Rosslyn Lam radiated love and peace, even in death.
By Roland Ashby
One of the greatest privileges of my life was recently to spend time in prayer and meditation with a dying and dear friend, Rosslyn Lam. I last prayed and meditated with her in hospital, accompanied by her sister and three adult children, two days before she died last month, following a long battle with cancer.
Rosslyn, known as Ros by many, had been a compassionate and dedicated social worker, and was a remarkable witness to faith. She bore her suffering with courage and grace, always thinking of others, and radiating the peace and stillness of someone held, and grounded, in love.
Just months before her death Ros had been profoundly touched by the teachings of the great German mystic Meister Eckhart (c1260-1328), in online talks by author and poet Dr Mark S Burrows.[1]
In her reflection at Ros’s funeral on 21 November, the Rev’d Susanna Pain recalled how she and Ros had “shared the words of Meister Eckhart about the little spark within that is the spark of love and life that continues to connect us even now”.
In movingly addressing Ros personally, Susanna said:
Remember, Ros, the letter you wrote to Mark Burrows, and his response. He said:
To my knowledge, Eckhart did not address the matter of grief directly, but everything he wrote seems to rise from a deep wellspring of assurance--of God's abiding presence in and through us. . .and those we love. Our "work" is to open ourselves to the light-giving power of that spark--and let it shine through us. The rest is God's work.
…
Rest assured, dear Ros, Mark concludes, that the Love that sustains you, that keeps that "spark" lit in your heart, is the same Love that holds those you love. Nothing can extinguish it. Nothing. In the end, each "little spark" joins in an ever larger fire of love. Everlastingly.
In that hope, which will not disappoint us,
Mark
Susanna then recalled Ros’s response to Mark’s words.
These words strike a chord with me and through the course of this day, I have found myself slowly transforming ... it is not so hard for me to sink into the lovingness of God. I can feel that spark in my spirit as I nestle into my own space and loosen my ties on the world. Eckhart would call it God in my soul. In the very act of letting go, I know that the hope of love everlasting will not disappoint.
Susanna said the spark was there “before we were born and continues after we die, and connects us with each other and with all living things, including humans.”
It was a spark that Ros found – in the midst of her battle with cancer, and right up until the end – through meditation. “Through meditation,” she wrote, “I began to feel the reality of the presence of God in my life, and while the crisis had previously caused me to fragment and fall apart, I now began to experience a lightness and sense of clarity that had previously eluded me.”[2]
And just a few weeks before she died, Ros wrote the following, as cited by the Rev’d Cheryl Williams at the funeral:
This morning, I meditated for 45 minutes. It was early morning, and I haven’t been able to sit quietly in that way for such a long time. I surprised myself with how peaceful it was. With a busy household I now find myself in, I had completely lost my momentum with sitting quietly. Today it was easy. Everything seemed to fall right into place. I repeated my mantra, maranatha, again and again, and I felt as though all thoughts slipped away. It was a very peaceful place I was in, and it was exactly the place I needed to be so that I could let go of the sadness of loss. I really didn’t want to leave. At the end of 35 minutes I went further for another 10, just sinking in, not being attentive to anything in particular but being vaguely aware, in the very back recesses of my mind that this is where God is. It felt like a place of deep listening. It felt like I was immersed in unconditional love, and yet there was more. In this place, God was everywhere – in everything. It wasn’t just love that I was immersed in. It was all the voices of God, it was pain too and suffering, and heartache; I wasn’t running away from all these things. They were there too. It was as if I could bear them now, because there was beauty all around it as well.[3]
Shortly before she died, Ros woke briefly from her unconscious state to speak what would be her final words to her family: “Utter peace … utter peace”. Her only sadness, she said, was that she could not take them with her.
For Meister Eckhart, the purpose of life was, in the words of Mark Burrows, “to open ourselves to the light-giving power of [the spark of love within us] - and let it shine through us.”
A love that holds us all and can never be extinguished, a truth that Ros believed in, and by which she lived – and died. May she rest in eternal peace, at one with the love, St Paul said, from which nothing in life, or death, can ever separate us.
Rosslyn’s memoir, For the Love of Difference: Husband, look at what we've made! is available on Kindle. See: https://www.amazon.com.au/Love-Difference-Husband-look-what-ebook/dp/B083GMTKZJ
Footnotes:
[1] Organised by the Benedictus Contemplative Church in Canberra to which Ros belonged and in which the Rev’d Susanna Pain, who spoke at Ros’s funeral, is an associate minister.
[2] From ‘Leaning into Love’, an article by Rosslyn in the July 2024 edition of Coolamon magazine, a publication of the Australian Network for Spiritual Direction.
[3] Cheryl is the pastor of Footscray Baptist Church, where Ros’s funeral was held and where she was a member.