James Derkits

Twitter almost caused me to wreck my truck recently. I wasn't tweeting while driving. I was shocked while listening to the radio when I heard, " Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and other schools traced these tweets [to their counties] and then they analyzed the language in the tweets to see if they were expressing anger, or love, or boredom. ... anger, hostility and aggression on Twitter is better able to predict patterns of heart disease than 10 other leading health indicators, including smoking, obesity and hypertension. " Yowza! The story went on to explain that it might not be the tweeters themselves, but people around them that originate the anger, stress, and thus the broken hearts.  Priests used to have a good deal of influence in their communities; they were a source, among a few, of information and perspective on life. That's not true today. If you were at Trinity (or some church) Sunday, and you're reading this, then you will have had ...

Originally Published in the South Jetty Newspaper Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless [God's] holy Name… for [God knows]whereof we are made; [remembering] that we but dust…. Bless the Lord, O my soul.   from Psalm 103 February 18 marked the beginning of the season of Lent this year, when Christians around the world smear a crude ashen cross on their foreheads to remember our mortality…a cross that paradoxically traces the oil-cross of our baptism into the eternal life of God. On the first day of Lent, Ash Wednesday we read the powerful words from Psalm 103 remembering our mortality as well as our connection to the immortal. It doesn't take long living in a climate such as ours in Port Aransas to remember that the things of this life pass away. Even plastic rusts or rots here, to some degree, or at least plastic (like our deck chairs) breaks after a short time. Even apparently strong metals cannot withstand, for long, the blast of the salt br...

In another of my blogs, you might read about the church not being the building, but the people, and that perpetuating an institution is not the purpose of our spiritual journey. With that acknowledged, I want to reflect today about these beautiful new doors on our church:  Last Sunday, we had our annual meeting, and I used a metaphor of the ebb and flow of the tides as a way to think about our discipleship and apostleship as Christians. We gather as a church body to be formed and transformed, supported and sustained, to be nurtured and fed. Then we are sent out into the world, empowered by the Spirit, to do those things for others, to carry the Gospel in our hearts into the world, and to help bring about that transformation we ourselves have experienced in the midst of our everyday lives.  Certainly we could do that gathering-part in a park, on a beach, or under a public pavilion; One of my own communities-of-support gathers on phone calls, not even physically in one sp...

Originally Published in the South Jetty Newpaper A good friend loaned me a book called Anarchy Evolution . She thought I might like it since I used to be in a punk band and it is written by the front man from the band Bad Religion. The author also happens to be an evolutionary biologist. I have indeed enjoyed the book in which he explores the evolution of punk rock music weaving together science, music, and his own world view. You may (or may not) be surprised to be learning about this book here since the author is an atheist. That's one theme of his book. The funny thing, to me, about reading about his atheism, and why he doesn't believe in god, is that the god he describes, the one that he doesn't believe in, I don't believe in either. It's been a while since I took a debate class, but in many cases it seems he has set up a straw-man argument, and rightfully has knocked it down. Now, his book is more complex than just focusing on his beliefs, but it reminds me ...