songs, albums, and concerts
Here’s a new song about responding to that good news.
[youtube id=WcuSO6XrhaU]
Sheet music for “Turn to the Life” is available in the Free Stuff area here. There are three versions there: voice with piano, voice alone (as for a church bulletin insert), and a choral arrangement.
Here’s a new song about God’s signature move. It’s called “Break Our Chains.” Sheet music for “Break Our Chains” is available in the Free Stuff area here.
Who needs to have their chains broken today, and what should we be doing to help? Please leave a comment below.
Last week, I shared a poem with you: “Prayer for Children Going to School.” (If you missed that post, it’s still available here.) I’ve had requests to say a bit more about this — some of our Merry Mystics found it rather disturbing! So in this week’s video, I talk a bit more my school days, and some of my other prayers for schoolchildren and their parents. There’s a song, too: “Three More Days.”
[youtube id=NdNRRxhhZvc]
(If you’d like to hear all of “Three More Days,” you can find it online here.)
Three more days and we are free … so we used to sing on the school bus, when any vacation was approaching. Do you remember a song like that, something the kids used to sing on your school bus or playground? Your homework for today is to leave a comment and tell us about it.
“I am a Christian.” More than two billion people on this planet might say those words. But, of course, we don’t all mean the same thing when we say them. With the help of a song, I explain a little bit about what I mean when I say them.
[youtube id=”8StHspXfL3A”]
That’s close to the core of what being a Christian means to me: choosing to follow the way of Jesus. (Sheet music for the hymn “Follow You, My Jesus” is available from the Free Stuff page on this web site.)
It’s an oddly contentious matter, this word “Christian.” I’ve had people get really angry with me because my definition differs from theirs. But I won’t get angry, I promise, if yours differs from mine. So, what about you? Do you call yourself a Christian? Why or why not?
I’m not naturally a joyful person. (Just ask my wife: she says I’m more often broody and intense.) But there’s is great song of joy going on all around us, and sometimes, I just have to chime in.
[youtube id=”R4aQseDfS3I”]
(Sheet music for the hymn “The Stars Sing Out Your Song of Joy” is available from the Free Stuff page on this web site.)
I’ve been thinking about the deep connection between our physical longings and our spiritual longings — between our physical joys and our spiritual joys. In this issue of The Merry Mystic, I share a new hymn that rejoices in that connection. Then I talk about the missing verse: a verse I didn’t write that was begging to be written. As you listen to the song, can you guess what’s missing?
[youtube id=”8p4hSQa40Ys”]
(Sheet music for the hymn “When I Hunger” is available from the Free Stuff page on this web site.)
In this week’s installment of The Merry Mystic, I share a new chant about God. It’s a chant that imagines God as a trinity: Mother, Child, and Breath of Life.
[youtube id=”kiH5EManKEw”]
The music for “Mother, Child, and Breath of Life” is available in my “Free Stuff” area, including the vocal score and some accompaniment ideas. (You’ll need the password for the free stuff. If you don’t have that password, you can get it by subscribing to my weekly letter, The Merry Mystic. Please do: it’s free, and if it doesn’t suit you, you can always unsubscribe.)
I hope you’ll scroll down and leave a comment. How would you suggest using this music? Have you used it, and how did it work for you? Do you find God in these three-in-one images? Please scroll down and share your thoughts.
Best blessings,
Adam
In Chapter Three of The Inn of God’s Forgiveness, I wrote:
To summarize, here’s the bad news: if you want to claim the Christian tradition without affirming the traditional creeds, it’s a bit of an uphill battle. Confident creedal Christians will identify you as an inadequate believer, if not actually an agent of Satan; confident atheists will identify you as an inadequate doubter, still clinging to your discredited faith tradition; but in the face of both, you will have to insist on claiming your own religious identity.
It’s coming back to haunt me now. I’m advertising the web page for the book on Facebook, and people are occasionally commenting on the ad that appears in their news feeds. So far, the comments are of just these two kinds. There are confident creedal Christians who want to tell me that I’m not really a Christian — and there are atheists who are say things like “tired of these fairy tales in my news feed” and “he [Jesus] is a made up character in a storybook who cares.”
But oh well! I can’t really blame the atheists for being cheesed off: shouldn’t Facebook know enough about their interests to not advertise a book of Christian theology and hymns to them? But it’s interesting how reactive people are on this topic — reactive in much the same way on all sides. The atheists feel threatened and demeaned by an oppressive Christian majority. The conservative Christians also feel threatened and demeaned by the erosion of their tradition in an increasingly secular culture. And, of course, I feel pretty beleaguered myself, getting it from both sides. But it’s been very interesting to engage my conservative Christian commentators in online discussion. We often seem to be able to find some ground for mutual respect, though not always agreement. That’s progress. And meanwhile, the people who are not offended by the ad, though not posting, are coming to the web site and downloading the hymns. 1000 downloads and counting!
I’m working on two new hymns about the earth: one happy (“The Harmony of the Incredible Earth”) and one sorrowful (“Compassion’s Sting”). That’s sort of how I’m feeling these days. Sometimes the earth is so overwhelmingly beautiful that I just have to join in its song; sometimes the harm we’re doing, the harm I’m doing, to the earth is so sad that I just have to lament. Here’s a draft stanza of the first:
Oh, blessed is Earth, the prolific and sweet, Providing us plenty of good things to eat, With life on the surface and treasures below, What greater abundance could any bestow? Her fisheries, forests, and fields of grain, Her breathable breezes, her drinkable rain, The harmony of the incredible earth! The harmony of, the harmony of, the harmony of the incredible earth!
And here’s a draft stanza of the second:
When species vanish from the Earth, And ancient coral dies, When land erodes and life is stilled And burning forest cries, When silence falls where once the calls Of songbirds filled the air, You weep, O God, with every death And final breath, And yet we do not care.
I don’t think Keystone XL is a good idea — maybe that’s why this is on my heart today.
The Nook version of my new book, The Inn of God’s Forgiveness and Other Hymns for the Progressive Church, is now available from Barnes&Noble. On most Nooks, the music pages themselves will be too small to read, but you can always for printing.
I usually use a Kindle myself, but I got a used Nook on eBay for testing this edition. It was pretty straightforward. I guess I already found most of the problems when I made my Kindle and iBooks Store editions.