By Sr. Doreen, SSJD
Albert Einstein is attributed as saying “Be a voice not an echo”.
It made me ponder how that comment encourages individuality and authenticity, urging people to express their unique perspectives and opinions rather than simply repeating what others say. It also made me ask myself questions: “Is my life steered by my own personal convictions, or am I bound up by the standards of others?” “Am I an echo living someone else’s truth or am I a wave, that inner voice of truth, that flows into the ocean of God’s love?”
In a few weeks it will be July 1st Canada Day. As we face a new reality with regard to our southern neighbours, and specifically to the President of the United States, current heavy handed and chaotic directives, these same questions will be important to us as Canadians. Who are we? Are we a voice or an echo?
Much of the ‘I am a Proud Canadian’, ‘Buy Canadian’, and displays of the Canadian Flag have been the direct result of the threats and reality of the President of the United States towards Canada: tariffs, the 51st State, the increased Border control regulations and so many of his sweeping changes and reversal of directives (immigration, the Arts, Health Care …). Perhaps we have been more of an echo than a voice over the years. While it will change things and cost us a great deal, this is a challenge to actually become a voice.
Living in the midst of the turmoil of the world today, it seems to me that there is an urgent message for each of us. We need to hone our reflective skills – unexamined life in the midst of turmoil seems a recipe for a meaningless life. We need healthy, critical minds if we are to live authentically and responsibly today. How important it becomes to develop our own personal convictions while at the same time being open to new possibilities, new realities.
Listening to our own inner voice, and we all have an inner voice that we need to take time to listen to, is where we will find the gift of power, inner freedom, and that interconnectedness of life that is so important to discover in the midst of a world that seems increasingly broken and torn apart.
W.H. Auden wrote a poem in September of 1933 that could very well be written today in 2025 as we listen to what is happening. He wrote:
“All I have is a voice to undo the folded lie, the romantic lie in the brain of the sensual man-in-the-street and the lie of Authority whose buildings grope the sky: There is no such thing as the State and no one exists alone; Hunger allows no choice to the citizen or the police; We must love one another or die.”
He wrote this poem just before the Second World War, a commentary or warning about what he saw with the rise of a dangerous Nazi political ideology in Europe.
Throughout history, and now today, we can see how this poem sounds an alarm for us – times when whole nations succumb to the manipulative speeches of ‘dictators’ out to bend people to their own will. We see an overload of news, propaganda that has a brazen disregard for truth, a very controlling view of reality, inequality of races, hate-filled speech. In times like ours today, we need warning signs ‘be a voice not an echo’ to help us stop from giving in or yielding to the manipulative speeches of those acting like dictators trying to bend people to their own will.
We need courage – this is a courageous call to want to be not an echo but a wave, a voice, and to use that voice. We need constant vigilance and alertness in listening to that inner voice, the silent whispers of the spirit within us.
We need courage to be part of the wave that will eventually take us to the ocean of love, of caring, of compassion – of the interdependence and interconnectedness of everything. These are the inner values and in the midst of our world today there is not much focus on inner values, there is seemingly more emphasis on self-centeredness, I, mine, ours. This brings with it a sense of insecurity and fear, distrust, all of which can bring also anger and frustration, anxiety and violence.
It is easy to be lost today to despair of our powerlessness and go along because, we say, there is nothing else to do. It is easy to lose our sense of importance to the human race. The comment by Einstein ‘be a voice not an echo’ rang loud for me, it made me stand up and take a look at myself and at things and situations around me. It called me back to an immersion in human community where everything I do, everything, has some effect on someone somewhere. As Joan Chittister said in her book “To Everything a Season” : “I begin to see my life tied up with others. … I begin to know that my work is God’s work, unfinished by God because God meant it to be finished by me.”
Be not an echo but a wave, a voice – this is an urgent call to us today. It is to choose, as in Matthew 7:13-14 “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it. For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it.” As a wave, a voice, I want to choose a path of genuine, sacrificial love from the heart, not merely follow outward appearances or the current popular trend. This will indeed be a narrow gate, a hard road but it is also the promise of fullness of life.
