Marvin Owen Berry

He was a Kentuckian with a Texas drawl acquired by forty years of life in The Lone Star State. He was sparse and deliberate with words, and they seemed to occupy space longer than usual before slowly dispersing like smoke. He wore jeans and flannel shirts and caps and boots and Buddy Holly glasses. He always sported a beard that articulated a certain symmetry of being. He wasn’t religious, but he was spiritual. Folks usually conflate the terms, but one can exist without the other. And in today’s volatile and turbulent days, when at times we can’t tell a Christian from a non-Christian, much could have been learned from a man who seemed to live life in peace and harmony with those around him.

I remember the first time we met, and within five minutes of exchanging a few words, I liked him. I felt a kinship and thought, “A man after my own heart.” He lived life as he saw fit, and in many ways, he saw this crazy world as I did. We had many things in common, like being the eldest son and being honored with our father’s names and being passionate about the Cowboys and loving our families.

His siblings said he was a gentle soul, and as they reminisced, they couldn’t remember conflict or confrontation with him. I found it surprising yet believable. Time seemed to slow down with Owen. He lived life a second at a time and enjoyed the moment. He never worried family or friends with problems and never asked anything of anyone, and he cared less about keeping up with the Joneses. He was content with the essentials. He was who he was and made no excuses for it.

In the end, maybe that’s what moved me the most, his simple ways and the beauty in the way he embraced his life. And as birds began their morning song and the sun broke in the east, an old-time gospel echoed in my mind, “There will be peace in the valley... There’ll be no sadness, no sorrow.” Unabashedly, I wept. I mourned a man who lived life on his terms and left us way too soon. His mom, brothers and sisters, and friends will miss him.

May the Creator be the guiding light on your final journey, Big O. Hasta luego, mi amigo.

The Third Being

This one was born in a river,
wrenched from the warm liquid
of a mother’s womb --
brought forth from water to water
and lifted to light by the hand of God ...

Listen --
day flees the wild country,
scurries beyond the belly of the Spirit
and abides in the Mansion of Infinite rooms.
Earth is void of light.
Dogs cower from the dark.
He knocks at my door.
Should I let him in to sup?
Who is this third being --
this colossal weight that tickles my sacs
and strokes my loins?

She waits in the kitchen.
Her finite hovel hurtles --
where?
To the cesspool at the end of creation.
You take her.
Dance a mad tango.
In your fisted bones, a bushel of hair --
ruby beads --
strands of a hundred centuries.
And on your lips,
the stain of the Virgin Mary.
And in your groin,
the sting of Jezebel.

Why do you do this?
There is no honor in it.
Why do you allow this?
There is no honor in it.
Grandfather --
who is this third being
that stalks the night?

In my mortal heart,
three men fight.
In the broth of my bowels,
one butchered boy.

Didn't my Old Man die for you?
His scream transfigured Golgotha.
Why, then,
Grandfather,
why, then, this weight,
this third being

-- these strands of a hundred centuries.

On the birth of my grandson...

I remember the day dad passed away.  As he exhaled his last breath, Alexis, my niece, inhaled her first. One floor up there was jubilation, one floor down momentary despair. Momentary because we realized a life was coming into the family, and everlasting life was beginning for our father. The room was full of people that loved him, and we started to sing hymns, and the Holy Ghost comforted us.

Today, June 12, 2017, my thoughts are of beginnings and endings. The cycle of life. Life's arch is short and swift. But for Christians, the journey through this strange and sometimes wonderful land leads to a place of eternal bliss. "So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal" (2 Corinthians 4:18). 

Today, my thoughts are of my parents, how they lived their lives for the Lord, and the legacy they left behind. Today, I think about my niece Mary and her courageous battle against ALS. Today, my thoughts are of my son, Christian, and daughter-in-law, Vanessa, as they bring their first son and my third gra

Today, I'm full of joy and hope and pray that our Heavenly Father blesses and keeps my grandson safe throughout his short journey. Today, I am simply in love with God's 

ndson, Elliot Esteban Arellano, into a temporal world.Word.

memory #27: My old man

Early in my parents' marriage, in the 1950s, my dad drank and smoked and didn't have a personal relationship with God. Still, mom, having accepted Jesus Christ as her savior at eight, had become a fearless prayer warrior. And as they say, God works in mysterious ways. A newlywed and a little jealous, Dad would follow mom to church every Sunday. The worship house was a small country church in the Texas brush with big screen-less windows kept open during service to let the breeze in. Bushes and flowers lined the church walls, and dad hid behind them and peeked through the windows to see if any man was trying to sit with his beautiful bride. To pass the time, he'd listen to the sermon and wait excitedly for the invitation when mom and her two sisters, Tia Jelita and Tia Linda, would sing. The Spirit was moving in dad's life though he didn't know it at the time.

Dad started to question long-held beliefs, and when mom wasn't around, he'd search scripture in her Bible the pastor had quoted in his sermon. One cloudless, beautiful day when the world around him seemed more vibrant and alive with color and filled with invigorating scents, and electricity was in the air, it happened.

As had been the routine for several weeks, dad waited for a half-hour before he followed mom to church, but excitement and anticipation for the word replaced the anxious, unsure feeling. It was a strange and exhilarating emotion he didn't quite understand. But as he crouched by the window listening to the pastor's closing statement and mom and her sisters began to sing, something stirred within his soul. And when the pastor gave the invitation, dad, struck by Holy Ghost lighting, jumped up.

Suddenly, the church doors were forced open as if by a high wind. The congregation was startled and turned to see dad standing at the entrance. He sprinted down the aisle, collapsed in front of the pastor, and, weeping, surrendered his life to the Lord. Mom hugged him and cried joyfully, and the pastor, my aunts, and the congregation joined in. They sang praises, and my dad felt a piece of heaven in his heart. My dad's life changed instantly. "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here (2 Corinthians 5:17)!" From that moment on, he filled his life with beatitudes and, for the rest of his days, he followed the rugged cross.

memory #63: The rattlesnake

Dad's first pastorship was in Wilson, Texas, population 50. We lived on a farm just outside of town. By the back porch, in a corner, there was a burrow. One day my sister and I were playing close by when she dropped her doll in the hole. Reaching for her toy, she suddenly screamed. That's when I heard the rattling. I rushed to her rescue with my Roy Roger's six-shooter, and with the butt of my gun, I aimed at the snake's head. It coiled and struck, but I was just out of range. We were in a death dance for a minute before mom heard the commotion and screamed for dad, who was about ready for a bath. He rushed out and pushed me out of the way. He grabbed a hoe that was nearby and quickly disposed of the rattlesnake. Amid the cacophony and my innocent "I would have vanquished the serpent" bravado, sudden realization, like a fresh breeze in a hot summer's day, set in, and the paroxysm of fear turned into hysterical laughter as dad stood in the hot Texas sun nude as the day he was born.

I should have been a snapshot in your life;
not a life's story.

Just Before Twilight

Evening,

forty miles west of Chicago,

a herd of whitetail cross

bone splintered cornfields

to a tree line in the south

where white oak feebly reach

for the winter moon.  

I light a cigar

and wish for a shot of tequila,

wish it were summer,

and I was pulling up

to the Baptist Mission in Texas

where my old man spoke the word

and the choir rejoiced,

when I believed in tongues,

in heavenly utterances,

and the Holy Ghost was immense power

seething within,

and you, the sacred vessel

I poured myself into.

My thoughts are of a time

when wind surfed the treetops

and apple blossoms swirled down

on an insouciant world and covered two beings

in its mystical cloak,

when I pressed you against the earth

as it spun and traveled

around a star that moved

through space and time

to a point

that exalted you

and love

sacrificed self.

I wrap myself in a season

when I walked in the hullabaloo

of a day,

in the bell

of a lost Sunday,

when tulips were a lover's bed

and wild violets were a bouquet

arranged for you.

I remember a ruckus,

a riot

in my heart,

a hooligan love,

a rapture.

I recall

a time

as north winds rage

at the winter moon,

and the Big Dipper pours

twilight

into evening sky --

my thoughts are of you

as I follow the North Star home,

a thousand stars 

lighting the way.

 Science reveals God's power and majesty. The mysteries that unfold are gifts. We should search the heavens by faith without fear.   

"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.

The Bible shows the way to go to heaven, not the way the heavens go.

I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him."
-- Galileo  

 This most beautiful system of the sun, planets and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being.
-- Newton

Buddy Holly Glasses (For My Father)

All spring

I crashed through doors,

reached blindly for walls

too distant for support,

sacrificed my insides

to Arabic numerals that

appeared and disappeared

on crinkled leaves of wisdom.

All because I loved you,

because I adored you,

because I idolized you.

Then one day, you saw

the unseen

and removed the revered

Buddy Holly glasses,

and the only spectacles that remained

rested on the tip

of your dark brown, Moses-like nose.

This Spring-like Day In Chicago

This spring-like day in Chicago,

I relax on my back porch listening to the Byrds.

Two Mexican women scurry along my sidewalk. 

They balance bags of clothes on their heads.

Their alien tongue fades around the corner

as they head to the laundromat

on Broadway Street.

Their children dark, black stone eyes,

unafraid of a strange land,

roam and ramble across my yard,

their laughter made for this country.

If I close my eyes and listen,

I hear the laughter and footsteps 

of my grandfather's mother.

A basket of  dirty clothes balanced on her head,

she follows a narrow path to the river.

Sometimes we have to sit quietly and listen ...

After He Spoke, I Dreamed of Angelfish

Moon above,

sea below

-- Sturm und Drang

-- under the quilt of guilt.

And still, I feel His presence,

this night of  Eucharist.

Beneath the star of Bethlehem

a million fry flounder,

afflict my soul.

I slam shut the shutters.

Thrash hopelessly till I school.

A billion angelfish and I

falling

through the blue pool of heaven.

Immersing

-- in body

-- in water.

Spring

Spring

Spring,
who does not love your gown
of green?
In each of us a flower blooms,
and in it is a word.

May mine be strong and full of wonder!

Keith Olbermann Prophecy 7 Years Ago

Science is more than a body of knowledge ...

"Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time—when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness."
-- Carl Sagan

When we hear a black man ...

“When we hear a black man describe police violence; when we hear an undocumented immigrant describe exploitative labor; when we hear a prisoner describe institutionalized brutalization; when we hear a young gay woman describe homelessness – our first response must not be to attempt to discredit, to rationalize, to explain away. Rather, we must give them the credit we would expect others to give to us, and try to understand experiences that differ substantially from our own. . . . This doesn’t mean credulously accepting every narrative or policy proposal that is accompanied by a claim of oppression; we still have to apply our rational faculties. It does mean treating every story with the solicitude we would reflexively grant to members of our own economic, social, racial, and religious tribes."
-- Brandon McGinley