James Derkits

Originally Published in the South Jetty Newspaper No one needs me to point out that a lot of things are changing, have been changing, and will continue to change in Port Aransas. I heard about how much had already changed by the time I moved here in 2012. That has a lot to do with how attractive our little island home is, set here on the edge of Texas in the Gulf of Mexico. Who wouldn’t love it? (Thanks be to God for those people who do not, and prefer to live and even vacation elsewhere.) What brought me here, and people in the early days, continues to attract people to this little sand bar. She was wild, and she still is. That’s what the coyotes tell me as they track jackrabbits across our church yard. Change is a difficult thing to live with, but when change stops so does life. Change is the nature of this good creation we inhabit; of which we are a part. We pray a Psalm each week in church and at the end of the Psalm we add: “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy ...

At the end of this month we will celebrate a most seemingly bizarre holiday. On the last night of the tenth month, we encourage children to put on scary disguises and go door-to-door in the dark, begging for candy. I love it. I look forward to Halloween each year in it's American expression, and especially the way it happens in Port Aransas. Three cheers for Channel Vista!  A couple of years ago, I painted my face Dia de los Muertos style as I tried to keep up with my son and his friends running around the neighborhood. We have a small side-altar at our church in front of the columbarium during this month. There we place photos of our loved-ones. Day of the Dead goes all month for us. Then around All Saints' Day, November 1, we say special prayers at that side-altar. We remember that for the faithful, "...life is changed not ended..." as we pray during our funeral service. A few years ago, I added my a photo of two of my nieces to the altar, and this year I've add...

Originally printed in our November Day School Newsletter  Death is a difficult word to say for it's stark truth. My dad died at the beginning of October, and now he is dead. These days in American culture we try to disguise death in softer language. We don't like death, we pretend it isn't a thing. Perhaps it stared with funeral home culture; those who have to talk with so many people about death often use language like "passing on," "departing", or even "expiring". Then there's a host of language about going to be with God, Jesus, etc. all of which I believe, but I still use the D word, and I think you should, too.  The reality is death is part of life. It is the very end part. As different as we all are, each of us one way or another arrive at death. That makes me very aware of the gift of this present moment that I am living. I am alive now, and I will not be one day. I'd better get busy! It pushes me to relish my relationships, and ...

     When I was about the age my son is now, starting my middle school journey of transformation, my dad printed out a table blessing for me to memorize. We had a glass top on our dining table so he slipped it under the glass, and I got to read it each night at dinner until I could say it by heart: "Give us grateful hearts, our Father, for all thy mercies, and make us mindful of the needs of others; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen." It's a simple prayer that is packed with pithy wisdom that I return to again and again.      Through adolescence, of the things we might become mindful of, others' needs can fall off the radar. It is a time when our ego comes into it's own: We discover we are separate from our parents with our own ideas and desires. Our sexuality awakens and we find attraction to people we may have been repulsed by just months before. It is a time of discovering peer pressure and peer competition. Through those delightful years and into earl...

Originally Published in the Diocese of West Texas Reflections  Magazine I remember this summer when every week there was news of more killings. I felt overwhelmed, and felt sick and helpless. It also pushed me to remember to pray. Since I could not turn back time and somehow save the senseless killing, the ripping apart of God’s family, I invited people near to me to gather and pray for peace. Then I felt another weight: how are we to pray for peace? I was frozen not by the need for peace and the end of senseless killing, but by another ripping apart of God’s family. The political climate in which we live. There is certainly no peace there. Public discourse rips us apart on a different level. It seems like the ones who we are to turn to for governance are at such opposition, it led Kendrick Lamar to call them “Demo-Crips and Re-Blood-icans” referencing the gang like mentality. Would someone out there be offended if we pray for peace? What does peace mean?  Then I realized, we ...

I cannot assume we grew up with the same teaching and therefore childhood understanding of repentance. I am  actually  pretty certain that the teaching I heard, and  my  childhood understanding  I walked away with do not match.  A psychologist friend recently pointed out the many perspectives in any conversation: What you mean and what I mean; What I think you mean, and what you think I mean; What you think I think you mean Repentance is a powerful word, and has been used and misused in many ways. I love words, and so when a word triggers a reaction in me or I notice that it does in others, I like to dig in, and see what I can find.  From my childhood and young adulthood connotations, my honest and initial response to the word repentance, and hearing a call to repent is that I must have done something wrong. I've been a bad boy, and I need to be a good boy to appease an angry God. I have images of street corner preachers holding signs listing a litany ...

I count myself fortunate that so far I have not been hospitalized or taken on medication for clinical depression. I have close friends and family who will help me get the attention I need if that ever becomes the case. I have experienced a different sort of depression that comes with life events. In particular it came following our hurricane and then the deaths of two of my nieces the spring after. The grief that shadowed over me, and still remains is another sort of depression. That sort also comes with sickness and injury.  I want to write here about a third type of depression that comes along from time to time in life's journey. It emerges as a haunting, and can help reveal where we are stuck in life. It can prompt us to wake up in the middle of the night with a dream or a thought we would rather ignore. Those  promptings , and this sort of depression I have learned to see as a gift, though one I would usually rather not accept at first. Again, I am fortunate to have people...

π is for Spirit I took the very minimum Greek language required from my seminary to graduate and become a priest. Sometimes I wish I had taken more, but more than that I am grateful to have the little bit I learned. It comes in really helpful sometimes ;  I   like to   use a Bible that has the English and Greek side-by-side to understand the original language of the New Testament.  In a recent study, I came across one of my favorite Greek words :   the word for Spirit. It is transliterated  pneuma , and is related to our English word, pneumonia, which refers to a sick spirit or breath. The word   pneuma   is   that gift given to the first Apostles,   it is what  empowered a virgin to be come   a mother, and   it   was the mover to watch in the early church , known to us in English as the   Holy Spirit.  This person of God, who dwells in the eternal dance with the Father and the Son is not a God to be underst...

I pray that by the time you read this, I will have left for my sabbatical: time for a pastor to be away from day to day parish life for spiritual renewal. I had planned to take this sabbatical spring of 2020 with the theme "Create in me a clean heart," from Psalm 51. I hoped to spend my time in play, performing music, praying, and producing (a record and a book.) It was all mapped out, and the day after Ash Wednesday  last year , I hit the road with a friend to Gulfport Mississippi to perform the first concert in a series to kick-off my sabbatical. I had already recorded the music, all songs about the Incarnation, Teachings, and Passion of Christ, called "Love One Another." ( I didn't make up that title , by the way.) Then we all know what happened in the world mid-March. As I quipped in a new song I wrote that month, "the world got infected: no more handshakes, no more shows..."  It is with more humility that I approach sabbatical this time around. I ...

  All Shall Be Well I have encountered the writings and teachings of Dame Julian of Norwich several times along my spiritual journey. Living in England through the black plague in the late 1300's to early 1400's, she got very sick to the brink of death, and had 16 visions of  Christ she called showings. She wrote them down, and then spent the rest of her life writing more about her experience and what it meant to her and the rest of the world. I was unaware until recently that she only became an anchoress (a monastic living "anchored" to a church, but in a solitary cell) after she received the Showings. It was after the sickness that she went into solitude to write though still in relationship with her church and community. She was in the thick of the pandemic before any understanding of germs, vaccines, or how the plague spread. It wiped out half of England's population so she lost about half of the people she knew. Her  Showings  are worth reading, or even a b...

"BTW, where did you get that shirt?", read the comment on a recent Facebook livestream video I did. I took some delight in explaining it was from my concert tour, which was a long time dream of mine. I went on to explain that after six shows the tour ended because, well, you know, it was March of 2020. That was over a year ago now and while I am not organizing a concert tour again, I am, God willing, trying again for my sabbatical.  Little reminders like that question about my t-shirt, throw me back to a different reality than the one we now know. My t-shirt depicts a guitar and banjo with the concert title, "Love One Another" in lenten-purple letters. I wrote about twenty songs about the Incarnation, Teachings, Passion, and Resurrection of Jesus. I recorded it (the album is also titled Love One Another) and then took the show on the road with a good friend. I do hope to get back to playing concerts, but not on this sabbatical. This time around my sabbatical will be...

When I asked at the beginning of a recent meeting for people's favorite Easter memories, they were mostly wonderful stories about children finding eggs, and one horrifying  story about Easter rabbits. Those fertility symbols are certainly appropriate for the spring season when the world comes to life. Even the "Easter" word doesn't have solid Christian roots; it was adopted as Christianity spread with it's radical message of a God who was willing to give his own life for the salvation of the world. It follows on the heels of Passover, another salvation story of rescue from slavery in Egypt. There is something about this time of year that gets God all excited to liberate people, and to share the gift of life anew. It is a time of rebirth, and the message is proclaimed even by the longer days (in the Northern Hemisphere.)  The Easter memory I shared was of listening to a record. We had an old cabinet-style record player with built in speakers. The top slid open, and...

As we approach the anniversary of living with COVID-19, which I admit is difficult to pin down exactly, I want to acknowledge what a strain it has been on all of us. Whether you had psychological struggles before or not the isolation has caused all of us to struggle psychologically or spiritually. Even if one attempted to live life normally through this time,  the world around us has changed, and made life look and feel different from what we are accustomed.  Although it has been helpful to connect with folks nearby and far away, I am so over online church. I never aspired to be a televangelist, and without the current necessity, I'd rather keep church low tech. (In my church, we still use candles.) Yes, the technology has made many things possible that would not have been possible, so I'm grateful for that. I also know that watching a church service (or fast forwarding to the parts I want to watch) is not the same as being with church family.  I find myself thinking of t...

I was already aware that the word profane has its roots in the architecture of the Temple. In Latin profanus  refers to outside the temple. In particular, my understanding is that the porch out in front of the temple was a place for those who were uninitiated to gather, and even worship without defiling the sacred interior of the temple.  In that understanding, it seems to me that that would be one of the holiest places. Those who were not allowed in, yet still wanted to draw near to the understood dwelling place of God. Those seekers, the God-fearers who in spite of being excluded, still showed up to be with God.  Now, of course, we tend to use the word profane to refer to what I grew up calling cuss-words. Profanity (AKA swear words, dirty words, or taboo words) are words outside our decided canon of polite language. There's even a show on Netflix about those words right now. On a recent work day at Mustang Island, one of our group pondered what Jesus, who grew up a car...

I feel very fortunate that I grew up in a loving family, and I feel grateful to my parents (and four older sisters) for raising me in a stable, nurturing, ordered home. I feel that I was equipped by them to grow into a somewhat healthy adult, and to raise my son Eli in a loving home.  Derkits family, Christmas 2019 I can have memories of camp-outs with my dad, and of going hunting with him in East Texas, where I learned a lot about patience: waiting hours in the cold rain for any deer to emerge from the protective woods. I remember delicious meals my mom prepared, and being sent to bed on time most of the time. Again, those are experiences I draw on to try to be the best parent I can be for my son. It also helps me know how to be a parent for myself.  I remember my parents teaching me about God as my heavenly Father. I know now that though I've moved away from my parents home and stared a life of my own, that my heavenly Father/Mother God is still and will always remain presen...

Originally published in the South Jetty Newspaper For a few years, we held an annual “Copernicus Day” celebration at the Gaff Bar. We met there for a relaxed setting and a neutral site to celebrate the harmony of science and religion. That may sound discordant to some, but I have grown up understanding the two not to be at odds. Instead, they pose different questions, and hold different truths about our reality. When it comes to questions about how things came to be, I turn to science, and do my best to understand the Big Bang, the evolution of life on earth, and if I want to stretch my brain, even a bit of quantum mechanics. The why questions of the heart bring me back to religion. Tending my soul ushers me into the unverifiable, experiential realm of the mystics. Here, I trust that Moses heard God speak from an unconsumed burning bush and that transformative encounter led him to stand up to a world superpower to liberate enslaved people. When it comes to religious experience, the unb...

  Originally Written for our Day School Newsletter I find myself, these days, trying not to get too excited about an end to the COVID-19 atmosphere we have been living with, yet I do hope we see a light ahead! I was interested to learn recently that the root word of quarantine refers to a period of time related to "forty." (Think quarter, quadrant, etc.) So, if you remember Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness, Noah 40 days and nights on the ark, and Moses and the Israelites 40 years in the desert. All of those references are about suffering (which means to carry) for the sake of new life and growth. In each case, something good came from the quarantine, and as Christians, we would not have our heritage without them.  Am I trying to make a crummy thing seem not so bad? No way, it has been so challenging. We have all had to reinvent how we live and work and relate. Even my closest companions and I don't always know if it's "ok" to shake hands or hug, rather ...

Originally published in the South Jetty Newspaper With respect to my East Texas sister, I do not believe "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose." I'm a fan of Ms. Joplin's music, and it is a catchy tune, but I do not adhere to the nihilistic attitude expressed there. I believe there is always a lot to lose, because I value life and I value community. We all have something to lose, if we slow down to think about it. Janis Joplin's song occured to me as I watched the news in disbelief on Wednesday. Not only is it hard to write about the chaos that ensued in our capital from a Christian perspective, I think it is important to take time and find clarity before writing about it, at least from a Christian perspective.  I began to ponder what was actually being sought as I watch the chaos of a mob destroying property, and the angry rebellion carried out by my fellow Americans. Does freedom mean, to those who participated in the raid, as well as those w...

For Christmas, one of my sisters got me a pack of "First World Problems" pencils. They decry the "hardships" of our day to day life in the west, particularly in America. Each one is printed with the petty things we tend to whine about when in reality life is relatively luxurious compared to the daily existence of most of humanity.  I remember starting to become aware of my own privilege on a mission trip to Honduras (2002), when I was a youth minister. Most of our time was spent on the edge of town sleeping on a church floor, and then building homes for a new affordable housing development. The memories that come up immediately are of the joy of the locals with whom we worked shoulder to shoulder, and after lunch played soccer. They threw a party for us at the end of the week, and instruments came out as everyone sang and some danced.  I also saw the reality of their relative poverty, and heard from the clergy of the challenges they faced. Lack of medical care, ...

In truth, January 1, 2021 is just another day that we choose to call "New Year's Day." The things happening in the world and in our lives continue, yet as meaning-seeking people, it is reorienting and energizing to collectively agree, "It's a new year!" It inspires us to make resolutions, and mentally assign things in our past to the old year. We enjoy a sense of the openness and newness of a fresh calendar. Who's not ready for that? When I have had a particularly challenging year, I sometimes ritually burn the calendar of the year gone by, sending it up in smoke and ashes. I recommend it!  If it is about newness, and finding meaning in the changing year, how do we find meaning, and even glean deeper understanding from the hard times to carry forward? How can we intentionally and mindfully learn from what we have suffered? Sometimes making lists helps. I'm personally not big on New Year's Resolutions, but I do like to take inventory. You might ma...