James Derkits

Today is Eli's last day of kindergarten. I can't believe it. We will go to Family Camp at Mustang Island this evening with families from across our diocese. I'm looking forward to helping some mainlanders learn to surf, and build sand castles, and spending some time with Laura and Eli away from home (even though it's not too far away from home...) It's a good way to mark the beginning of Summer. I usually take the summer off from writing, just as a rule. Not because I'm tired of writing, just so that I take a break and can start fresh in the fall. So this will be my last-day yearbook signature: " see ya next year, Class of 2017 rox !" This is a great picture of my friend surfing in Costa Rica (not Port Aransas.)  He said list the photo credit as "Unknown." I don't know if wanted anonymity for himself, or the photographer. Anyway, I hope to be able to ride that wave someday. I better practice. 

I guess every generation experiences this in turn; the dying of favorite, influential musicians. I'm experiencing it a lot lately. Merle Haggard , David Bowie , Prince , and Guy Clark have all died recently. I'm not trying to remember every single musician who has died in a certain time period, I'm just thinking of the ones off the top of my head. The ones I miss, or really appreciate. I never even saw any of them in concert. I just like their music, and the unique expression each of them in their music. They were authentically themselves, and in sharing who they were through their music, changed people's lives. Death may point us back to life, to reflect on some aspect of who we are, to consider what was attractive about the person who has died, and to get in touch with that part of ourselves... now to the living... I've been playing music with my friend Justin Stewart  for about 20 years, from time to time. After fronting a few bands, he's now solo, and ha...

Originally Published in the The South Jetty Newspaper Part of my work as a priest is to invite people to live intentionally; to pay attention to who they are, what they have received, and then to make conscious decisions about how they are becoming the people God has made them to be. Part of my own journey has been to understand what it meant for me to grow up in a small East Texas town, and to be aware of the explicit and implicit lessons I learned in those formative years. My high school was quite diverse, and I had classmates of different racial, ethnic, economic, and religious backgrounds. From time to time, something either in our town or form the wider world would raise tensions among my classmates, or at least evoke conversation. I remember distinctly hearing a white friend and a black friend pondering if they would take sides if a race fight broke out in our school. Then we all went to math class.  Another time, in middle school, about the time Spike Lee's movie Ma...

I had the pleasure of paddling an outrigger as part of a four man team. It was to support a stand up paddleboard 5K race (SUP.) It was a reminder of what it means to be part of a team. Captain (Chief?) Dave gave great instruction about how to stagger which side we paddle on, and that the second and third paddlers follow the stroke rhythm of the first paddler (who calls "hut, hoe"! when it's time to switch which side we are paddling on...time wear out the other muscle set.) I think we did a pretty good job, especially considering two paddlers had never sat in an outrigger. It's a bit different from drifting down the San Marcos... One risk is flipping toward the non-outrigger side, especially in the surf. When that risk arises the chief calls out "tend the ama!" That means, throw as much weight onto the ama: the outrigger float, to hold it down. We made it in fairly easily, but I've seen a video of a canoe trip in much bigger surf. On that trip, ...

Let me start with a disclaimer: this may not make any sense to you. I'm okay with that because I'm not looking for a most popular blog award. It may or may not make sense because I'm not sure I could have appreciated the experience before having it. Ok, enough of that. Surfing is one of the holiest things I get to do these days. I'm not the only one who has revered the experience of surfing in such a way. I have for a long time experienced a closeness with God in nature, but this is somehow different. (I don't doubt there are other nature/exercise/creative/body/ritual practices that bring in the same experience, but I'm going to stick with surfing here.)  Even as I write this, I'd kind-of rather be surfing. I think it has to do with the combination of those parenthetical spiritual practices* I listed above. A big part of it, I'm convinced, is that when I surf, I am not in control. I am participating in a wave that has never been, and never will...

Originally published in the South Jetty I began April with a trip to California to lead an Inner Journey Retreat at an Episcopal retreat center called the Bishop's Ranch. It was my third visit there. Each year there is a different theme, and this year's theme was exploring our spiritual journey (or individuation) through several particular phases of that journey: the Call, the Covenant, the Sacrifice, and the Return. As the other teachers and I worked to provide the content and to create a safe space for participants to explore their life and spiritual journey, we experienced each phase by getting in touch with the deep meaningful parts of our journeys. I don't have space to get into the details of each phase, but I do want to share my experience of the Return. The Inner Journey Community has become very important to me in my own growth and learning, and I have an affinity for that gathered community. We come from all across the country, so this temporary village that...

I want to share this moment. Right now, I am sitting at my desk in what was once a storage space, but before that was a former vicar's wood-working shop. The wind is blowing through the window, wafting incense around my lap-top. I'm sitting where I've most recently been painting scenes from Holy Week, and today, I was scrambling to put together a simple hand-out for tonight's service. Tonight is the Great Easter Vigil. The first service of Easter, "to take place between sunset and sunrise of Easter morning." Two years ago we had a wonderful Vigil that started in the chapel in the dunes (Trinity's first services were held there around 1960), where we lit the new fire and lit candles. We carried out candles from there to the church, and as people's candles blew out, we had to share our little lights; so the community brought back the light together. A beautiful metaphor for a church community. This year our vigil will take place down on the beach....