James Derkits

Originally written for and published in the South Jetty Newspaper I remember attending a dinner shortly after I moved to Port Aransas at which one of our church members asked directly if I was a Democrat or Republican. She was active and outspoken in her party of choice, and I couldn't help but notice the campaign signs in her yard. I responded to her question with something like, "It really doesn't matter; that as a church, we should be about bringing people together, not dividing people." That was six years ago, and I feel that today even more than ever. I try to follow Jesus, who in his own time, sat down to break bread with people of divergent views and allegiances. He taught about political hot-button topics like taxes, and moved the conversation to a deeper, spiritual perspective, resisting the traps to agree with one polarity or another. St. Paul, in his letters, taught that as members of the Body of Christ, the old worldly identities fall away (no longer Je...

Greetings Trinity by the Sea! Grace and peace to you on this, one of my very favorite Sundays of the year. It is a Sunday I would like to be with my church family, but I somehow let my retreat be scheduled the first week of Advent, and I am preaching this day at St. Mark's Gulfport, Mississippi. So thank you, once again, to our lay leadership. This may be a perfect way for us to start off a new year, with empowered lay people leading worship... Today is the first day of Year C, when we begin Luke's Gospel, and begin this new season of Advent: Advent. It comes around to us once again; around: it is round like the full moon we saw last week. Round is the right word for this season. Advent is unlike the frenzy of the secular new year we celebrate on Dec 31. That new year is more like a straight line pointing to what we always expect to be new and different, complete with magic glasses which must be expected to help us see into 2019. The secular new year is linear, we make new r...

It is with great respect to those who undoubtably find connection with divinity outside the church (or Synagogue, Mosque, Temple, Monastery, etc.) that I offer a brief exploration of the benefits (often challenging) of being part of a religious community. Just today I mentioned to someone that surfing "checks all the spiritual boxes for me." When I surf (sometimes alone) I experience God through nature, exercise, my body, in beauty, and in solitude. I get it. Maybe it's fishing or art or contemplation for someone else. I am a big fan of finding your own way. I actually think that's an essential part of being religious, but there is more. Being part of a faith tradition (for me it's "the Episcopal branch of the Jesus movement", to quote our Presiding Bishop Michael Curry) offers experience, tradition, and accountability. Those things challenge me to get outside of myself, and to consider the experience of others. Trinity by the Sea, our Episcopal Parish i...

Beatrice (l) and Erin (r) each died in the Spring of 2018 I sat at the dining table with my dad and my wife selecting readings from the Bible as well as hymns and other music for my niece Erin's funeral. She died in a head-on collision on her way to go fishing in the coastal bend, one of her very favorite things to do. She was 22 and seemed to have been really finding herself. She had just rescued two baby opossums, and we worked with her roommate to get them to a wildlife rehab center. The opossums were no surprise, that was Erin. At the dining table, we had our Episcopal prayer book, hymnal, and the Bible. My dad and I took turns with his reading glasses. In the middle of it all was the bulletin from my niece Beatrice's funeral two months before. Beatrice was 16 and struggled with depression until it took her life. As we wept and read, my dad commented, "Who would have thought we would use Beatrice's funeral to plan another one." Beatrice & E...

Originally Published in the South Jetty Newspaper When my mentor Pittman McGehee published his book  The Invisible Church,  started reading and could hardly put it down...until I got to the section on Suffering, then I wanted to either walk away or at least skip ahead. I don't like suffering (does that seem redundant?) McGehee makes clear that the suffering he writes about isn't caused by physical pain, clinical mental illness, nor from abusive relationships. Those should be taken care of appropriately and directly. He writes, "The kind of suffering I'm talking about is soul suffering, and it seems to be a requirement for the building of soul...to suffer in the spiritual sense means to carry something until we know its meaning...When something happens that causes us to suffer, [we might ask] 'What is this leading to? What truth can I discern from this suffering?'...'What does this want from me? What is its meaning?'" Each of us has suffer...

Advance! My close friend and colleague pokes fun at the word "retreat" for those weekend-or-longer spiritual get-aways. "They are opportunities for growth, re-creation, and rejuvenation, so why do we use a word that means to go backward when we are going forward?" It's a playful argument, and there is a going backwards component to retreats in that we pull away from the "battle-front" of our busy lives and get back to remembering who we are and whose we are. And in the process of going backwards, we do, indeed, advance. Maybe the backward-naming of such a spiritual practice is because spiritual practice is so counter cultural. We value production, staying busy, and multi tasking. Taking time to be still, reflect, and rest in God's silence is very backward by cultural standards. Another friend has taught me the principle of going slow to go fast. This one does come from the best-business-practice world and places an importance of planning, check...