music

Christmas Song: Star-Struck by the Stable Gate

Hello, friends!

Here’s the second in my series of five new songs/carols/hymns for Advent and Christmas. This one is a different take on the old story of the Animals’ Christmas. What if the animals at the stable were just waiting for human beings to finally get a clue? The sheet music with hymn parts is here:

Star-Struck by the Stable Gate (legal size, for folding)

Star-Struck by the Stable Gate (letter size)

There’s also a video of it here.

Adam2024-12-18T12:57:43-06:00November 23, 2024|0 Comments

Christmas Song: Be Born in Us Tonight

Hello, friends!

I’m working on five new songs (hymns? carols?) for Advent and Christmas. Here’s the first: Be Born in Us Tonight. There’s a verse for each Sunday in Advent, and one for Christmas Eve. The “full” sheet music has a keyboard accompaniment; the “voice” sheet music has just hymn parts, and it’s laid out for a US legal-size sheet, to print and fold.

There’s also a video of it here.

Adam2024-12-18T12:56:47-06:00November 23, 2024|2 Comments

To a Horse’s Rear

Hello, friends!

Here’s a little song in response to the recent election here in the United States. (We all have our own ways of coping!) The lyric is in sonnet form—plus a few parenthetical phrases. It’s just a trumpery little sonnet, really, and I offer it with apologies to William “Shifty” Shakespeare.

Adam2024-11-14T09:21:30-06:00November 14, 2024|6 Comments

An Evening Wasted with The Merry Mystic
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An Evening Wasted with The Merry Mystic

music, The Merry Mystic

An Evening Wasted with The Merry Mystic

Hello friends,

I’ll be emerging from my cave next month to give a live concert. The dates are Friday, October 18th, 7:00 p.m., and Saturday, October 19th, 2:00 p.m. The location is the Open Prairie United Church of Christ, which is at 25 E. Marion Street in Princeton, Illinois—behind the Apollo Theater. (Long ago, the Apollo had a stage for vaudeville shows. That’s fitting: my songs are vaudeville-adjacent!) Admission is free, with a free-will offering to support the host church, and refreshments will be offered at the intermission.

The Merry Mystic's head is packed
    with all the songs he'll spout.
That's why his hair is growing thin:
To flee the madcap mess within,
    the crew is bailing out!

Hope to see you there!

Bright blessings,

Adam

Adam2024-09-09T11:00:02-05:00September 9, 2024|0 Comments

Love Small

I love my small town: Princeton, Illinois. At least, I love it now. Hated it when I first moved here…

Adam2024-04-21T10:18:07-05:00April 21, 2024|10 Comments

Me and Joe and What’s-His-Name

Here’s a song I wrote, inspired by a story from the Gospel of Luke. I performed this at the close of our Sunday morning soulcare at the Open Prairie United Church of Christ on Palm Sunday, 2024.

Adam2024-03-24T13:22:07-05:00March 24, 2024|0 Comments

Surely You Know the Change I Need

I wrote a new hymn for the first Sunday in Lent. (It goes with my sermon, “Time for a Change“.)

Exhortations to change are a big part of the Christian tradition: change your heart, change your mind, change your life. Traditionally we’ve used the word repent for that; repent is the usual translation of Jesus’ exhortation in biblical Greek, μετανοεῖτε, which presumably was a translation of something Jesus said in Aramaic. But however we ended up with that word, I think it’s inadequate. Repent has all kinds of sorry associations: it’s what one does while sitting in sackcloth and ashes, overcome with remorse, perhaps punishing oneself for one’s misdeeds. And sometimes, yes, change begins with remorse—but not always.

These are the words of the hymn:

Surely You Know the Change I Need

Surely you know the change I need;
help me to know it too.
Free me of all my lethargy
and show me the path to you, to you,
and show me the path to you.

When I am wrong, oh help me feel
fully a right remorse.
Then help me leave remorse behind
and find me a better course, a course,
and find me a better course.

Mover of all, may I be moved,
cherishing every chance,
Ready to hear you say my name
and call me to join the dance, the dance,
and call me to join the dance.

Ready to fly, the wild goose waits,
ready to sprout, the seed.
So make me ready, God of life
for changes you know I need, I need,
for changes you know I need.

As always, sheet music for Surely You Know the Change I Need is available in our Free Stuff Area. Also, you can see and hear it being sung for a church service here.

Adam2024-02-19T10:00:07-06:00February 19, 2024|0 Comments

Keep My Head above the Wave

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

Adam2024-01-07T12:27:34-06:00January 7, 2024|2 Comments

O Mother of Music

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.

Adam2023-12-05T12:43:43-06:00December 5, 2023|0 Comments

Confessions of a Heretical Author

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!)

Adam2023-11-07T08:05:54-06:00November 7, 2023|2 Comments