James Derkits

Summer Vacation in Sketch and Caption  This is a snow melt lake scene we hiked up to from Duncan Park. The white areas are snow. It was really cold. I know because after hiking for miles with little kids, we were all ready to cool off. A few of us swam. I could barely breath from the cold-shock. I came out energized and ready to hike back. While at Dunan Park, John decided to be baptized. This is him coming up from the icy cold water wide awake (see enter the Way .) Most of the group was gathered on the bank in the dusk, and I stood by in case he fell over. This is another lake near Duncan Park where we hiked. The kids found themselves a fenceless playground and romped around the pond, while the parents watched the forest edges for lions and bears.  We took a train from Denver to Winter Park where we stayed with the Kidds. They took such good care of us! Penthouse condo, mountain biking, including downhill, and the alpine slide: a concrete slide with li...

This picture is of my friend The Rev. Billy Tweedie, rector of Resurrection in Austin, with his son Liam standing by ready to net a trout. Billy and his twins joined Trinity by the Sea for our retreat to Duncan Park, Colorado. He led us in reflections each night during compline (night prayer.) He focused on just a few of the teachings of Brene Brown's "The Daring Way." The first night we learned the (important) differences between guilt, humiliation, and shame . The second night we learned about compassion , and the importance of boundaries in practicing compassion . Finally, the last night, we learned about courage ...the important ingredient to living a vulnerable, compassionate life in which we learn from the experiences of  guilt and humiliation , without letting shame rule our decisions. The teachings were helpful, and it was something to ponder each night while on retreat. After the first night's teaching, as we were just settling into the rhythm of the ...

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...