A merry and mystical new year to all!
I wrote a song this week, a song I’d like to share with you. It’s partly a prayer for God’s help in not drowning. (My daughter is now serving in the USCG, so I always pray “for those in peril on the sea.”) But it’s also partly a prayer for God’s help in another kind of peril: coping with depression.
However you hear it, I hope it will bless you.
Adam
The Apostle Paul cautioned us not to quench the spirit. So when you read scripture—especially the joyful passages of Advent—let the spirit out!
Hello, Merry Mystics! Here’s a new hymn for Advent. You can learn more about the O Antiphons here, and more about the hymn tune Ebenezer here. The words of the hymn are these:
O Mother of Music
O mother of music! O father of harmony!
Lost in a cacophony to thee we cry.
Though roughened our voices by noisy iniquity,
Hear, singer and savior, our sibilant sigh.
Come, sing us again the song we have forgotten,
Come, teach us again our high, heavenly parts!
Your hand on the harp-strings, your touch on the tuning pegs,
Your beautiful music infusing our hearts.O water of healing! O fountain of love and life!
Unbearably thirsty, for mercy we cry.
Once growing and green, we wilt under the sultry sun,
Once gracing your garden, we harden and dry.
Come now like a rainstorm, rise now like a river,
Soak into the soil and reach into the roots!
Your heavenly fountain, mounting to eternal life,
Your waters arriving, reviving green shoots.O light of the dawning! O hope of the weary world!
We wander in darkness, in need of your aid.
Grim now is the heart and faint under the force of death,
Cold, heavy and hopeless, alone and afraid.
Come, brighten the night with your radiant wonder,
Come, guide us along with your heavenly light!
Let never again our way wander away from you,
Let hope to our hearts return, let it burn bright.
And, as always, sheet music for O Mother of Music is available in our Free Stuff Area.
This sermon, for the first Sunday in Advent, shares a true story from the current Israel-Hamas war. (It’s a hopeful sermon, but also disturbing in places; parents of young children are advised to view this before sharing it them.)
The Parable of the Talents is one of the most annoying parables of Jesus. There’s a reason for that.
Some literary characters are models of virtue. They serve as a celebration of an ideal, and as a reproach to pretenders. Maybe we could too!
Hello, merry and mystical friends!
In this video I make an embarrassing confession, and then I introduce my new book: My Burden Is Light: A Pastor’s Plea for Rationality, Honesty, and Humility. The book was a labor of love; special thanks go to the reading group at the Open Prairie United Church of Christ in Princeton, Illinois, who read and discussed an early draft. They put up with me as their pastor, even though I am both a wild-eyed Christian mystic and a skeptical and irreverent heretic. (But I don’t suppose Merry Mystic subscribers will be surprised on either count!)
Hello, friends! I have a new book just out: My Burden Is Light: A Pastor’s Plea for Rationality, Honesty, and Humility. I’ll be releasing a Merry Mystic video which introduces the book. Following that, I’m making a series of posts with some short excerpts from the book.
But in case you just want to read it now, you can find it on Amazon here.
How can the church avoid turning into a Halloween horror: a Bates-Motel Church, a Vampire Church, or a Mummy’s-Tomb Church?
Why didn’t Jesus always give simple answers?
