Listen to the Echo

There is a powerful and humbling truth woven into both scripture and life: what we put out into the world comes back to us. The words we speak, the actions we take, and the energy we carry ripple outward, shaping our relationships, our communities, and our lives, perhaps in ways we may not ever see or know.

Jesus says this beautifully in Luke 6:36-38:

Be compassionate, as your loving God is compassionate. Don’t judge, and you won’t be judged. Don’t condemn, and you won’t be condemned. Pardon, and you’ll be pardoned. Give, and it will be given to you: a full measure – packed down, shaken together and running over – will be poured into your lap. For the amount you measure out is the amount you’ll be given back.

Echoes are ordinary things that we could stand to learn something from. The metaphor of the echo offers us a vivid picture of this principle that what we put out we get back. Imagine standing at the edge of a canyon. You shout into the void, and moments later, your words come rushing back to you, amplified and clear. If you shout “Yahoo!” with joy, the canyon returns it with the same glee. But if you shout something angry or unkind, you’ll hear that too, magnified and repeated. The canyon doesn’t decide what to echo; it simply returns what it’s given. Very often it's the same with life.

It's almost a knee-jerk reaction. When someone is kind, smiles at us in the grocery store, we usually, without thinking, return the smile. And when someone is unkind or hurtful, our first instinct is to respond in kind. I’ve heard too many people over the years remark regarding a child who acted out in school, “They just need a good spanking.” So bad behavior is returned with bad behavior. I’ve always figured that the child was probably echoing something they experienced at home and that perhaps the child really needed more love.

We all know that we’re supposed to watch what we say around little kids because they are literally apt to repeat what we’ve said, and usually in the least appreciated times and places.

There once was a young couple who invited their elderly pastor for Sunday dinner. While they were in the kitchen preparing the meal, the minister asked their young son what they were having.

“Goat,” the little boy replied.

“Goat?” replied the pastor, “Are you sure about that?”

“Yep, I heard Dad say to Mom, ‘Today is just as good as any to have the old goat for dinner.’”

This amusing moment shows us how our words don’t just echo back to us—they ripple out farther than we might imagine or want!

We know that words can uplift or tear down, heal or wound, encourage or discourage. Richard Wagamese’s words remind us of this: “What you throw out echoes your own energy back.”

Let me share a story with you. There was a farmer who had a large field of corn. His corn won the blue ribbon at the county fair year after year. A journalist once interviewed him and asked, “What’s your secret?” The farmer smiled and said, “I share my best seed corn with my neighbors.” The journalist looked confused. “But why would you share your best seed with your neighbors? Aren’t they your competition?” The farmer replied, “Oh no. The wind blows pollen from one field to another, so if my neighbors grow inferior corn, it will affect my crop. By helping them, I help myself.”

This farmer understood the principle of the echo. By giving good to those around him, he ensured that good would return to him.

I know that there are many churches who, over the years have consistently begun their services with a prayer of confession, or some other way to remind people that they are miserable rotten sinners, barely worthy of God’s grace. I’ve always believed that people do a good enough job of beating themselves up, or getting put down by others, and that it should be the church’s role to lift people up not contribute to the judgmental negativity. Shouldn’t we remind people every week that they are enough, that they are worthy of love and care, that they are unique and have something important to offer the world? Consider the echo that returns from each approach.

We choose multiple times a day what we’re going to put out into the universe. But how often do we weigh those choices? How often do we ponder the affects of our words? How often are we deliberate about sending out what we want to receive back? True, we may not receive it back in that instant, but that can’t discourage us from continuing to walk through life as a positive force for kindness, compassion and generosity.

I’ve been to a number of protests recently, because my faith demands that I speak out for justice for the most vulnerable in our country. Each time there were one or two very angry people who were stopped at the traffic light in front of us, rolled down their windows and emitted a steady stream obscenities and hand gestures. Early on at a protest we were instructed not to return like for like (don’t be the echo!), but to smile and wave, thank them for their support and tell them to have a nice day. More than once I’ve seen people give up in exasperation because they weren’t getting the fight that it seemed like they wanted.

Jack Kornfield, in his book No Time Like The Present, tells the story of his friend, Maha Ghosananda, a highly revered Cambodian monk who survived the Khmer Rouge communist regime that was in power from 1975 to 1979. Maha Ghosananda was one of only 3,000 monks to survive the massacre of millions of people, including over 57,000 monks. All nineteen members of his family were among those killed.

In the border camps, Ghosananda helped to build temples for the hundreds of thousands of refugees, and then when the war finally slowed down enough for people to begin returning to their homes, he told them that “they could not simply ride on buses or trucks. There had been too much tragedy. They needed to walk back with him, continually chanting prayers of lovingkindness, to deliberately, step by step, reclaim their land, their hearts, their country.”

He essentially asked them to choose what energy they would return to the country with. What would they send out into the world? There had been so much fear, hatred, anger and violence. This was their chance to do the hard work of sending out a different energy, the energy of compassion, love and healing.

Year after year, Ghosananda led peace walks through war zones and jungle paths, gently guiding refugees back to their villages. What they sent out in the sound of ringing bells and songs of compassion returned to them in the form of frightened widows who felt safe enough to come out of hiding and join them, or exhausted soldiers – from both sides - who would lay their guns at Ghosananda’s feet and weep.

Ghosananda deeply believed, “Hatred never ceases by hatred, but by love alone is healed.” He showed his people and the world that no matter how difficult life gets, you can still choose to walk with compassion, to send kindness out into the world with a caring spirit.

I have to believe that Ghosananda was able to lead such amazing peace walks because he cultivated that peace within himself through his meditation and study. Maintaining a balanced center helps us not to react negatively when we encounter negative people or situations. This requires self-awareness and doing the spiritual work to be healthy inside.

If we live with constant anger inside, how can it not come to the surface in our words and actions? And then that anger will echo back to us and we’ll feed our anger. If we constantly inwardly berate ourselves, putting ourselves down, telling ourselves we aren’t good enough, then this judgmental attitude will find its way into our speech and actions and will echo back, feeding our own self-criticism, or self-hatred.

When we do the work to be healthy, we come to understand that we have choices about how we view ourselves and others. We have choices about what we say and how we act. We have choices about whether we’ll allow ourselves to echo back negativity or strive to put a different energy into the world for others to echo.

What are we putting out into the world? What words are we speaking into the canyon? What seeds are we sowing with our actions? What energy are we throwing into the universe? What are we chanting to our neighbors and our country? Because in one way or another those same things return to us.

This week I challenge each of us to listen for the echo of our words and our lives, to be intentional about what we send out. May we speak words that uplift, heal and build bridges. Take actions that heal. Let your echoes be ones you’ll rejoice to hear when they return.

Love & Light!

Kaye