Holy_Wow_e-book_December_2015 by Cindy Garis

Holy Wow!

A collection from the Oasis community December 2015

Photo submission â&#x20AC;&#x153;Bees on Sunflowerâ&#x20AC;? by Marie Rodichok

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A Word about HOLY WOW

From Cindy Garis, Oasis’ Executive Director

I always feel so blessed when I have the opportunity to compile these e-books from the community. This is our fifth book and I am no less graced and humbled than the first time.

We have heard from a variety of artists. Some who sat down and wrote an entry to offer as a gift, others who reached back into their ponderings to share a “Holy Wow” from their past.

This Holy Wow reflects the “in between time” - of Advent, of Autumn, of December— we received reflections from year round, some fall reflections and some Christmas awakenings, even some gifts of Spring. In all seasons, Holy Wow seems to connect with nature...and with some place very, very deep. Sit back and savor each page, attentively, prayerfully — for that is the spirit in which they have been shared.

Nature’s Song of Creation By Kathyann E Corl

The magnificence of Nature’s beauty surrounds us each day. In this beauty, if we listen with our soul we can hear Nature’s Song of Creation. From the frozen ground of winter seeds while they are hibernating, our human eyes cannot yet see the beauty. Yet these seeds continue to evolve giving birth in the sunlight of spring to the Creator’s glory. Colors emerge with a fragrance and beauty across the landscapes and gardens. Wild flowers flourish in the fields of the mountains bursting forth in praise of Creation.

As spring’s glory passes onto the warmth of summer’s light, the Sun light lingers elongating the shadows and fill the morning with the glorious songs of the birds in symphony, the afternoon with light and beauty and the evenings with cool refreshing breezes. Yet just as quickly, Autumn begins its time of transition. The coloring on the leaves spread their beauty across the trees as the scents of the pines scent begins to fill the air. Into this creative beauty Nature’s Song of Creation, the majesty of the Creator’s Love fills our soul. Our Creator, created man to love and protect this beauty as his ongoing song of the Creator’s Love by sharing with us just a miniscule portion of the beauty that awaits us in the heaven’s above. Praise you Almighty Creator, for allowing us to embrace this moment of your creation!!

Photo submission “Young deer at Mariawald Renewal Center” by Sue Scott Dolan 5

Autumnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s patchwork quilt. Crimsons, russets, scarlets, golds. Happy, feasting eyes! Photo and haiku submitted by Mary Consiglio

Layers of the Heavens

Prayer and photo submitted by Kathyann E Corl Lord, I look at the sunset, and its radiance fills my soul. The bursting forth of the colors of the sunset A reminder, of your Spirit, bursting forth into our life. We expect the sunsets at each eveningtide Yet no one can prepare us for the depth of awesome colors Layered into the heavens rippling across the horizon.

It is as this sunset ends, that the mystery of the night sky begins Boundless and infinite, through the night sky, We experience the birthing and dying of the creative energies of the heavens. How Almighty is your power O Lord What a gift of profound beauty you have given us!! Thank you God, for your Omnipotent Presence!!

November

Haiku By Sam Pendergrast Covering the rock Golden blanket over moss Larchartwork needles, fallen Wilson Original digital by Yvonne

Abundant Creator By Kathyann E. Corl

Creator, How abundant and beautiful Your Love is Filling the World with the wonder of your Majesty Creative expressions for all mankind. Your vision of magnificence Colored the world with sight and sounds That our beyond our human ability to comprehend.

Lord, your creation gave each flying creature its bird song You have filled the summer eve with the call of locust These abundant songs of creation fill us with wonder at your beauty. Lord, you created a world of continual transition Awakenings, birthing and dying only to be reborn Praise the Lord, for all of this earth’s creation.

Photo submission “Brilliant Red Tree - 2015 ” by Sue Scott Dolan 8

Walking the Path

Poem and photo by Naomi Kelly

Strong legs, swinging arms long steps, body in rhythm walking to a song striding as a dance breath becomes life life full of possibilities

The Seed of Suffering

Photo and poetry by S. Leigh Pick The seed of suffering seems a fragile thing. Darkness shelters the space bereft of trying. Enveloped in moonless mystery pale whispers of leaf and root gently unfold and go their separate ways. A single root eagerly eats down through shades of darkness, a lone stem lets light green its way. Root joins to root and expands a network of tangled tears and tragedies that draw strength and nourishment from death. Upon death's network of shoulders, the tendril is steadied for the upward climb. Without thought, up the small one goes, the tangled ones oblivious below. And when into the light, the fragile stem emerges, there is no surprise, except in the eyes of the one who beholds. For the seed of suffering seemed a fragile thing that could only bear heartache and pain. But with deeper eyes we see, not the struggle, but the One who makes dark a different light and even suffering a gain.

Photo submission “View of the Valley from the Top of Peter's Mountain ” by Sue Scott Dolan

Sue writes: “Picture from the top of Peter's Mountain when the sun came out for a second or two. I can meditate with it and return right back to the moment with the gentle movement of the wind and the illumination of the sun. Peace is very present again.”

Thin Places

By Kathleen H Hull So our Celtic ancestors called them, brave places where heaven and its healing leak into our crippled world, infusing bare twisted tree stumps, cleansing springs, even the cold damp air we breathe this morning with the warm glow of wholeness, of restoration, and the opportunity to set old injuries right. For ourselves, we ask that our aching joints be sound, our aging bodies supple and strong again, while our minds hold fast to the hard won wisdom we’ve earned through failure and grief. So once again, we must confess and ask for the grace and courage to set aside grievances we have silently hoarded for years. Of others, we ask their forgiveness and patience, for the hurtful words we spoke to be breathed back into our throats, before they once more they damage the ones we still love, though never well enough. This done, could it be heaven itself that we glimpse through the tangles branches of this dark grove, and are we at this one bright moment passing into it through a thin place? 11

Photo submission “Grand canyon—North Rim—2011” by Cindy Garis

A Psalm for the Grand Canyon By Alicia Conklin-Wood

layer after layer

“God you spin the whirling planets,”

where still the water flows on.

and through the eons have created

the beauty of our natural world. River water flows deep

in the wide canyon now

and the winds wear away the rocks above.

Layer upon layer of strata revealed:

table rock, red rock, white rock

down to the bottom far below

You are creating still,

deep within this canyon, and in the depths of my soul…

below the surface

desert trimmed with

green shrubs and trees.

Looking out from above across the vast reaches

of this great and grand canyon I see indescribable, wild untamed beauty.

“In the beginning” wildness

wilderness

and Holy Spirit moved over all creating

carving

shaping…

Living water ran ever deeper always untamed creating

carving

shaping…

So big, beyond imagining You are—

so big,

beyond being tamed

or brought under control, mine or anyone’s.

Yet still, like the wind and water, always shaping, creating, forming and reforming.

Praise to You, O Creator of the universe,

the Grand Canyon, and my life.

Home Again

by Lisa Franich Lee

You and I get to know each other Let the ghosts out and let the love seep in Pull up a chair my friend Rest your weary bones while the children play Gather together more in a circle Pass the stories Take as many as you need Let them fill you and pass them along As the light fades some smile, some wave The numbers dwindle yet you and I linger not wanting to give up to the night creeping in Once two specs in the wind, you and I Now the anchor in my soul holds me here Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m home again Dedicated to my friends at Waterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Edge August 22, 2009

Slowly, Peace Ascends By Alisa Laska

Flames dance on pools of color Reflections in the eyes of a hurting people Silence of a solace found, awaiting with quiet the hope which is to come. Still with wonder, uncovering the darkness, of hearts left in silence. Slowly, peace ascends Hope, etched in silver, dances with the eternal flame. Love comes, resting in straw crying as a babe. Hearts open to infinite peace of the Savior born as child.

Photo submission â&#x20AC;&#x153;Compline Prayer Time on Candlemas Dayâ&#x20AC;? by Sue Scott Dolan

Evening Prayer in October Photo and reflection by Sue Scott Dolan

Our evening prayer was serene as we sat wrapped in blankets under the October moonlight reflecting on the patio table.

If the neighbors should say they thought they heard soft melodies in the night air, tell them it was just us - two 'Contemplative Companions' gently singing songs of gratitude!!â&#x20AC;&#x2122;

Heaven’s Fingerprint By Kathyann E Corl

From the heaven’s Your joy is proclaimed! In the moment the autumn sun brings Radiant Passionate light onto the Winter’s cold. Yet in this moment This sunlight is transformative Filled with healing energy and substance. Lord from this earth with our human eyes We can only glimpse at your creation With its brilliant and profound beauty.

A glimpse of this magnificent, profound image Is but a fingerprint of the heavenly glories Lord, You have filled our world with images of your Creative Love!

Photo submission “The sheen of ice on the deck! Sun is nice and warm, though! ” by Sue Scott Dolan 17

"God is a Lover (A Winter Miracle)" by Kelly Chripczuk

The old snow in the yard shrank back from the crisp coat of ice on top and the kids and I walked along tapping down lacy caves with our feet as we waited for the bus. We all seemed lighter, having decided to re-home our new dog Jaxon. After they left on the bus, Jaxon and I headed out to the back field and I was sad. Although I framed it as a gift for my husband and kids, I now know that I was the one who needed a dog this winter. Having him here gave me something to focus on, some deep joy and a reason to get outside. Without that dog, I wouldn’t have known the birds were singing, that winter, though posing still as fierce, was waning. But Jaxon was scared of our older kids, scared of older kids in general and growled and snapped at them on occasion. He needed a quieter home where he could feel more secure, less threatened. And we needed a dog our kids could love freely without fear. It wasn’t an easy decision to make, but three weeks in we decided Jaxon should be re-homed. While posting Jaxon on Craigslist, it occurred to me to contact his original owners to fill them in on the situation – I didn’t want them to see him up for adoption and wonder what had happened. We got him from a family with two young children – a two-year -old and a newborn who was ill and in need of surgery. They were overwhelmed and needed one less thing to manage. That’s what struck me as I stood in the crunchy field and Jaxon sniffed all along the fence line. I was tempted to feel regret, to tell and believe a story of impulsive decision-making on our part, a story of failure. That’s one possible story, but standing in that spacious place, I sensed another story too, a story running just beneath the surface, one filled with grace and mysterious mercy. When I texted the original owners they replied immediately, “Bring him back, we can make it work.” It seemed they had turned a corner. “Our daughter will get better, spring will come and we can take him out more,” they said.

There was a family who needed help with a dog they loved. There also was a family (or more clearly, a woman) who needed something new, some loving bit of softness and joy to nurture for a while. By the mercy of God (and Craigslist) the two became connected and the needs and abilities matched up for a few brief weeks.

I don’t believe God is a matchmaker – a meddling force stitching together lives with neat precision – but I am beginning to understand God is a lover. This is the lens through which God sees the world – sees you. God stitches lives together, hearts together, to multiply love (which God IS) and thereby God multiplies God’s own presence among us. God’s creative love knows no bounds.

This is the great God of scripture, leaning down into the world, seeing, hearing, knowing the cries of his people. God sending. God arriving. Leading, loving.

This and this alone is the story that runs beneath the surface of all our lives - God’s grace, God’s mercy, God’s love. //

God sees two weary women, two towns apart. One has a dog she cannot bear, another needs a dog to love. God’s fingers twitch, eyes twinkle and love is born and multiplied in our midst. Every miracle, at its heart, comes down to this - God is love.

Original Oil Painting by Marie Rodichok

Notes, Waiting for the Nativity by Kathleen H Hull

“All nature sings, while around us rings the music of the spheres” They may have matured too late to be picked with the rest of the harvest, or hung unnoticed among leaves, or were simply too high above reach, these Grimes Golden apples that cling to old trees in Swan Pond Orchard, just a few, here and there, still glowing a soft yellow, on bare branches in the waiting silence of morning fog. Last year, a severe earthquake hit Bolivia. No one was hurt. No one even noticed it except seismologists. The quake was centered some four hundred miles under the continent, and so powerful that it sent wave after wave banging against the nickel and iron core of the Earth. Then the whole planet rang out like an enormous well-cast bell, a deep sonorous … bong, bong, bong … echoing out into the black waiting silence of space. There is a legend in Scandanavian lands that, just at midnight on Christmas Eve, the animals awake, shed their silence, and speak. It is for this reason that farmers put out armfuls of grain on Christmas Eve, that they hope to hear the animals speak their secret Christmas words. So, from nightfall, patient brown cows shift from foot to foot in their stalls. Then, when midnight sweeps across each hushed village, the cows turn and softly tell each other of His love, while above, tiny winter birds, huddled on rafters, awake and greet their Lord. Far in the woods, deep under frozen ponds, each green frog stirs, opens its eyes to the inner vision, and sings a song never heard in Spring. As, high above the crackling ice, white swans fly by starlight … asking, asking, asking … in their soft questioning voices. Then, just for one moment, each swan hears the answer in its own voice, “I am here because He made me; He delights in me, and I delight in Him.” And midnight moves on.

Photo submission “Winter 2014” by Sue Scott Dolan

Way to Bethlehem By Kathleen H. Hull

And did they know, as they set out that winter down the long gravel road to Bethlehem, at the old donkey’s careful pace, what hushed worlds waited and watched over their coming? Did they know that, far on the other side of night, one star would begin to burn and race to meet them, or that silken kings, seeing the star’s trail, would claim the prophecy told them, secretly slip from their warm halls, cinch saddles and boxes onto wooly camels and hurry along dark caravan paths knowing, not the destination, but the way? Or that down among the folds of Judea’s windward hills, weary shepherds would hear scripture’s promise come full, desert their sheep to rustling night and yellow eyes, and hurry to find them in the dusty stable yard? Or that the whole night sky would hover low and angels come to sing among wheeling birds, while far out to sea, flashing fish would hear the song, burst from wine dark waves and leap in joy? Could they know that we too, so many and so scattered, would some day also take up the paths shown to us, where one hears Him in Gospel word, one in stars and wind and rain, and one in broken-hearted sorrow? Could they know that, because of them, all of our trails would converge on Bethlehem, when we too put down our sensible lives, take up His dangerous promises, and set out to follow?

The Manger This Year By Rich Gelson

How on earth will we manage getting to the manger this year? We want to pursue the pageantry and the peacefulness but these arrive only after the pressures … the plowing through piles of things to do to get to places to be, the extricating of unsettling emotions as hopeful preparation for the Prince of Peace. How on earth will we manage getting to the manger this year? All the adversaries of true light and love, of life and liberty keep up their horrific, hope extinguishing terrors … their kilns of hatred continue glazing global fears and lustering loss, their vitriol and violence explode to implode peace so often in the name of holiness.

How on earth will we manage getting to the manger this year? Wait! We’ve all already arrived. Your manger, O Emmanuel, is not allocated to timeworn history … it’s our heart cradle of daily hope where you cry for us and swaddle all suffering of sin, coo of interceding and overcoming, of restoration and resurrection and softly smile of blessedly assured salvation.

“Empty Manger” photo found by Betsy Keller just for this poem 23

Yields of Contemplation and Prayer By Lynda Rush Myers

Blessed is the confidence and assurance I have today to move within the world, knowing that I am a beloved child of God, divinely and uniquely equipped to be one among many servants in the body of Christ. Blessed are the buried recollections that wither my heart and spirit; through God’s grace, they evaporate. Blessed is my inclination to see other’s successes as a measure of my worthlessness; blessed is my sense of woundedness in response to the apparent perfection and abundance in others’ lives. Blessed is my inclination to wanton self-absorption. Blessed is my ubiquitous sense of isolation, even in my journey within a divinely appointed community; blessed is my itinerant way in the world, for I am ever tethered to the eternal. . Blessed is my naked self, the one at risk for being unraveled by perceived failures, a sense of inadequacy and losses, the one who may seek significance and recognition rather than the Divine; and, for the self, seated late in mid-morning before a computer screen surrounded by a studio strewn with projects-ever-inprocess, yesterday’s eyeliner now a quarter-moon beneath her eyes. Blessed is the inclination of my heart to offer praise and gratitude to the One who heals and sustains me and guides me to wholeness of mind and thought in the Spirit through prayer, study and contemplation of His word.

11/13/2015 Lynda writes: I took time this morning away from packing to revise this poem I wrote in 2012 for Oasis' e-book. Holy-Wow! What is possible through God's love and through contemplation on His word, study and prayer. Indeed, a new creation in Christ!

Photo submission “River Walk in Millersburg PA” by Sue Scott Dolan

Gratitude

By Kathleen H. Hull This Lent, I am surrounded by such signs of God’s grace, and all I have to give in return is this pale gratitude. Last week, my ninety nine year old mother fell out of bed, and this time she didn’t break any bones. With the care and encouragement of her nurses she is slowly healing. Thank you Lord. What I don’t know about medicine could kill you. This morning, I drove her file of tax papers to her CPA who masters the intricate details and traps of math and tax law. She is a warm and gracious lady who lives in West Virginia and raises goats. I admire goats for their self-reliance and honesty. Thank you Lord. What I don’t know about taxes could put you in jail. Long ago, Nola, an exacting professor who would have scared me if I hadn’t known her first as a friend, misspoke when she said the blessing at dinner, Bless, O Lord, these gifts to our use, And us to Thy love and service, And keep us ever mindful of the needs of others. Only Nola said, And keep us ever needful of the minds of others. I’ve kept that gracious reminder for over thirty years. Thank you Lord, for these and all your good people, who, competently and courteously, Do the things I cannot even hope to understand.

The Gift: Perfect Love

What I Do Not Know

Photo and poem by Mary Consiglio Unknowing Sometimes What I do not know worries me. Am I on the right path? Am I verging off toward a precipice? Both lead to the abyss of unknowing. Love of You, O Divine Mystery, remains my compass. You are my True North. Even though the waters are foreign and stormy, I will keep the course, and pray that even should I shatter on the shoals, You are there. Within me and all around me. Everything is sacred. Even my unknowing.

A Vision of Pure Love By Kathyann E. Corl

Be thou my vision that our eyes may be open to Your Love Your all-consuming Love light is beyond our comprehension For its purity is created from the heavens’ above. This Love light is found in its purest form A light that is the source of healing love Encompassing the body, mind and spirit of all humanity. To this Almighty Creator of Love light Our hearts are filled with the inspiration of the Spirit Nourished with the Sacred Fire of the Heavens Cleansing the dark recesses of our minds with Your all-consuming Love.

Photo submission “Sunset along the Turnpike to Harrisburg Following Retreat” by Sue Scott Dolan 27

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