James Derkits

I love the scene in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation when Uncle Eddie is talking absently, wandering around, and Clark is following him around making snide remarks that Eddie misses completely. At one point Uncle Eddie approaches the Griswold's Christmas carousel and swipes at the delicate fan blades sending the wooden pieces flying. Clark rushes in to pick up the pieces, and Eddie lumbers on, ready for another glass of egg nog.  We received one of those Christmas carousels several years ago, and we keep it stored away with our stockings and ceramic Advent wreath. I think of those items this time of year especially when the weather turns cold. Soon we will take the Advent wreath out of the attic, as well as the church's Advent wreath from the closet. We will begin to build the nativity scene across the season of Advent, and finally place Jesus in the manger on Christmas eve.  So far, no one has taken swipe at our Christmas carousel, and no one has mistaken our nativity...

I have had the honor of officiating several funerals this month of people I knew fairly well. October also marks the one year anniversary of my own dad's death. It is a month, following the agricultural harvest, when many cultures remember those beloved who have died and rest in God's eternal presence. We conclude the month with All Hallows Eve, then All Saints and All Souls days. Some recognize funerals and the remembrance of ancestors as the earliest expression of religious practice. It certainly draws me to ponder my own existence, what I have to offer the world, and what I will leave behind.  At the root of trusting in God is an awareness of our mortality. God is immortal, and we are not. That which we call "soul" we give over to God, and in that way practice a sort of death-before-dying. It is not we who will carry our own soul across death's gate, it is God. Entrusting our essence to another we must die to that illusion of control we think we have. That tran...