Home2026-08-23T09:29:43-05:00


Hi! I’m Adam Brooks Webber. If you’re not already on The Merry Mystic mailing list, I’d like to convince you to sign up. You’ll get occasional emails about my new work, much of which is available through this site. When you sign up, I’ll send you a password to my Free Stuff area, which includes lots of free sheet music and other resources. If the emails don’t turn out to interest you, you can unsubscribe whenever you like. (And keep the Free Stuff password, of course.)

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Free Stuff

My sheet music and other free resources are available here. Just follow this link.

These things are under a Creative Commons license that allows you to download them and copy them freely—for any non-commercial use.

Enjoy!

Store

I have books, CDs, and a video series for sale from my store page. (I wish I could just give everything away, but one must eat!)

I’m especially excited about my new book, now available: My Burden Is Light: A Pastor’s Plea for Rationality, Honesty, and Humility.

About

Adam Brooks Webber
Adam Brooks Webber
When I was a boy, I couldn’t wait to grow up so that I could A) move away from small-town Illinois and B) stop going to church. Consequently, I am now a pastor in a small town in Illinois.

Merry, Mystical Missives

Here you’ll find everything I’ve sent out to the mailing list for The Merry Mystic.

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

By |April 26, 2018|Categories: books, fiction, writings|4 Comments
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I’m So Done

Have you ever had someone who keeps embarrassing you in public—someone you feel like you have to keep apologizing for?

Someone … or something?

I have. And I’ve written a song about it. Without a band, I can’t do this one live, so here it is as an mp3.

In case the lyric went by too fast, here it is in full:

I'm So Done

We're out with friends and I'm afraid you'll say something offensive:
A sexist screed or racist rant that's coarse and comprehensive,
And I'll be left to patch it up with people you've offended,
And claim that what they heard you say was not what you intended.

But now I'm so done
Being your apologizer,
Yeah, I'm so done,
And I'm just a little wiser.
I was your bold excuser
And your liar and your loser,
But my spin control is spun,
And I'm done.
 
You turn their heads and everybody finds you hypnotizing,
Until you turn obnoxious and I start apologizing.
You stun the room, and I'm supposed to make some explanation.
How did it get to be my job to save your reputation?
 
But now I'm so done
Being your apologizer,
Yeah, I'm so done,
And I'm just a little wiser:
I was your chief excuser
And your liar and your loser,
But my spin control is spun,
And now I'm done.
 
You're beautiful, except for each and every ugly bit.
You're full of truth and wisdom, and you're also full of what fans hit.
You're peace and love and joy, and then you're homicidal rage,
With healing balm and poison pill on almost every page!

You threaten us with snakes if we complain about the rations,
You threaten us with plagues if we belong to other nations,
You threaten kids with bears if they go teasing balding leaders,
And you threaten them with stoning if they're stubborn little bleaters.
 
But now I'm so done
Being your apologizer,
Yeah, I'm so done,
And I'm just a little wiser:
I was your cheap excuser
And your liar and your loser,
But my spin control is spun,
And now I'm done.
 
You said that God forbids us kill, and that he helps us do it.
You said the world was ending, but somehow we all lived through it.
You said that you were perfect, and that we should all respect you,
And you said that God would curse us if we ever should correct you.
 
But now I'm so done
Being your apologizer,
Yeah, I'm so done,
And I'm just a little wiser:
I was your lame excuser
And your liar and your loser,
But my spin control is spun,
and now I'm done.

But now I'm so done
Being your apologizer,
Yeah, I'm so done,
And I'm just a little wiser:
I was your sad excuser
And your liar and your loser,
But my spin control is spun,
and now I'm done.
By |February 24, 2018|Categories: music, The Merry Mystic|4 Comments
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Merry Christmas, Mr. President

President Trump is claiming a victory in getting people (retailers, apparently) to say “Merry Christmas” instead of “Happy Holidays.” So here’s my Merry Christmas wish for him.

[youtube id=6jqgrEP1Ug4]

And a Happy Christmas to all Merry Mystics everywhere, and to all a good night!

By |December 23, 2017|Categories: The Merry Mystic|1 Comment
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These are the (mostly video) messages sent out to The Merry Mystic mailing list.

Sermons and Such

Every week, I preach in the Open Prairie United Church of Christ in Princeton, Illinois. I’m not sending most of these out to The Merry Mystic mailing list; but on the outside chance you’d like to see a sermon, here they are.

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