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.
Surely You Know the Change I Need
I wrote a new hymn for the first Sunday in Lent. (It goes with my sermon, “Time for a Change“.)
Exhortations to change are a big part of the Christian tradition: change your heart, change your mind, change your life. Traditionally we’ve used the word repent for that; repent is the usual translation of Jesus’ exhortation in biblical Greek, μετανοεῖτε, which presumably was a translation of something Jesus said in Aramaic. But however we ended up with that word, I think it’s inadequate. Repent has all kinds of sorry associations: it’s what one does while sitting in sackcloth and ashes, overcome with remorse, perhaps punishing oneself for one’s misdeeds. And sometimes, yes, change begins with remorse—but not always.
These are the words of the hymn:
Surely You Know the Change I Need
Surely you know the change I need;
help me to know it too.
Free me of all my lethargy
and show me the path to you, to you,
and show me the path to you.When I am wrong, oh help me feel
fully a right remorse.
Then help me leave remorse behind
and find me a better course, a course,
and find me a better course.Mover of all, may I be moved,
cherishing every chance,
Ready to hear you say my name
and call me to join the dance, the dance,
and call me to join the dance.Ready to fly, the wild goose waits,
ready to sprout, the seed.
So make me ready, God of life
for changes you know I need, I need,
for changes you know I need.
As always, sheet music for Surely You Know the Change I Need is available in our Free Stuff Area. Also, you can see and hear it being sung for a church service here.
Keep My Head above the Wave
A merry and mystical new year to all!
I wrote a song this week, a song I’d like to share with you. It’s partly a prayer for God’s help in not drowning. (My daughter is now serving in the USCG, so I always pray “for those in peril on the sea.”) But it’s also partly a prayer for God’s help in another kind of peril: coping with depression.
However you hear it, I hope it will bless you.
Adam
O Mother of Music
Hello, Merry Mystics! Here’s a new hymn for Advent. You can learn more about the O Antiphons here, and more about the hymn tune Ebenezer here. The words of the hymn are these:
O Mother of Music
O mother of music! O father of harmony!
Lost in a cacophony to thee we cry.
Though roughened our voices by noisy iniquity,
Hear, singer and savior, our sibilant sigh.
Come, sing us again the song we have forgotten,
Come, teach us again our high, heavenly parts!
Your hand on the harp-strings, your touch on the tuning pegs,
Your beautiful music infusing our hearts.O water of healing! O fountain of love and life!
Unbearably thirsty, for mercy we cry.
Once growing and green, we wilt under the sultry sun,
Once gracing your garden, we harden and dry.
Come now like a rainstorm, rise now like a river,
Soak into the soil and reach into the roots!
Your heavenly fountain, mounting to eternal life,
Your waters arriving, reviving green shoots.O light of the dawning! O hope of the weary world!
We wander in darkness, in need of your aid.
Grim now is the heart and faint under the force of death,
Cold, heavy and hopeless, alone and afraid.
Come, brighten the night with your radiant wonder,
Come, guide us along with your heavenly light!
Let never again our way wander away from you,
Let hope to our hearts return, let it burn bright.
And, as always, sheet music for O Mother of Music is available in our Free Stuff Area.
Confessions of a Heretical Author
Hello, merry and mystical friends!
In this video I make an embarrassing confession, and then I introduce my new book: My Burden Is Light: A Pastor’s Plea for Rationality, Honesty, and Humility. The book was a labor of love; special thanks go to the reading group at the Open Prairie United Church of Christ in Princeton, Illinois, who read and discussed an early draft. They put up with me as their pastor, even though I am both a wild-eyed Christian mystic and a skeptical and irreverent heretic. (But I don’t suppose Merry Mystic subscribers will be surprised on either count!)
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.
Why Prophets Have Short Lives
Offending the spirit of tribalism is never a safe thing to do.
What Love Is
Right in the middle of one of his apostolic smackdowns, Paul sings us a love song.
Who Can Detect Their Own Errors?
Psalm 19 teaches humility—the wisdom to know that we are all fallible, that we can’t always detect our own errors. Like respectfulness, truthfulness, and mercy, humility isn’t weak, as Bishop Budde reminded us last week. You can leave space for the possibility that you might be wrong, but still take a stand for the things you believe are right.
The Gulf of America
There’s a gap between Martin Luther King’s dream for America and the reality of America. No, not just a gap: more like a gulf.
Five Stories of the Baptism of Jesus
The four gospels have four interesting stories of the baptism of Jesus. There’s a fifth I wish we had as well.
Chaos and Logos
Are you afraid of 2025, as I confess I am, sometimes? The prolog to the Gospel of John has an antidote.
Intro and Song: All Shall Be Well, Noël
Here’s a quartet in church, singing my song “All Shall Be Well, Noël”.
Sermon and Song: Beacon of Bethlehem
For the fourth Sunday in Advent, a new hymn about the Star of Bethlehem, and how God continues to show us the way.
Sermon and Song: Rejoice! Rejoice!
Gaudete Sunday, the third Sunday of Advent, is all about rejoicing. We practiced some things that can bring a little more happiness into our lives: cheerful greetings, peaceful contemplation, and a new Christmas hymn.
Sermon and Song: The Animals’ Christmas
Here’s a different take on the legend of the talking animals at the birth of Jesus: what if the animals were all just waiting for us humans to finally get a clue?

