James Derkits

"The challenging thing about the unconscious is that we are not conscious of it." That's a paraphrase of something Pittman McGehee once said in a conversation about the Shadow. He is a Jungian analyst and Episcopal priest who's been a mentor of mine for a while now. I'm looking forward to spending some time with him during my sabbatical (which starts after Ash Wednesday.) I am often unconscious of my anxiety. Another mentor, James Hollis, taught me that anxiety is the fear of the unknown. Once we become aware of it, we can name it, and work on facing the fear. Photo by Laura Derkits When I am unconscious of my anxiety, I get irritable and grumpy. I slide into unhealthy habits like binge watching Netflix (trying to mentally escape), or I drink a beer or too many beers (to anesthetize the anxious feeling.) After Christmas, I decided to eliminate the second one, to take a break from the self medication for a season. I was inspired to do that partly by a frien...

Mid January, I invited our congregation to start a daily morning prayer practice. I had just painted a wall of my study, and rearranged the space getting ready for my sabbatical. I had been saving one of the posts from our old porch for an undetermined project, and had another short beam on my desk that was from the old support structure for the organ at St. Mary's, Cypress, TX. I used part of each to create a little altar for my meditation space. I used to have these little altars in college, when I was a youth minister at Christ Church Cathedral, Houston, and while I was in seminary. Then we got puppies, and they liked to chew on candles and icons, so the altar went away. I have a chair that I would sit in for daily readings, but it wasn't quite right for meditation. I meditated only sporadically for years; in Houston (after seminary) it was in my back yard, or along the bayou. More recently it's been on the beach or in my room with a folded towel to help my posture. ...

Originally published in the South Jetty Newspaper In Hebrew scripture, Moses brought down 10 Commandments (which led to the need for much clarification leading to 613 commandments, and the great simplification by Jesus back to just 2.) One of my first mentors pointed out that the most commonly broken of the 10 commandments is "honor the sabbath and keep it holy." Now, if you know me, you will know I'm not a fundamentalist literalist; I'm not advocating for everyone to take Saturday off; what would the tourists do? I do advocate for taking the spirit of that law, and finding time on a regular basis to remember that God is God, and we are not. We are to take holy rest: spend time recreating and in prayer. When we do that, we practice trust that things will carry on without our constant attention. Honor the Sabbath and keep it holy. I try to do that most Fridays, though it doesn't always work out. In that same spirit, my church encourages clergy to take a...