About Adam

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So far Adam has created 425 blog entries.

Something New in the Store

Hello, friends!

I’ve written a considerable variety of things over the years: some computer science journal articles, a couple of textbooks, a book of theological essays with new hymns, a dozen more new hymns after that, dozens of videos for The Merry Mystic, and two CDs of original music—plus, of course, a few hundred sermons. But you know what I’ve enjoyed writing the most? Fantasy romance.

Yes, really.

I’ve just published a book called The Pastor and the Priestess. It’s a feel-good story about a small-town pastor and a Wiccan priestess who find magic and romance while facing a deadly series of hate crimes. Hah! I’m grinning ear to ear just typing that description. It’s available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle editions. If it sounds like something you’d enjoy, please give it a try. And if you do enjoy it, please share a review on Amazon.

You can read more about The Pastor and the Priestess on our Store page.

Thanks and best blessings,

Adam

2019-01-15T23:40:43-06:00January 15, 2019|5 Comments

The Lady Loves Me

I’ve spent most of my life immersed in a received Christian tradition that refers to God as male. It’s almost always “He cometh,” and “bless His name,” and “praise Him;” almost never “She cometh,” and “bless Her name,” and “praise Her.” Intellectually, I don’t want to think of God has having a specific gender. But under the weight of all that gendered language, it’s hard not to.

Here’s my own little contribution to address the imbalance: a song called “The Lady Loves Me.”

2022-05-24T16:47:24-05:00January 14, 2019|3 Comments

Real Men (Are Kind and Polite)

Do you have an ideal of what a “real man” should be like?

Popular culture seems very confused about this. Action films tend to have leading men who are vengeful and aggressive, quick with their fists and their guns. (There are a few exceptions, of course. God bless Dwayne Johnson!) Our national politics also seems to reward men who are aggressive, abusive, boastful, self-serving, and untruthful.

My father taught me something completely different about what real men are like.This song is dedicated to my father, who turns 85 today. Happy Birthday, Papa!

Update, 4/20/2019: I’ve been asked to post the lyrics to this song. Here they are:

Real Men

by Adam Brooks Webber

So I said, Daddy, when I grow up, I want to be a real man. And he said, Son, I know you can do it. Let me just give you a little advice.

Real men are kind and polite,
Not like in the movies on Saturday night,
Short-tempered and quick with a fist or gun.
That ain’t a man, my son.

Real men are quietly strong.
They’re never abusive. That’s totally wrong.
Bombastical bragging is way too weak.
Real men let action speak.

Real men are ready to work,
Not serving themselves. That just makes you a jerk.
They care for their families, their friends, their town,
Help you up when you’re down.

Real men are honest for sure,
Not fibbing or fudging. That’s so immature.
They may not say much, son, but when they do,
Every word is true.

Real men are kind and polite,
Daddy said as he tucked me in tight for the night.
Remember my words, son, and when you do
You’ll be a real man too.

2023-05-28T10:19:19-05:00October 20, 2018|0 Comments

A Little Something I Can Sell

This heartfelt prayer goes out to all my fellow pastors. Haven’t you sometimes wished your church had a better value proposition—something that was a bit easier to sell?

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It was so much easier in the old days, when we could just threaten ’em with hell. God, I miss the screaming ….

2022-01-13T07:53:19-06:00October 6, 2018|2 Comments

Viriditas

I’ve written a choral piece called “Viriditas,” and in this video I introduce it and sing a little sample while sitting in a cornfield. Viriditas was a favorite word of one of my favorite Christian mystics, Hildegard of Bingen. In Latin, it just means greenness, but for Hildegard it meant much more than that.

Sheet music for “Viriditas” is available in our Free Stuff area. If you get a group together and perform it, please let me know. Send me a video, and I’ll put it up here for all us Merry Mystics to enjoy.

2022-08-25T12:19:05-05:00July 30, 2018|4 Comments

Bible Quiz

Last week’s episode of The Merry Mystic was a Bible lesson—so today, it’s time for a little quiz. But don’t worry, it’s multiple choice! The quiz is written on the posters I made for last Saturday’s demonstration.

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2018-07-02T10:18:31-05:00July 2, 2018|2 Comments

About Aliens

I treasure the Bible—even though I don’t always agree with it—and it really gets under my skin when people misuse it, as Jeff Sessions and Sarah Sanders have been doing recently. The Bible has quite a lot to say about how we are supposed to treat aliens and strangers. And—spoiler alert!—it isn’t exactly the way our current administration is treating those poor souls fleeing to our country from the south…

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2018-06-25T12:18:42-05:00June 25, 2018|1 Comment

Breastplate

It’s a rainy day in my home town—green and soft—so I’m thinking of Ireland, and of St. Patrick.

In the year 400, the Roman empire stretched all the way to the west coast of Britain. Somewhere near the Severn estuary on that coast, a boy named Patricius lived with his family. He was the son of a curialis, a tax-collector, which made him fairly well off—likely to get an education and to inherit some land, and his father’s tax district as well.

But the Empire was struggling, and the Roman garrisons were being drawn down to deal with unrest away east, which made the west coast easy prey for raiders from Ireland. One night in the year 401, just before dawn, a fleet of black coracles brought raiders to Patricius’ town. The town was looted and burned, and Patricius was captured, bound, and thrown into the bottom of a boat. He didn’t see what happened to his family.

The slave-takers brought Patricius across the Irish sea to Ireland, a land beyond the edge of the known world, where the customs and language were strange and where Christianity and the Roman empire had scarcely penetrated. There he was sold in a slave market.

His master set him to work as a shepherd-slave. With little food or clothing and with no human company, he spent days and nights alone in the hills, tending the sheep belonging to his master. He wrote later that he was chastened and humbled in his new life by daily hunger and nakedness.

I picture the boy Patricius waking before daybreak, cold and naked, surrounded by fears. I picture him renewing his courage with prayer. There’s an old type of prayer called a lorica. The word originally meant a piece of armor, a Roman soldier’s breastplate, but a lorica prayer is a prayer invoking God’s protection, figuratively armoring yourself with the love of God. And there’s an ancient lorica that tradition says was written by Patricius himself: the Breastplate of St. Patrick.

It has been set to music many times. I’m singing my own version of it today.

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P.S. If you haven’t tried my serialized fantasy romance, The Pastor and the Priestess, you can check it out here. It’s fun, and it’s free. I’m releasing one installment every week. (We’re up to Chapter Five: “Not Naked”!)

2018-05-31T17:07:50-05:00May 31, 2018|0 Comments

Open Up

Here’s a new song—an upbeat prayer that God might help us open up our hearts. We used this as a warm-up song at the beginning of our Sunday service this week in the church I serve: the Open Prairie United Church of Christ.

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As usual, you can find sheet music for “Open Up” in our Free Stuff area.

P.S.  If you haven’t tried my serialized fantasy romance, The Pastor and the Priestess, you can check it out here.  It’s fun, and it’s free.  I’m releasing one installment every week.  (Today we started Chapter Three!)

2018-05-07T16:00:33-05:00May 7, 2018|1 Comment

Tales of Corwin: Fantastic, Romantic, Fun, and Free

Over the past year, I’ve been enjoying writing some fiction. It’s a fantasy romance called The Pastor and the Priestess. Some of you may remember that I mentioned this project on “The Merry Mystic” last year. Well, I finished a draft of the book, and I’ve re-read it several times. And each time I re-read it, it made me happy. So I thought, hey, I’ll find a literary agent and get this thing published.

Well, that was forty rejections ago. Forty. Not even a nibble. (The first ten rejections are the hardest!) I can’t really blame them. What they’re looking for—what almost all agents are looking for—is something similar to something that has been successful. And The Pastor and the Priestess isn’t similar to much of anything. It’s by far the most commercial thing I’ve ever written—but really, that isn’t saying all that much. My last book, after all, The Inn of God’s Forgiveness, was a collection of theological essays with new hymns. Not exactly bestseller material.

But anyway: The Pastor and the Priestess still makes me smile when I read it, and it still makes me smile when I polish it up, and when I work on the sequel. So I’m not giving it up.

Instead, I’m giving it away: free fiction, published as an online serial. I’ve already posted the first couple of installments, and I’ve done them both in text and in audio form, as a podcast called “Tales of Corwin”—named for the town where the adventures take place. My plan is to release one new installment every week. That’ll give me a chance to polish my story as I go, and get your feedback on it.

You can find my web site for the Tales of Corwin at corwin.adambrookswebber.com. You can also subscribe to the podcast directly through the usual channels, like iTunes and Google Play Music.

When the whole serial is done, I plan to take it down and prepare it for print publication. So, read it for free while you can. Please share it with anyone you know who has a taste for fantasy romance. And I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

And don’t worry—I’ll get back to writing music too, and I’ll still be doing The Merry Mystic. (In fact, there’s a new episode today!)

Thanks and best blessings,

Adam

2018-04-26T15:40:13-05:00April 26, 2018|4 Comments
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