the echo

Contemplation is this echo-response to the Holy One.
It is the deep resonance in the inmost center of our spirit
in which our very life loses its separate voice

and resounds with the majesty and the mercy
of the Hidden and Living One.
                            ~ Thomas Merton

I love this quote.

Life, my life is an echo of the Holy. Separate, yet not apart. Called out into being by the voice of the One who has no voice yet speaks everything into being.

Even as the echo somehow contains the voice of the one, so I too somehow contain the essence of God, the majesty and the mercy. And so do you. And so does all of created life. Echoes of the holy.
And it is in the resounding of the echo, the response of my life, that I find I am not separate. In the echo of my life I hear the whisper of Your voice calling into being life and love, truth and mercy, grace and wonder. And in the resounding echo that is my life I too call these things to be in the world.

Oh, how I desire to be that echo, always. To live from that natural place, that authentic response within. Yet everything is given already. So all I need is simply to experience what I already have. To accept myself where I find myself, and be open to God and to myself in this moment where, together, we dwell.

For, you see, what I already have, what is already given is God's love and acceptance of me. This is the root of my being. And when I fail to see the signs of the presence of the Holy One in everything around me, then I know I am missing my deepest truth, the Voice that calls forth the the echo of my being.