Here in the USA it’s election time, and even my fellow Merry Mystics in other countries haven’t been able to avoid hearing all about it. This has been the strangest, the ugliest, the most divisive presidential election of my lifetime. But I have a plan …
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P.S. If you’re looking for something to help you turn your focus away from anxiety and anger, I recommend this back issue — our stilling exercise from July.
I’ve put together a Halloween special just for all you Merry Mystics out there. It’s sort of a ghost story …
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P.S. That story has (surprise!) a pretty cynical characterization of church institutions. If you’d like to hear a more positive (but still challenging) message on the subject, you might try listening to my sermon for All Saints’ Day.
I’ve often asked God for instructions. I even tried using one of those newfangled discernometers. Here’s what happened.
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I’ve been wishing for an enticing premium to offer people—something that would persuade more folks to give me their email addresses for The Merry Mystic. How to lose ten pounds overnight? How to attract money? How to avoid an eternity of torment in hell? (That one used to persuade a lot of people to join churches, and even tithe to them, so I considered it seriously.)
But then it hit me: I have something lots of people want. I have the secret of flight. Ready for this?
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It’s been a long time since The Merry Mystic brought you any outright preaching or teaching. Usually, I prefer something more casual, like music or humor. But I just couldn’t help myself this week. (I had a former career as a professor of computer science, so every now and then, I just have to bust out with a PowerPoint.)
My subject comes from an open-ended question I received this week: what is faith all about? My answer is from my own Christian perspective, of course. But I’d love to hear what you think about that question too, so please scroll down when you’ve seen the video and leave a response.
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It’s fall here in Michigan. I’ve harvested a few acorn squash, and we have a few pumpkins coming on, but our garden is my wife’s project, and she plants mostly for the birds and insects. The birds and bees and butterflies—and squirrels, and deer!—have been busy harvesting. It reminds me of how gardening can be a ministry, and a form of prayer. I wrote a hymn about it: “Dear God, In Your Garden.”
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Best blessings on your gardening, cooking, woodworking, knitting—and all your other ministries.
Adam
P.S. You can find scores for “Dear God, In Your Garden” in our Free Stuff area. And you can read a lot more about it in Chapter 5 of my book, The Inn of God’s Forgiveness.
Last week’s episode of The Merry Mystic—my rant—was the most popular ever. Still, it didn’t exactly take the internet by storm. So here, as promised, is my cat video.
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Thanks for all the great responses and shares last week. It helps me more than you know. Best blessings!
I’m usually a peaceful guy. But there are some things that get under my skin, and being told I’m a heretic, or I’m not really a Christian, is one of them—especially when the person telling me that is an atheist. You might want to send the kids out to play while you watch this one.
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Leave a comment and rant on, or rant back, if you like. (And do share this post. You know what happens next week if you don’t!)
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 recorded this merry, mystical missive in the early morning on top of West Rattlesnake Mountain in New Hampshire. It’s a place to which I often return. I remember visiting it as a boy—I’m pretty sure my father carried me part of the way up. I also remember carrying my own son up to the top—he’s more likely to be able to carry me now. It’s a place that always reminds me strongly of the Celtic Christian emphasis on the presence of God in the natural world.
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Don’t worry: I’ve neither seen nor heard of any rattlesnakes on Rattlesnake Mountain. In any case, on that morning, I think they’d have been rattling in time with God’s great song.