I saw — the truth. I took all of the
art work I had ever done in my life, loaded it on a truck and left
it all at the town dump. I took my portfolio and as I was walking down
the street, I dropped it down the sewer — everything I had worked for
during four years of college. I can take total identity with what the
apostle Paul wrote in Philippians: What’s more, I consider everything
a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Messiah, Yahshua
my king, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish
that I may gain Messiah...
— Jason
Yahshua’s Spirit of love and unity dwells in places where His sheep
are now being gathered. Together, as a people, we are receiving life
and peace from the good Shepherd. We are a tribal people — a new-covenant
Israel. We share everything we have together: our homes, our possessions,
and our abundant life. We are no longer separated by the things that
separated us before. Now we are being set free to truly be one in love.
— David
In ’92 I was at a show in Philly on the Spring tour, in the icy, cold
rain. I felt the pain and loneliness, the deep emptiness of my life.
I realized that the last six years I’d spent following the Grateful
Dead had brought me in a huge circle, back to where I’d first begun
looking for a people who could help me and take care of me, to whom
I could give my life.
I met a friend that night who gave me hope
and a message that went deep into my heart — salvation is found in
Yahshua. He told me about a home for the needy to come into, a true
place of warmth and friendship, love and peace.
I held on to the Freepaper he gave me and read
it over and over for months. Each time I read this paper I came to
the same conclusion: this is where I need to be. Finally circumstances
came about that I was able to travel to the Community in Bellows Falls.
I found a people there who were thankful for their Creator, thankful
for the forgiveness and love he has shown them. I met the Spirit of
Yahshua in this people. They were set free to love the same way he
does.
— Michael
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