James Derkits

     Earlier this month, I did a bit of time traveling. It happens to me everytime I return to Camp Capers to some degree. I worked there one summer during college, so I cannot help but drift back in my memories when I return to that familiar place. Besides that usual experience of drifting back in my mind to those earlier times, on this trip to camp, had a theme from that movie that was so popular 35 years ago:  Back to the Future.     The retreat weekend called Mid-Winter is a mini-camp session, and I was invited to be part of the leadership team for teenage campers from across south Texas. We did usual camp things like sing songs, eat and play together, and spend time in prayer and cabin devotions. The teaching teaching was where we really got to dig into the theme. We pondered the question: What would we, the teachers and leaders of the camp, tell our Jr. High Selves if we could travel back in time?      As we worked on the theme, we brou...

"Was an old man, no child of his own, his skill was in his hand." So begins a song I wrote last year for Christ's Incarnation, and recorded this year for the Port Aransas Museum's "Sounds of the Season. The song takes a look at all the characters around Jesus' birth like Mary, who was only a girl by our current cultural expectations. Mary who was pregnant when she wasn't expected to be. My song also considers the donkey who smelled hay and led them to the barn where Jesus was born.  We don't really know a lot about Joseph, except he was established as a carpenter and he was righteous or followed the justice of God. That is an important theme in Matthew's gospel. In my song, I pondered how Joseph's expectations must have been shattered when he discovered his beloved was pregnant and he didn't participate. Knowing the severity of the law's punishment for such a situation, he seemed to have a plan that would honor Mary's dignity and d...

Hip Hip Hooray for Christmas Vacation      Clark W. Griswold, after a series of unfortunate and hilarious experiences with his extended family gazes up from his front lawn at the "Christmas star" and opines: "It means something different to everyone." Christmas Vacation is one of my favorite movies of the season and has made it into a couple of Christmas sermons. However, the main character's assessment of the "meaning of Christmas" expresses the cultural spirit of individualism, and so the movie seems to land on the illusion of individualism.       Most of the movie and the meaning of Christmas point to a different reality. That is that we are community people. Yes, we are each unique, and each have our own journey to become the people God has created us to become, but we cannot do that without one another. The meaning of Christmas and other winter religious festivals for that matter is about remembering our interdependence.       ...

Thanksgiving is a family holiday for me. While we do have the Turkey Trot Day School fundraiser the day before, Thanksgiving day and following is a time I enjoy stepping away from church activities. Since Christmas and Easter are very much church holidays and my energy is focused on our church family, it is nice not to have a church event during this American tradition, to slow down, and spend time with my family.  That doesn't mean it is not a religious or spiritual day. Whether we are with my side of the family or Laura's, there is usually time to name thanksgivings. Those annual gatherings are markers in time, a way to pay attention to what is important in life. While we cannot slow down the swift passage of years, we can be present right where we are with family or friends and give thanks together.  My extended family is awaiting the birth of a child. I can remember my nephew's first Thanksgiving in his parent's arms, then years at the kids table, and now he is beco...

 Sermon preached at Trinity by the Sea  November 19, Proper 28, Year A Several years ago, I set out on an intentional journey in my own psyche with some studious guides. I was following in the footsteps of many who have gone before me. The writings of the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung and other Jungian authors were helpful guides. This intentional inner journey started when, in a clergy support group, my mentor Pittman McGeehee told us that when his first son was born, he thought he’d better learn to understand masculine psychology. So, after being married with no kids for 10 years, when we learned Eli was to be born, Pittman’s words came back to me, and I dug in. I am in some ways still on that journey, but I’m far enough along that I can send this postcard from my travels. The word psyche is the Greek word for soul. So any psychological work we do is soul work. The psychologists I have been in touch with over the years remember that. Another great quote that has guided my par...

After Jimmy Buffett died, I wrote to some clergy friends who, like me, have the fortune to serve churches in gulf coast towns. I proposed having a Sunday School class for adults reflecting on the music of the Havana Daydreamer. "If not us, who?" I've personally had quite a journey as a fan, first hearing him on a boat cruising around Bolivar and the Galveston waters, and covering his songs, then later being resistant to his music and the whole scene surrounding it, and then digging in deeper to his music, starting with a record a friend gave me after the storm took most of mine.  My rebellious side didn't want to play his music when I first moved here because, a colleague told me I had to, "learn Jimmy Buffett music because they only want to hear Margaritaville." Alas, we do hear that song quite a bit in this island town. That's also what started me thinking about that lost shaker of salt, and why the song so captivates our imaginations; even the non-mar...

  25 Years of Children's Ministry Walking down the hallway of five classrooms of 70 children and 14 teachers, it is bizarre to imagine it all started with five children in a once-a-week mother's day out program. Port Aransas was a different place back then, yet Nana Ward had a vision; she saw the need for a children's ministry not just on Sunday mornings, but a daytime offering of care and teaching for children. It is, of course, also a ministry to parents who work in our community.   Our imagination is one of humanity's greatest gifts. It is the realm of faith, of hope, of seeing beyond problems into potential. It was not easy at first to get others to see the vision of a Port Aransas day school. Yes, imagination is the realm where God reveals new possibilities, but some of us cling to the illusion of our own certainty, of what might go wrong; some of us focus on the our limitations. We are tempted to hide our little light under a bushel.  Throughout scripture, when...