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.
Concert Video: “I Don’t Believe In You Any More”
Here’s some more video from the concert I gave on November 12, 2011 at the Sycamore United Methodist Church in Sycamore, IL. (Thanks to the staff there for providing this footage.) My brother Ben helped me with some of chords and voicings in this song. He’s a jazz genius.
I wrote this song for a homeless veteran I met, a man who told me that he didn’t believe in God — and told me why. God bless you, friend, wherever you are.
Concert Video: “Prophet’s Lament”
Here’s some video from the concert I gave on November 12, 2011 at the Sycamore United Methodist Church in Sycamore, IL. (Thanks to the staff there for providing this footage.) The song is my “Prophet’s Lament”.
Animals’ Meditation on Psalm 83
Animals' Meditation on Psalm 83 O God, do not keep silence; do not hold your peace or be still, O God! Even now your enemies are in tumult; those who hate you have raised their heads. They lay crafty plans against your people; they consult together against those you protect. They say, "Come, let us enslave them, bring them to nought, let the spirits of free animals be remembered no more." They conspire with one accord; against you they make a covenant-- the tents of Con Agra and Cargill, ADM and Swift Foods, Monsanto with the shareholders of Hormel, DuPont also has joined them; they are the strong arm of the children of the apes. How long will you be silent, O God, while your people weep? In vast stinking pens we pray to you, in dark dreams, in rows upon rows. We are born and ripped from our mothers, we give birth, but our children are taken away. Happy are they who are born upon the free earth; in living and in dying they sing your praises. Who will glorify your name, O God, when all your children are broken and silent? As fire consumes the forest, as the flame sets the mountains ablaze, so pursue your enemies with your tempest and terrify them with your hurricane. Fill their faces with shame, so that they may seek your name, O Lord. Let them know that you alone, whose name is the Lord, are the Most High over all the earth.
Junior Faculty
It’s back-to-school time, so here’s a lesson about teaching that I learned from a dear colleague in 1994, my first year as a professor. It’s expressed here as a sonnet, entirely in words of one syllable.
Junior Faculty
Once, in my first year on the job, I said,
"How fine, my friend, that you let no one fail!
How hard you work to see them all well read!"
My friend, to teach me too, then told this tale:
A man goes to a farm and sees a boy
Who drives the pigs to where the peach trees grow.
The boy hauls up each hog, and it has joy:
It pigs a peach and eats it neat and slow.
"It's too bad," says the man, "a pig can't climb!
I see, with how you feed them, they grow big.
But can't you find a way that takes less time?"
The boy says, "Sure -- but what's time to a pig?"
If that sounds good to you then you might be
Cut out to teach, like my friend -- not like me.
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.