James Derkits

I guess every generation experiences this in turn; the dying of favorite, influential musicians. I'm experiencing it a lot lately. Merle Haggard , David Bowie , Prince , and Guy Clark have all died recently. I'm not trying to remember every single musician who has died in a certain time period, I'm just thinking of the ones off the top of my head. The ones I miss, or really appreciate. I never even saw any of them in concert. I just like their music, and the unique expression each of them in their music. They were authentically themselves, and in sharing who they were through their music, changed people's lives. Death may point us back to life, to reflect on some aspect of who we are, to consider what was attractive about the person who has died, and to get in touch with that part of ourselves... now to the living... I've been playing music with my friend Justin Stewart  for about 20 years, from time to time. After fronting a few bands, he's now solo, and ha...

Originally Published in the The South Jetty Newspaper Part of my work as a priest is to invite people to live intentionally; to pay attention to who they are, what they have received, and then to make conscious decisions about how they are becoming the people God has made them to be. Part of my own journey has been to understand what it meant for me to grow up in a small East Texas town, and to be aware of the explicit and implicit lessons I learned in those formative years. My high school was quite diverse, and I had classmates of different racial, ethnic, economic, and religious backgrounds. From time to time, something either in our town or form the wider world would raise tensions among my classmates, or at least evoke conversation. I remember distinctly hearing a white friend and a black friend pondering if they would take sides if a race fight broke out in our school. Then we all went to math class.  Another time, in middle school, about the time Spike Lee's movie Ma...

I had the pleasure of paddling an outrigger as part of a four man team. It was to support a stand up paddleboard 5K race (SUP.) It was a reminder of what it means to be part of a team. Captain (Chief?) Dave gave great instruction about how to stagger which side we paddle on, and that the second and third paddlers follow the stroke rhythm of the first paddler (who calls "hut, hoe"! when it's time to switch which side we are paddling on...time wear out the other muscle set.) I think we did a pretty good job, especially considering two paddlers had never sat in an outrigger. It's a bit different from drifting down the San Marcos... One risk is flipping toward the non-outrigger side, especially in the surf. When that risk arises the chief calls out "tend the ama!" That means, throw as much weight onto the ama: the outrigger float, to hold it down. We made it in fairly easily, but I've seen a video of a canoe trip in much bigger surf. On that trip, ...

Let me start with a disclaimer: this may not make any sense to you. I'm okay with that because I'm not looking for a most popular blog award. It may or may not make sense because I'm not sure I could have appreciated the experience before having it. Ok, enough of that. Surfing is one of the holiest things I get to do these days. I'm not the only one who has revered the experience of surfing in such a way. I have for a long time experienced a closeness with God in nature, but this is somehow different. (I don't doubt there are other nature/exercise/creative/body/ritual practices that bring in the same experience, but I'm going to stick with surfing here.)  Even as I write this, I'd kind-of rather be surfing. I think it has to do with the combination of those parenthetical spiritual practices* I listed above. A big part of it, I'm convinced, is that when I surf, I am not in control. I am participating in a wave that has never been, and never will...