Under the Mercy

Over Christmas Break I read A Severe Mercy and absolutely LOVED IT! I highly recommend it. It is a true story of Sheldon and Jean (Davy) Vanauken who, as unbelievers, fall in-love and attempt to create a love so strong and so powerful, that nothing can shake it. While studying at Oxford, they are placed in a group of Christian friends and slowly, over time, their hearts start to yield to Jesus Christ. It is during this time that Sheldon strikes up a life-long friendship with C.S. Lewis. SPOILER ALERT: Unlike Davy, Sheldon has a hard time wholly submitting his life to the Lord, and it is only through Davy's death, that he is able to do so. My little synopsis really does not do the book justice. It is truly beautifully written. I cried.....a lot, but then again, that is not too unusual. Here are some quotes:

"The best argument for Christianity is Christians: their joy, their certainty, their completeness. But the strongest argument against Christianity is also Christians--when they are sombre and joyless, when they are self-righteous and smug in complacent consecration, when they are narrow and repressive, then Christianity dies a thousand deaths" (85).

"It is not possible to be 'incidentally a Christian.' The fact of Christianity must be overwhelmingly first or nothing."

"I am v. glad to hear of the righted wrong and still more to hear that you are re-visiting England. We must have some good, long talks together and perhaps we shall both get high." - C.S. Lewis. (I love how one of their favorite things to do together was to discuss theology over beer!)

There's a fantastic passage that talks about time and eternity and the natural longings of our heart. It's too long to type the entire thing in my post, but here's a part of it:
"C. S. Lewis, in his second letter to me at Oxford, asked how it was that I, as a product of a materialistic universe, was not at home there. 'Do fish complain of the sea for being wet? Or if they did, would that fact itself not strongly suggest that they had not always been, or wd. not always be, purely aquatic creatures?' Then, if we complain of time and take such joy in the seemingly timeless moment, what does that suggest? It suggests that we have not always been or will not always be purely temporal creatures. It suggests that we were created for eternity. Not only are we harried by time, we seem unable, despite a thousand generations, even to get used to it. We are always amazed at--how fast it goes, how slowly it goes, how much of it is gone. Where, we cry, has the time gone? We aren't adapted to it, not at home in it. If that is so, it may appear as a proof, or at least a powerful suggestion, that eternity exists and is our home" (203).