I Need A Miracle

 (April 19th, 2012)

A couple of things I've heard over the years that always stuck with me:  "If it doesn't kill you it will make you stronger." and "If you going through hell, keep going."  For a while I started to believe that "keep going" simply meant that.  I was going to keep going through hell.  However, I now believe it the way I always thought it was supposed to be taken.  That is, it is possible to come out of it if you keep going through it.  It takes faith with action.

I've said it many times before - I never doubted there was a God.  At times I believed God might have given up on me.  It was me who gave up on God.   It's been said that faith without works is dead.  For me, no faith and no works just might have equaled death.  I was very low on both.  I think my giving up on God made God both sad and angry.

That's how I used to interpret those huge gust of winds and rogue waves that used to knock me over.  I know the voices in my head were angry with me.  In the beginning, many were trying to help.  Towards the end, they just seemed angry with me.  "Wherever" the voices were coming from, they had plenty of reason to be angry.    As my behavior darkened, so too did the ominous warnings from the voices.  So too did my reality. 

Running through hell did seem to make me stronger.  I put myself deeper and deeper.  That wasn't necessary.  I think the devil was even tired of me.  The tricky part for me is that it seems that at times, the devil tried to help me.  For as wrong as I was and as upset God had to be with me, I do believe in God's grace and forgiveness now.  God is slow to anger and quick to forgive.  With that said, I never want to make God angry again - ever.

Will I make mistakes?  Of course.  I want God to be my friend.  Friends understand when we make little mistakes.  I want to remain in God's Grace.

God's Grace was something I never really considered when I read the Bible.  I just read The Truth.  I didn't read it much, but when I did, it seemed The Truth sent me to hell.  I think it sends us all to hell.  That's where grace comes in.  I think God does understand we are not perfect.  I do think it's important we believe in him.  I say him, because, I don't know, I just do.  I don't like saying it.  Her probably makes more sense.  I need God to be a man, because that is what I need to be.  Maybe I do know.

I need to be a man who surrenders to God every day.  I need to be a man who remembers who deserves all the credit for my being clean - God.  "I need a miracle - every day."

(June 16th, 2012)
It was right after I graduated high school that I began asking the questions many of us found ourselves asking, "Who are the Grateful Dead?"  and "Why are they following me?"  It became five years of life I will never forget or is it remember?   I forget.  It gave us a reason to travel all over east coast and Midwest.  I love big cities.   

Jerry died on August 9, 1995.  We had mail order tickets to the Toronto Skydome.  I was going to ask Susan to marry me at what was then, the tallest structure in the world - The CN Tower which is a part of the Skydome complex.  Since Jerry died, we didn't go.  I set my sights on New York City.  I then realized a friend of mine who was living in Montana at the time, was going to be in San Francisco.  Bob Weir was also going to be playing at The Warfield.  We hadn't made it out west yet.  I would end up proposing at the highest point we could walk to in San Francisco near the Chinatown neighborhood where we were staying - Coit Tower.

Telegraph Hill was the highest point in the neighborhood, North Beach.  It is modeled after a fire nozzle to honor the fire fighters from the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake.

 

I loved seeing the dead play at the big venues - Buckeye Lake, Soldier Field, RFK Stadium.  However, we never got to see The Dead play at Giants Stadium.   We did get to see them play at Madison Square Garden and Nassau Coliseum.  We also got to see the last game ever played at the old Giants stadium.  Lets just say the Bengals played the Jets.  

I just wanted to post the words to I Need a Miracle for this blog I wrote a couple of months, but I found these three songs together from Giants Stadium in the early 90's.  The Dead thought it made sense to follow I Need a Miracle with Eyes of the World and St. of Circumstance.  The Dead may have played different set list every night, but I don't think there was to much randomness about there choices. It was The Dead (and probably all of the LSD I use to eat) that really began making me realize that something was going on.  I'll never forget the time we got "busted" in Cleveland, The Dead opened up with I Fought the Law (and the Law Won).  

As far as the lyrics to I Need a Miracle go, when I wrote this blog a couple of months ago, I was just hearing the chorus in my head.  I wasn't really considering the "secondary message."  I don't want to get to personal about my life, but some of the rest of the lyrics do kind of fit today.  Just because I feel a certain way doesn't always mean it's the right way.  It's like the song says, "too much of everything is just enough."  Honesty is important.  Because I am human and an addict, I do need a miracle - everyday.

I am currently writing this while in the Santa Cruz Mountains.  Last time I was here, I wrote a blog called I Heaven.  It just hasn't been posted yet.  My brain is....

Those of you who were at many of those shows in those days, it really brings back old memories watching a video from that "era".    If you got a half an hour, it's kind of nice to hear The Grateful Dead "singing about The Universe."  So turn it up, expand the screen, sit back and....

I Need A Miracle:

 

I need a woman bout twice my age

A lady of nobility, gentility and rage

Splendor in the dark, lightning on the draw

Well go right through the book and break each and every law.

I got a feeling and it wont go away, oh no

Just one thing then Ill be ok

I need a miracle every day.

I need a woman bout twice my height

Statuesque, raven-dressed, a goddess of the night.

Her secret incantations, a candle burning blue

Well consult the spirits maybe theyll know what to do.

And its real and it wont go away, oh no

I cant get around and I cant run away

I need a miracle every day.

I need a woman bout twice my weight

A ton of fun who packs a gun with all her freight

Find her in a sideshow leave her in l.a.

Ride her like a surfer running on a tidal wave.

And its real, believe what I say, yeah

Just one thing I got to say

I need a miracle every day.

It takes dynamite to get me up

Too much of everything is just enough

One more thing I just got to say

I need a miracle every day,

I need a miracle every day,

I need a miracle every day, (got to be the only way)

I need a miracle

Eyes of the World:

Right outside this lazy summer home
You aint got time to call your soul a critic no.
Right outside the lazy gate of winters summer home,
Wondrin where the nut-thatch winters,
Wings a mile long just carried the bird away.

Wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world,
The heart has it's beaches, it's homeland and thoughts of it's own.
Wake now, discover that you are the song that the mornin brings,
But the heart has it's seasons, it's evenins and songs of it's own.

There comes a redeemer, and he slowly too fades away,
And there follows his wagon behind him that's loaded with clay.
And the seeds that were silent all burst into bloom, and decay,
And night comes so quiet, it's close on the heels of the day.

Wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world,
The heart has it's beaches, it's homeland and thoughts of it's own.
Wake now, discover that you are the song that the mornin brings,
But the heart has it's seasons, it's evenins and songs of it's own.

Sometimes we live no particular way but our own,
And sometimes we visit your country and live in your home,
Sometimes we ride on your horses, sometimes we walk alone,
Sometimes the songs that we hear are just songs of our own.

Wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world,
The heart has it's beaches, it's homeland and thoughts of it's own.
Wake now, discover that you are the song that the mornin brings,
But the heart has it's seasons, it's evenins and songs of it's own.

Saint of Circumstances

This must be heaven, tonight I cross the line.
You must be the angel, I though I might never find.
Was it you I heard singing, Oh while I was chasin' dreams.
Driven by the wind, like the dust that blows around,
And the rain fallin' down, but I never know.
Got to be heaven, cause here's where the rainbow ends.
If this ain't the real thing, then it's close enough to pretend.
When that wind blows, when the night's about to fall.
You can hear the silence call, it's a certain sort of sound,
Like the rain fallin' down.

Holes in what's left of my reason, holes in the knees of my blues.
Odds against me been increasin', but I'll pull through.
I never could read no road map, I don't know what the weather might do.
But hear that witch wind whining and see that dog star shinin',
I got a feeling there's no time to lose, no time to lose.

Never know now, just don't never know, no.
Well it's been heaven, but even the rainbows will end.
Now my sails are fillin' and the wind is willin'.
And I'm as good as gone again.
I'm still walkin', so I'm sure that I can dance.
Just a Saint of Circumstance, just a tiger in a trance.
And the rain fallin' down, well, you never know, just don't know.
Listen, sure don't know what I going for, but I'm gonna go for it for sure...