A couple of weeks before Easter, I was heading to the office through the Oliver Street entrance and stopped in my tracks because of an unusual exchange of voices. In the staircase on the right, a preschool teacher’s voice resounded, calling out: “ECHO!” It was followed by silverbells of children’s voices: “Echo… Echo… Echo…”

I smiled at the ingenuity of the teacher, using unconventional spaces to engage her students in lessons about sound. I marveled at the children’s enthusiasm in response and their beautiful gifts of wonder and delight, which turned out to be quite infectious. I in turn wondered at the properties of acoustics and asked how it is that I forget to question the physical world around me and take it for granted.

The news of the Resurrection in early Christian times, spread much like a well-orchestrated echo, a wildfire that could not be contained. Not all had seen the Risen Lord with their own eyes, but those true witnesses could not be silenced. Their voices could not be contained behind closed doors or within their established friendships and fraternities.

Easter after Easter, I listen to the joyful “Alleluia” sounds, but sometimes I don’t immediately feel like joining in singing. It takes a good nudging of the Holy Spirit to awaken in me a phenomenon that cannot be explained by logic. It is a realization that I’m not just a spectator in a grand exhibition of religious fervor, but a participant in a divine truth that is undeniable.

This Easter has reminded me to become a little bit more unconventional. It nudged me to let the voice into some dark spaces inside me, which have not yet heard the sound of “He is risen!” Grace can help the message resound there and keep on echoing, keep on bringing the light of hope into any wasteland of my mind and soul. May we all share a child-like spirit of wonderous joy at the fresh discovery that the Lord is alive and working powerfully in our lives.

God bless you!

Edyta