by Barry Creamer | Apr 13, 2022 | Devotionals
The shortest distance between two points is a straight line, Mrs. Whatsit and Mrs. Who notwithstanding. The 10-year-old version of me that read something of A Wrinkle in Time only passed one portion down to my adult self: where Whatsit and Who explain how an ant could...
by Barry Creamer | Apr 6, 2022 | Devotionals
Country music songwriters, politicians, and marketers know the power of nostalgia. And better times past can be more than rose-tinged memories. Childhood should be safer with fewer cares than adulthood. So songs, campaigns, and ads invite us back to better times. When...
by Barry Creamer | Mar 30, 2022 | Devotionals
Sunshine illuminates blue skies, inviting bright demeanors, optimistic outlooks, an end to sorrow. Yet in the 19th Psalm the heat of sunshine stands in for the general revelation of God’s judgment, from which everyone wishes to hide. Rain falls from dreary or hostile...
by Barry Creamer | Mar 23, 2022 | Devotionals
An alarm in the hospital room I am visiting obnoxiously and persistently signifies apparently nothing, but does make it equally impossible and inevitable to think of Kurt Vonnegut’s Harrison Bergeron. In that dystopian short fiction, the United States Handicapper...
by Barry Creamer | Mar 16, 2022 | Devotionals
Everyman: Want to go get something to eat? Her: Sure. Everyman: Where do you want to go? Her: Wherever you want is fine. Everyman: How about [placeholder-for-anywhere-he-names]? Her: Oh, maybe not there. Everyman: [muttered euphemisms then resignation that she can...
by Barry Creamer | Mar 9, 2022 | Devotionals
We often overlook the mountain for the fissure within it. A friendship’s forest hides behind a conflict’s tree; a lifetime of provision behind a year of privation; love’s ocean behind anger’s wave. When we see something is wrong with the world, what should we give, or...
by Barry Creamer | Mar 2, 2022 | Devotionals
The rippling rivulets’ swift flow no sooner begins than dwindles to a damp residue. The ephemeral flood enraptures its creator, my 4-year-old grandson, who refills the blue plastic pale from the pool fifty times if once, each turn then inundating the edge of the deck...
by Barry Creamer | Feb 23, 2022 | Devotionals
Reluctance radiates through the talons he uses to climb my back and perch precariously on my shoulders in order to jump into the waves between me and my son-in-law, his father. There is no real danger. His dad is an arm’s length away. Even the little boy standing on...
by Barry Creamer | Feb 16, 2022 | Devotionals
The routine is simple. Wake early. Eat breakfast over scripture. (I know. I should read first, but why read hangry? So I kill 2 birds with one temporal stone.) Complete a few household chores. Stuff work clothes in backpack. Don riding gear. Walk to the garage. Grab…....
by Barry Creamer | Feb 9, 2022 | Devotionals
I notice the splotch of reddish brown staining my palm as I reach for a towel to dry my hands. It can’t be the water; the sink old enough to have been crafted by Tubal-Cain barely blushes. I wash again, content to leave the mystery unsolved if a better scrub will...
