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
Merry, Mystical Missives
Here you’ll find everything I’ve sent out to the mailing list for The Merry Mystic.
Treesong
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.)
Nature’s Song
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.
I Am the Thin Place (and So Are You)
This week I’m on vacation in Holderness, New Hampshire, USA. I thought about taking a break from The Merry Mystic while I’m traveling, but I couldn’t resist the chance to share one of my favorite places on earth with you. This is Squam Lake, where I learned to swim when I was a boy. It is a thin place for me—a place where the veil between the physical world and the spirit world seems especially thin. Or is it just me?
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What are the thin places in your life?
I Don’t Believe in You Any More
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.
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.