Me too, I think it's sublime; although it has a somewhat
monophysitic character (if you ever want to get your mind blown by some really far out and abstruse and yet very essential theology just jump in to Wiki there and start clicking around
) which is characteristic of the Oriental Churches, although modern theological
rapprochement has helped us understand that some of these controversies are different ways of expressing the same very abstract thoughts (particularly regarding the
filioque controversy, one of the major divisions between Eastern Orthodox and Latin Catholics, some of the differences stem from the paucity of human words to express the divine and particularly the incarnational; a difficulty we also have in interconfessional discussion about the Eucharist.) A lot characteristics of Eastern Christianity, it's greater affinity for the abstract, mystical, and experiential aspects of the Divine, none of which, of course, are absent in the Latin Church, but are expressed in a different way. Fortunately there has been more dialogue but in particular more Western theological discovery of Eastern thought in this century, following the teaching of Pope St John Paul II that the Church "breathes with two lungs," East and West.
3/1/69 should be a very enjoyable, and durably so, experience for any Deadhead. Particularly those who grew up in a much more analog era where it was all about tape-trading, many of those early shows (which show some songs, like the
Cryptical sequence and
Dark Star, which became greatly revered by fans but were more and more seldom played into the 80's, other songs in that show 3/1/69 are more obscure, but it's all a great deal of fun and ends on a triumphant, euphoric, even orgasmic kind of note.) Their musical repertoire was of course a lot smaller in that era so there is less musical diversity from show to show, although that picks up
very quickly in the early 70's, a prolific era for Hunter and Garcia in particular in songwriting but the whole band in more or less organic creation of songs which would, and still do, evolve over time (the
The Other One in the particular style of a
Cryptical sequence became a lot more common with latter-day incarnations of the Dead, for instance, first as a 60's throwback, but then took on new life and a distinct style of it's own, as did
Dark Star and even
The Eleven, which, despite being one of my favorite tunes especially as paired with
St Stephen, especially as in this show in particular, was hardly only a few times after the mid 70s, is more often played, often at Phil-oriented shows, but again, in a distinct 21st century style.) 3/1/69 I would certainly consider and the Filmore Acoustic set in October 1970, and several of the Europe '72 shows along with October '74 Winterland and a few others, among the absolute essentials of the earlier (pre-1977) Dead. It should fit handily, I think, onto two discs. I'm sure it will be appreciated. If she hasn't heard it before, which is really actually quite possible if she hasn't listened to a lot of Dead online, it will blow her mind
![:\](https://bluelight.org/xf/BL_Images/Orig_Emoji/wrygrin.gif "wry grin :\")
