A Severe Mercy

After devoting myself to the Twilight Saga for weeks, I haven't felt as though I could devote myself to any extra-curricular reading. With school in full gear, support-raising opportunities, Bible study responsibilities, etc., reading seemed like a guilty pleasure. But I came across a book in the thrift store, read through the first page, and knew the book to be, in the words of Adria Ellis, "a gift from God" -- something I am meant to read.

I had heard of this book before, in two vague sorts of contexts -- one associated with C.S. Lewis, the other with an author named Sheldon Vanauken. I wondered, in fact, if there were two books by the same title.

But now I know that there is only one book. And it is something of a memoir by Vanauken, an agnostic (or, arguably, atheist) graduate of both Yale and Oxford who became a Christian during the years when C.S. Lewis was at Oxford.

But it's not Vanauken's story alone. Titled A Severe Mercy, it's the memoir of Vanauken's (almost surreal) relationship with his wife, Davy, their joint search for truth, and the influence of Lewis in their conversion. Shortly after becoming a Christian, Davy is struck with a mysterious illness, and dies young, and Vanauken turns to Lewis for guidance and comfort. What follows is a series of 18 letters through which Lewis, in effect, pastors Vanauken through his grief.

I'm only about halfway through the book, but it is both compellingly narrative and deeply intense. The cover bills it as "A Real-Life Love Story, Full of Wonder and Hope." And Adria tells me that, while heartwrenching, it will be encouraging and challenging and I will love it (which I do).

Here are a few of my favorite quotes from the book, so far.

On beauty:
He remembered as though it were but a few days ago that winter night, himself too young even to know the meaning of beauty, when he had looked up at a delicate tracery of bare black branches against the icy glittering stars: suddenly something that was, all at once, pain and longing and adoring had welled up in him, almost choking him. He wanted to tell someone, but he had no words, inarticulate in the pain and glory. It was long afterwards that he realised that it had been his first aesthetic experience. That nameless something that had stopped his heart was Beauty.

On marriage:
The killer of love is creeping separateness. Inloveness is a gift of the gods, but then it is up to the lovers to cherish or to ruin. Taking love for granted, especially after marriage. Ceasing to do things together. Finding separate interests. "We" turning into "I." Self-regard: what I want to do. Actual selfishness only a hop away. This was the way of creeping separateness.
(note: this portion written of his thoughts before He became a believer, hence "the gods")

On faith:
I suspected that all the yearnings for I knew not what that I had ever felt -- when autumn leaves were burning in the twilight, when wild geese flew crying overhead, when I looked up at bare branches against the stars, when spring arrived on an April morning -- were in truth yearnings for him. For God.