First published in 1977 Sheldon Vanauken tells the story of his love and subsequent marriage to Jean Davis and his gradual conversion to Christianity - with the help of CS Lewis!

As part of my recent Study Leave I've had the chance to read much more than usual! Among the absolute gems I've discovered is 'A Severe Mercy' - autobiography of American author and poet Sheldon Vanauken. It's beautifully written and contains a number of his poems as well as letters from CS Lewis that encouraged him to explore the Christian faith. During a time of study in Oxford, Vanauken met CS Lewis and through their friendship both Vanauken and his wife Davie became Christians.

It's a beautifully written book that has won many awards. Here are a few outstanding quotes;

"Our love of course seemed to us a miracle. First love always does, the old old story sung by the poets and sneered at by the wrinkled of heart."

"Christianity was something I wanted nothing to do with. How could anybody believe such rubbish? A mere local religion of earth quite inadequate for the immensities of the far-flung galaxies...I, indeed, had seen through the pretenses of Christianity in my teens, and forthwith abandoned it. How could any intelligent person actually believe it..."

"...not just sheep but highly intelligent people did apparently believe it. T.S. Eliot, for instance. Or Eddington - in fact, quite a few physicists, the very last people one would expect to be taken in by it. Philosophers, too. Was it possible - was there any chance - that there was more to it than I had thought? No, certainly not. Of course not! Still, it was odd. Damned odd. And it wasn't just a matter of keeping their childhood faith without examination, either. Some of them - intelligent people, too - were actually converts from atheism or agnosticism. Could there be more to it? Something I missed?"

However the book is more than just a story of a person's exploration and subsequent conversion to Christianity - it's also a love story. It begins with the narrative of Vanauken falling in love with Davie. The following is a description of his falling in love;

"To hold her in my arms against the twilight and be her comrade forever - this was all I wanted so long as my life should last...And this, I told myself with a kind of wonder, this was what love was: this consecration, this curious uplifting, this sudden inexplicable joy, and this intolerable pain."

They pledged to always put their love for each other before anyone or anything else and to share their entire lives. They called their pledge the 'Shining Barrier.'

However the second half of the book is about Davie's untimely death and Vanauken's experience of heartbreaking grief. Both his deepening faith in God and his correspondence with CS Lewis enabled him to face and deal with his loss. This of course was just a few years before Lewis himself experienced the death of his wife.

I warmly commend this book. If you love, poetry, CS Lewis and a real person wrestling with life and faith then I'm sure you'll enjoy this book as much as I did.