James Derkits

I used to get sucked into this game on Houston highways. It's only a game. There were of course a few times when I was actually trying to get somewhere quickly, when I was running late for a meeting, or a baseball game. But most of the time, when I tried to get ahead, when I tried to find the fastest moving lane, I was just playing the game. I'm sure that game only results in a couple of minutes of early arrival at best. Sometimes I fear like that game taught me too many lessons. I'm afraid it shaped my thinking more than I realized. I'm afraid the lessons were teaching me to see the moments of life like getting through that traffic. The governing question becomes "How do I get through/done with/around this?" As if each moment and encounter in life is not a gift. Now, to be perfectly honest, if a one of those golf carts pulls in front of me while I'm driving through town (especially the rentals) I've been known take a side road to get around them....

A friend moved from Texas to Virginia for seminary a year ahead of me. The spring before I moved up that way, I called her to ask what it was like to live there, and what he seminary was like. After giving some rave reviews about the community and the professors, she said, "I never really understood resurrection until this year." That caught my attention. I expected her to relay some profound teaching she learned. She went on, "When the first green sprouts poked up through the snow, and the dead looking trees put on their first green leaves, and then the cherry blossoms bloomed along the tidal basin, I got it!" That wasn't what I was expecting her to say, and I could only guess at what she meant, having grown up in the piney woods. A year later, sure enough, my first spring and Easter in Virginia revealed a new experience of resurrection as the world came back to life from beneath the blanket of snow. That Easter was different from any I had experi...

My mentor Pittman McGehee first introduced me to the Wild Goose metaphor. He shared his copy of A Wee Book of Worship with me, a prayer book from the Wild Goose Worship Group . He explained the Wild Goose as another metaphor for the Holy Spirit; instead of the conventional image of the dove, the wild goose sparks in the imagination a pursuit: a Spirit on the move, that leads us on a chase! I love that metaphor, and try to keep it in mind when seemingly unrelated conversations pick up a common thread around a community. That's what happened at the beginnings of the Trinity Community Garden. If you've been to Trinity recently, you may have noticed the little raised-bed garden that sits between the church, school, and vicarage. (What a perfect location for our community!) So, those pieces of conversations led to a proposal at the Bishop's Committee meeting, and a date for the building of the garden. Notice the rough boarders on the bed? Clark had been saving those  beam...

I took a couple of days away after Easter. Holy Week was full of collecting, cutting, and folding palms; selecting, practicing, and performing some old time music; praying, preparing, preaching, and participating in the movement from the Maundy Meal and Crucifixion to Resurrection. It was a fulfilling and amazing Easter morning. Then I went away and spent time eating, sleeping, and playing with Eli. So, when I got back to my office, there remained the remnants of planning, the left-over articles of liturgies, and even an easel we used to coordinate the parish work day (Holy Saturday.) As I sorted through and started to put things back in their places, I began to wonder what my own soul looked like after such a week. In the midst of a journey with the church through Christ's death and Resurrection, is there left a clutter of experiences, or has there been a transformation? I believe that as Christians, we have been baptized into Christ's death and resurrection; I am remind...