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.
You Loved Your Life, and You Let It Go
I wrote a new hymn for the second Sunday in Lent. (It goes with my sermon, “To Let It Go“.)
There’s this paradoxical teaching from the Jesus tradition. It appears six times in the gospels (Mark 8:35, Luke 9:24, Matthew 16:25, Luke 17:33, Matthew 10:39, and John 12:25) possibly from three independent sources (Mark, John, and Q). Luke 17:33 puts it this way: “Whoever seeks to gain his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will preserve it.” I think that’s one of the many things Jesus not only taught, but also demonstrated in his life.
These are the words of the hymn:
You Loved Your Life, and You Let It Go
You lived and laughed; you loved to be
At table with high and low.
Sharing our lives, and helping us see,
Teaching us truth, setting us free.
You loved your life, and you let it go.Answering pain, answering thirst,
You let your fair fountain flow.
We were enslaved, oppressed and coerced;
You gave us hope: last shall be first!
You loved your life, and you let it go.In word and deed you made it plain,
The way that the wise should know:
Clinging to life is always in vain;
Letting it go, wins it again.
You loved your life, and you let it go.Ever lament! Ever rejoice!
Let tears and let laughter flow!
Heaven and earth still ring with your voice,
Thanks to your love, thanks to your choice:
You loved your life, and you let it go.
As always, sheet music for “You Loved Your Life, and You Let It Go” is available in our Free Stuff Area. Also, you can see and hear it being sung for a church service here.
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.
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.
When There’s Nothing (More) We Can Do
Are you feeling, maybe, a little Lent-ed out already?
Legendary Literature and Celtic Dreams
The story of the Transfiguration is not a mere collection of facts. It’s a legend that rings with truths.
Eminently Practical
In Jesus’ Sermon on the Plain, he gives some pretty plain teachings. Why do we act as if we’re excused from listening to them?
Everyday Prayer
Prayers for everyday occasions—like Rabbi Irwin Keller’s prayer for watching the news—help us to be recollected in God throughout the day.
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.

