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.
Mother, Child, and Breath of Life
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
Dancing the Magnificat
This week’s installment of The Merry Mystic features me dancing. No, really.
[youtube id=”XpydHElCL5w”]
Have you ever seen liturgical dance that touched your heart? Is physical movement a part of your spiritual practice? Please scroll down and leave a comment.
Best blessings,
Adam
Why Progressive
I worked for a while as a hospice chaplain. In that work I traveled all around north central Illinois, visiting the dying wherever they were: in their homes, in nursing homes, and in hospitals. I tried to give people what they needed. Sometimes it was a prayer or a song; more often, what they needed was just someone to talk to.
Some people wanted me to sing old hymns; some wanted me to read scripture; some wanted me to lead them in spontaneous prayer; some wanted me to pray the rosary with them. I did whatever I could. But one thing I wasn’t really prepared for was the large number of ex-Christians I met in that work: people who had left their churches, and who really didn’t want to hear any more religious BS. (Now that I’m a pastor, I naturally spend most of my time with people who are still coming to church, so I don’t meet nearly as many ex-Christians!)
Many of these people had been damaged by their former churches. One had been hounded out of a church for divorcing and remarrying. One had been told that the reason his young daughter had died was because he hadn’t prayed for her cure with sufficient faith. One gay man had been told that AIDS was his punishment from God. One man had been told that his deceased wife was unfortunately in hell, having never been baptized. And so on, and on, and on.
Someone argued with me today that “progressive” Christianity is just a snare and a delusion — that Christianity doesn’t need to progress, because in its good old-fashioned form it was already just right. But my experience is quite the opposite. I’ve seen a lot of damage done to good people by good old-fashioned Christianity. My feeling is, we have to help it do better.
Getting It From Both Sides
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!
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.