More than enough

I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:18-19)

It was our last conversation, 12:26 p.m., Central Daylight Time, April 15, 2021. Fifteen days later my friend, Grace Adolphsen Brame, passed into the Loving Mystery who had beguiled her heart and mind since childhood.

She had been and done so much in her 91 years, a choir director, opera singer, beloved spouse, good will ambassador, author, professor, retreat leader, and an expert on Evelyn Underhill and Christian mysticism.

But age and illness had exhausted her characteristic verve and exuberance, including Grace’s startling proclivity to break into an aria in the middle of one of her presentations.

“David,” she breathed when her aide handed her the phone, “there is not much of me left.” Her voice laden, syllables dragging through long seconds, I strained to hear, willing her to complete each ... labored ... breath.

She was right, of course. There wasn’t of her much left. But what remained was profound and beautiful, and she needed to give it away, one more time.

 “I love you,” she murmured. “Thank you for being my friend. You are God’s friend ... and mine.”

As blessings go, it is hard to imagine one much better. But her blessing didn’t end with these words. There was one more agonized sentence that drained the remainder of her energy. “You are the only one who understood me,” she mumbled.

The only one? A bit of exaggeration, I suspect. We had been friends since meeting at the back of a conference hall 31 years before. We rarely met after that but regularly spoke on the phone, telling stories, sharing insights and planning writing projects, two of which evolved into books.

Through it all, there was one central truth, one awareness that was present from that first conversation. Grace and I shared a deep desire to know the Love who is and was and always will be—and to share the Healing Mystery we knew, however obscurely, in the depth of our being.

She struggled throughout her professional life to share the gift of contemplative prayer and awareness with a resistant church that did not know what it was missing, a decades long frustration.

In her final words to me, she said I would receive a gift in her will. Use it, she said, to “carry out my mission.”

Softly, I asked if she had any specific suggestions, but she didn’t answer. She drew another heavy breath and said, “You know me.”

It was more than enough. I knew what to do.

 David L. Miller