by Barry Creamer | Jan 3, 2024 | Devotionals
Feet-long ice spears fall freely and sporadically from tree limbs and utility lines as warming temperatures and gravity gradually strip them of the residue of this 3-day-long Texas winter. The woods are a giant arbor dog shaking off its cold bath in slow motion. In...
by Barry Creamer | Dec 27, 2023 | Devotionals
Empathy is human. I remember Fidel Castro. To the best of my knowledge, his critics are right. Yet what brings him to my mind has little to do with the disapprobation he earned during his 59 years as an enemy of western democracy and scourge to his nation’s people and...
by Barry Creamer | Dec 20, 2023 | Devotionals
Throughout most of my life, a spare tire was the difference between a flat ending a road trip and only delaying it—a fact affirmed by the axiomatic idiom about rubber meeting road. My teenaged kids all learned to change tires because their treads (and ours) were as...
by Barry Creamer | Dec 13, 2023 | Devotionals
As our vehicle approaches the summit of Wolf Creek Pass in Southwest Colorado, I explain the concept of the continental divide to 2 of my young grandchildren. Ascending one moment, I explain that if a flake of snow falls on this side of the mountain, when it melts, it...
by Barry Creamer | Dec 6, 2023 | Devotionals
Mary’s objection to Gabriel is more right than she knows. “How will this be…?” means “This is not possible.” And it is not. An announcement cannot make a virgin pregnant. Per Solomon’s prayer and Jesus’ own words to a Samaritan woman: God cannot be contained or...
by Barry Creamer | Nov 29, 2023 | Devotionals
Something is wrong but, without orientation, you can only piece things together as others press and jostle you along the way. Some appear more sure-footed than you, some less. Some move deliberately with speed, some passively with the crowd, others reluctantly,...
by Barry Creamer | Nov 22, 2023 | Devotionals
Stymied. After a blessed but harried week driving, meeting, representing, and addressing, I am without the focus or energy even to choose something to watch on whichever streaming service is already active on our TV. I am thankful instead to acquiesce in my wife’s...
by Barry Creamer | Nov 15, 2023 | Devotionals
Serene if not sleepy, steering eastward, I watch a platter-size sun first divided by rolling horizon, then barred between banks of land and cloud, and finally disappearing behind the cumulus it backlights with coral and surrounds with radiating silver bands. I did not...
by Barry Creamer | Nov 8, 2023 | Devotionals
On a plain, Jesus gives the command: “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you…. and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either.” Between a rock and hard place, we whittle at...
by Barry Creamer | Nov 1, 2023 | Devotionals
The man seated opposite me is probably a decade my senior. Lean and muscular to excess, he is snacking on a health bar and appears oblivious to my existence, which is fine with me. I am not there to see him. I am there because I want to join my grandchildren for...
