Free Stuff
My sheet music and other free resources are available here. Just follow this link, and enter your Merry Mystic password when requested.
These things are under a Creative Commons license that allows you to download them and copy them freely—for any non-commercial use.
Enjoy!
Store
I have books, CDs, and a video series for sale from my store page. (I wish I could just give everything away, but one must eat!)
I’m especially excited about my new book, now available: My Burden Is Light: A Pastor’s Plea for Rationality, Honesty, and Humility.
About
Merry, Mystical Missives
Here you’ll find everything I’ve sent out to the mailing list for The Merry Mystic.
The Gulf of America
I wrote and arranged this song about the real Gulf of America. Maybe someday I’ll do a music video for it. For now, I just want to get the song out there.
If it speaks to you, please share.
Bright blessings, Merry Mystics!
The Bird Is the Word
Hello, Merry Mystics!
This coming Sunday, in many churches, we’ll celebrate the baptism of Jesus. I wrote this song about that story—from the perspective of the dove. I borrowed most of the melody from Sir Arthur Sullivan (H. M. S. Pinafore). When I started the lyric, I thought it was going to be something for congregational singing, but on the whole I think it works better as a solo:
If you’d like to try it, there’s sheet music here.
Bright blessings,
Adam
P.S. Here’s that lyric:
I Am but a Little Dove To the man of God I came, where the Jordan’s waters flow. When the Spirit called his name, what it meant I did not know. I am but a little dove; all I know of God is love. Sore afraid, I shut my beak, but in me, the greater Dove flew that day. I heard Her speak words of sure, parental love. Though I’m just a gentle bird, let me tell you what I heard: Wings aflame and feathers flared, Her unending love She sang. Love for him, Her coo declared, till the earth and heavens rang. Neither far nor fast I fly, yet Her flight made light the sky. When you baptize, do you know that Her sky remains alight? Do you feel Her love still flow down to earth from heaven’s height? Do you see, inside your church, what I see from where I perch? Turn your face up to Her sky; let Her wingtip brush your brow. On Her love you can rely— just don't ask me why or how. I am but a little dove; all I know of God is love.
Christmas Song: Rejoice! Rejoice!
Hello, Merry Mystics! Here’s my new hymn for Gaudete Sunday: “Rejoice! Rejoice!” (Unlike “Joy to the World!” which was intended to be about the Second Coming, this one is actually about Christmas.) I hope it will give you a smile. Sheet music is here:
Rejoice! Rejoice! (letter size, with piano accompaniment)
Rejoice! Rejoice! (legal size, for folding, voice only)
There’s also a video of it here.
Christmas Song: All Shall Be Well, Noël
Hello, friends!
Here’s the fifth and final in my series of new songs/carols/hymns for Advent and Christmas. This one draws on a phrase from the writings of Julian of Norwich, an English woman who lived from 1342 to 1416. Julian was an anchoress—that is to say, she was a sort of hermit who lived in a cell built into the wall of a church. She had many visions, and she wrote them in her book Showings, which might be the first book written by a woman in the English language. In chapter 27 of the long text of Showings, she wrote:
But Jesus, who in this vision informed me about everything needful to me, answered with these words and said: Sin is necessary, but all will be well, and all will be well, and every kind of thing will be well. … These words were revealed most tenderly, showing no kind of blame to me or to anyone who will be saved.
Julian accepted that “all will be well,” and trusted in God to know better than she how this is to be accomplished. I think there’s something very beautiful, and rather Christmas-like, in that moment of enlightenment and acceptance.
I wrote a slightly more flowery harmony and accompaniment for this one, because I planned for it to be sung by a quartet on Christmas Eve.
All Shall Be Well, Noël (full score) (letter size)
All Shall Be Well, Noël (voice) (legal size, for folding)
These are the (mostly video) messages sent out to The Merry Mystic mailing list.
Sermons and Such
Every week, I preach in the Open Prairie United Church of Christ in Princeton, Illinois. I’m not sending most of these out to The Merry Mystic mailing list; but on the outside chance you’d like to see a sermon, here they are.
Congratulations! It’s a Person!
The story of Jesus healing a centurion’s slave hits one of the deepest notes of the Way of Jesus: the equality of all people in the eyes of God. We can take that lesson to heart by addressing the exclusion and oppression that folks with unpopular gender identities are now facing.
When There’s Nothing (More) We Can Do
Are you feeling, maybe, a little Lent-ed out already?
Legendary Literature and Celtic Dreams
The story of the Transfiguration is not a mere collection of facts. It’s a legend that rings with truths.
Eminently Practical
In Jesus’ Sermon on the Plain, he gives some pretty plain teachings. Why do we act as if we’re excused from listening to them?
Everyday Prayer
Prayers for everyday occasions—like Rabbi Irwin Keller’s prayer for watching the news—help us to be recollected in God throughout the day.
Why Prophets Have Short Lives
Offending the spirit of tribalism is never a safe thing to do.
What Love Is
Right in the middle of one of his apostolic smackdowns, Paul sings us a love song.
Who Can Detect Their Own Errors?
Psalm 19 teaches humility—the wisdom to know that we are all fallible, that we can’t always detect our own errors. Like respectfulness, truthfulness, and mercy, humility isn’t weak, as Bishop Budde reminded us last week. You can leave space for the possibility that you might be wrong, but still take a stand for the things you believe are right.
The Gulf of America
There’s a gap between Martin Luther King’s dream for America and the reality of America. No, not just a gap: more like a gulf.
Five Stories of the Baptism of Jesus
The four gospels have four interesting stories of the baptism of Jesus. There’s a fifth I wish we had as well.