A TALE OF COURAGE
by Kristen West McGuire
She just stood on the bridge, looking at the water. The Rhine River is not sparkling and clear, but vast, dark and hurried. It swells along, merely ignoring the bridges of Basel, too important to be bothered. For a long time, she merely considered the complaints that brought her to the precipice.
Adrienne von Speyr had faced death before, without fear, stoically. Her father died in 1918, and she had contracted tuberculosis that stole three years from her education soon afterward. The doctors told her she had only months to live. Amazed, she waited for death, but it never came. Nursed back to health by relatives, she dreamed of a medical degree.
Her mother criticized her constantly. The widowed mother had lost financial stability and needed a steady provider, but her passion for Adrienne’s career options was limited to secretarial work. After all, Adrienne was old enough, and, anyway, she was just one more mouth to feed.
Adrienne doggedly pursued her education in spite of it all. When she applied to enter the rigorous German high school (Gymnasium), she had to advocate for herself alone. Her mother would not accompany her, despite the fact that Adrienne’s command of German was insufficient.
They admitted her on probation, but she surprised them all. Her work ethic carried her through, and she made a few friends to sweeten her black coffee days, and worked as a tutor to pay her way. Piano lessons were her one joy. She recalled later that it was her one outlet to God in those years. Many years before this period, she had had a vision of the Blessed Mother, surrounded by many saints she did not recognize at the time. The strain of the workload began to weigh on her. Perhaps the vision was just a dream? Her delicate soul struggled for air. What did it all mean?
Her Protestant background hindered her progress, by her own account. It simply was not whole; it did not explain to her the supernatural that she sensed in the world around her, in the neediness of souls. God was bigger than that; she was sure.
But so very far away. He was God; she was not-God. And her prayers for a relief in the tension seemed unheard. A particularly nasty quarrel with her mother prompted her visit to the railway bridge over the river, her life in the balance.
Her extreme sensitivity and natural generosity with others blinded her to her own strengths. Balthasar later said she felt she was in the way of others, accomplishing nothing.
Her utter lack of fear clarified things. As if it were the gift of grace, she noted the lack of courage in the option of jumping, and reluctantly headed home. No, she was not created to jump into the dark water, but to wait until God revealed the meaning of it all in good time.
