The woods were my first church.  The first time I remember being aware of the great Song of God, I was in the woods.  The first time I remember feeling my part in the connectedness of all living things, I was sitting in a tree.  (These days, I hear that Song and feel that connectedness in other places too—sometimes even in a church of stone!)

I wrote this song, “Treesong,” for my last album, As a Deer Longs.  The instruments and male vocals are mine; the female vocals are Kelly Autrey-Webber, my true love; the images are from a walk in the woods of New Hampshire.

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(I’m sorry the images aren’t sharper — they’re just stills culled from handheld video, shot as I walked.  But I think they’re beautiful, even as they are.)

I wrote this song for a man I met back in my seminary days.  He told me he was  Vietnam veteran.  I told him I was a seminary student.  He told me he didn’t believe in God—and he told me why.  I wrote this song to honor his story.

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I think about him often, and when I think about him, all I have are questions.  I never saw him again; what became of him?  I don’t know that I was any help to him in our conversation; what might I have done differently?  Why is there destructive suffering in this world—not the kind that strengthens people, like a refining fire, but the kind that grinds people down beyond their ability to resist?  How can we help build a more peaceful world, a world where military men and women are not asked to do things that make them feel that “all the lights are dimmer since the war?”  And what better theology could we teach our children—what understanding of God that won’t buckle under the heavy burdens life may require them to carry?

As always, I value your thoughts on these matters.

Do you know where you will spend eternity?  I don’t!  But I do have a conjecture…

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I think that one of the reasons why Christianity is speaking to fewer people these days is because skeptics are the growth demographic.  Claiming to know exactly what happens to us when we die just makes us look superstitious and gullible.  But that’s what I think — leave a comment below, and tell me what you think.

In this issue of The Merry Mystic, I share the story of my children’s baptism, and I sing the song I wrote for that occasion.

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There’s a live version and a studio version of that song on my album, Smackdown.

Got a baptism story to share?  Scroll down and tell us about it below.

One of my favorite symbols for God is the fountain.  I wrote about this in my book, The Inn of God’s Forgiveness:

This clear fountain became for me a symbol of God: a symbol of the mysterious, unceasing source of love and joy and energy.  If I could choose one symbol to stand for my church, it would not be a cross, but a fountain.

Superficially, a fountain is a pleasant sensual experience.  You see the dancing sunlight on the water, and you hear the soothing splashing of the water, and the laughter of children and the singing of birds around the water, and you smell the cool water falling through the hot air, and you can take off your shoes and feel the water washing the weariness from your feet.  But at a deeper level, a fountain is a powerful symbol.  It’s so inexplicable—and so wasteful!  It just throws water up into the air.  It doesn’t irrigate crops, doesn’t turn a turbine, doesn’t move commerce down the canal.  It just gives itself, whether anyone is there to receive it or not.

This is my song “Clear Fountain.”

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“Clear Fountain” is from my album As a Deer Longs; I’m singing and playing all the instruments, but the angelic background vocals are provided by Kelly Autrey-Webber, my wife.  I couldn’t think of a suitable fountain nearby to film for the visual background, but the little river near my home is just as good—better, in some ways, because it’s not human-made.

Do you have a symbol for God that is particularly meaningful to you?  Please tell me about it below.

Hello, friends.  I’ve a little song to share with you today — a piece of wisdom from my martial-arts tradition.  This is something every martial artist knows about what to do when you’re falling.

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Please take a leap by joining the conversation: share a story or ask a question below.

P.S.  If you have another minute, I have a short essay you might enjoy reading as well.  It’s a guest post, as a “Monk in the World,” over at Abbey of the Arts.  It’s about karatedo as a spiritual practice.  I really like the virtual community there.   (Except that they don’t have much of our humorous, skeptical side — but you can always come here for that!)