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.