The Echo Within: A Book Review

Book Review:
The Echo Within, by Robert Benson

Does your heart have the youthful flexibility to squeak-open and discover the beauty that God has spoken into you? While reading The Echo Within, I felt as if the author was tenderly holding my heart, looking deep into my soul and finding life there—in places I had long ago given up for dead.

Robert Benson hails from the same tradition as mine. And although I call myself a “runaway,” Benson has truly moved on toward places where his soul can find home. My journey has been much nurtured from his writing, his speaking, and from Venite—his book of prayer. But in The Echo Within, I find a text that pulls the “real me” to the surface, where I can see myself as Love created me, and learn to be myself, as Love would have me be.

Finding your true calling— That is how The Echo Within is subtitled. And it is around this theme that Benson sculpts and weaves truth, and humor and grandfather-sweet love into the reader. And it is in this style, where Robert Benson most reminds me of my favorite chapel speaker while attending a Christian University. And that speaker was a small, tender, weak-voiced gentleman who wove humble stories into my psyche that have changed me forever. His name was Robert Benson as well. He was the author’s father.

Had only this writing been available when I was beginning my educational and career journey, perhaps I would not have painted myself into corners from which I have often sought escape. Recalling his early days of much doing, Benson lights a pathway for the reader to begin being…and to be as one is wired to be. I want my son to read this book, for here he will hear better than I can say just how precious are the possibilities his Maker has in mind for him. And here, he will find hints for the journey, and reminders to be patient along the way.

Sit down with The Echo Within. Bring a tissue or two, your journal and a willing heart. You may meet yourself along the way. And in yourself, you will find a friend.