A Severe Mercy audiobook

I’ve rarely read a more moving, beautiful reflection on faith, life, death, grief, and eternity. It stirred my heart and opened my eyes. Tremendous book.

This was one of my top 5 favorite books I have ever read. It won’t be that way for everyone, but for my particular taste, it was nearly the perfect book. For the second time this month (Gulag Archipelago being the first) I feel entirely incapable of writing a review to do justice to this book. And this time, I basically won’t even try. This book tells the story of a couple who falls in love with each other, then with Jesus years later, and then faces tragedy. The book is written by the husband, who also happens to be good friends with CS Lewis. From a literary perspective, this book is absolutely beautiful, articulate, and at times, poetic. From an emotional perspective, you will feel unbelievable heights and depths alongside the author (I shed a tear). From a spiritual and wisdom standpoint, it is illuminating on topics such as longing, joy, and earthly and heavenly love. I can’t say enough about this book, and with this review, I am certainly not saying enough. Just pick it up and read it yourself. Maybe you too will feel that it’s so good that it’s not even worth trying to review.

I do not often cry when reading books. Books frequently move me deeply but that does not usually evidence itself in tears. This book though...I needed tissues 2 pages into the Prologue. I don't know exactly why - I connected to it more than almost any book that I've read before. I related to the emotions and experiences that were described so vividly and poetically. I loved being able to see C. S. Lewis through the eyes of someone who knew him personally. And I loved knowing that there were other people who have felt the same way I do about things - about beauty and joy and longing, about eternity and love and hope and sorrow. These were people that I could have been friends with, if I had lived in that bygone time. I think we couldn't have NOT been friends. Somehow, we would have met. And so we did anyway. In the pages of this book, I made friends outside the walls of time. We'll meet again someday and I think-I hope-we will recognize each other. Heaven will be a coming home.

Severe mercy. That’s a rather chilling way to describe something containing so much hope and freedom. Mercy can often be misunderstood, thrown down and trampled upon by our raw emotions. How can something so good cost so much? Isn’t mercy the act of setting free; a pardon from a much deserved punishment? Why then this sting? Could it be that mercy comes at a high price? Perhaps. And if so, does it come at the expense of the giver or the receiver? I’m not here to answer these questions. I would have to have a lot more wisdom than my 19 years allow. But I can point you to a memoir revered as much as any work by C.S. Lewis, Chesterton, or Spurgeon. A Severe Mercy by Sheldon Vanauken, recounts the life of Van and his wife Jean Davis, or Davy: the places they go, the people they meet, the faith they want to reject, and the transformation they undergo at the cost of a very severe mercy. On the entirety and depth of this book, The Washington Post comments, “No brief review can do justice to the human depth of this book.” I fully agree. This corner of the Collegian is merely an invitation to delve in and see for yourself the depth that is so incomparable. If my attempt to scratch-the-surface resonates at all within you, do yourself a favor and read the entire book. A Severe Mercy tells the story of two real people, Van and Davy, whose paths first cross in a New York Department store where Davy works and where Van is a scatter-brained college student. Unable to resist her “beautiful, wide-spaced eyes”, Van promptly asks Davy out on a date at his first opportunity. This snowballs into an inseparable relationship dedicated to discovering the secret of “inloveness” and beauty.Van and Davy have always considered themselves agnostics, but the more they seek to deepen their love, the more they begin to believe in a creator of order and beauty. After his time as a soldier in WWII, Van reluctantly decides to re-visit this absurd notion of Christianity he abandoned in his childhood. This decision would change the course of his and Davy’s life forever. The couple moved to England after World War II to study history and literature at Oxford University. To their surprise, they meet Christian friends who actually possess wit and intelligence, one of whom was the famous teacher and author, C.S. Lewis. Van wrote to C.S. Lewis of his doubts and questions while he battled between faith and reason, desire and belief. After a long season of searching for proof and finding unexpected answers, Van and Davy “made the rather chilling realisation that [they] could not go back” (98). Before coming to Oxford, they had neither accepted nor rejected Jesus because they had never encountered Him. But now they had. At this realization, Van exclaims in one of his letters to Lewis, “My God! There is a gap behind me, too.” Even the possibility of the validity of Christianity created a gap they did not expect. The middle ground they had stood on comfortably for so long was slowly sinking. Now that they had encountered the Gospel, they must choose to accept or reject. There were two gaps. One in front, one behind. And so they jumped. They made the choice to believe. For some of you, you may be turned off by the detailed sentimentality of Vanauken’s writing style. Others may be overwhelmed by the perfectly blended paradox of mystery and clarity. And yet within all of us, something either comes alive or tenses up. There are no directions to this part of your soul, but something about the story triggers movement there. It triggered me. It leads me to the realization that the Gospel demands a response. It demanded a response from Van and Davy, and it demands a response from us. Once we’ve encountered the possibility that Jesus is God and died for all, we’re faced with a choice--required to respond. The middle ground ceases to exist and we must either face the gap behind or the gap ahead and leap. So read with caution. The Lord has made a way of mercy, but it is not without severity. It is beautiful and good beyond comprehension, but it demands a response that will cost everything.

The paradox of our faith: A grace that not only meets us in our pain, but requires it for grace’s taste to be yet sweeter. Vanauken pens this mingling of contradictions, beauty and suffering, in his account of coming to faith with his wife and then grieving her death soon after. His words are poetry and the truth is a glory that brought me to my knees.

This book is amazing. Anyone who has really loved someone, or aspires to real love will take so much from this. It also has some beautiful things to say about grief and loss. Poetically written and so inspired!

It's appropriate that this book was given me by a dear friend with this inscription: "Thank you for sharing with me so many moments made eternity." Because while A Severe Mercy is about many things—love, loss, grief, England, idolatry, sacrifice, resurrection—it struck me deepest as a book about friendship.There's the man-and-wife friendship between Vanauken and his wife ("Davy"); the brother bond between Vanauken and C.S. Lewis; the happy connection that springs up when any Lewis fan feels like they've become a Lewis friend, just by reading; the meeting of like minds between Vanauken, Davy, Lewis, and anyone else who has ever felt that stab of longing for eternity that propels their lives.This book is for everyone. You might not be married. You might not have had a happy childhood home. You might not love poetry or England or sailing. But everyone has their Davy. Everyone has their Glenmerle. Everyone has their Beauty, their Oxford, their Grey Goose. Because everyone is on a quest for Joy that is really longing for heaven: the ultimate homecoming. No matter how, exactly, it touches you, A Severe Mercy will change your life. It's a thunderclap on either shoulder, knighting us whether we think we're ready or not. Whatever we love or long for, say with Vanauken: "I rolled it all together into a ball...and I offered [it up] to the King."

The first half plus of the book I found enchanting and enriching. It was eye-opening to me as an on-looker at the beauty of relationships between man and woman, of the mystery of God’s drawing grace and penetration of skepticism (with some real kickers from Lewis about the threshold or leap of faith…see pg. 88). There is true depth and a special resonance with much of Vanauken’s musings for me, such as his thoughts of beauty. It seems to strike a human tone—many things in his book. After Davy’s death, some of his thoughts were beyond my experience and not as enthralling. These included his philosophizing of what would have happened if Davy had not died, etc. At times I felt cheated, since he seemed to rely on Lewis’ name; at times I felt like a buyer being coaxed into a business deal I wasn’t interested in. But nonetheless, the final chapter about the “second death” of grief itself dying was a fascinating and deep journey for me. I find the book overall an excellent read, especially for my season in life. Should I ever grieve, which someday I truly will, this should be a comfort, though a painful one, perhaps.

This book is a beautiful love story, speaking to what love truly is. Sheldon and Davy are simple but also unique, adventurous but also traditional. There story is full and good and Sheldon writes of it beautifully. This book hit hard emotionally. Sheldon writes of feelings and thoughts so eloquently and honestly in a way I connected with deeply. I felt as though I was experiencing and learning with him! A quote that I particularly loved and I think captures the book: “At all events, joy flowered between us, the joy that I had thought to be pagan joy. After all, for Christian and unbeliever, there is but one spring of joy.”

A truly special book. It is not only the love story of a man and a woman but also the story of the quiet relentless pursuit of them by God. A must read for everyone.

“Only Love Himself with a severe mercy could breach the Shining Barrier &, by breaching it, save that guarded love for the eternity it longed for; & the Love & the Law are one.”:,) wow you guys read this book.

I think this one is now at the top of my list with The Hiding Place. A beautiful love story that unpacks deep emotions and the intricate plans of the Lord. A heart-wrenching and mind-opening must read.

My reaction to this book has been mixed. If not recommended to me by a very good friend whose judgment I trust, I probably would not have persevered past the first one fourth of the book. Not because of the writing, which is of excellent quality, but because of my frustration with the idealistic couple in their youth: all of their naive confidence in their Shining Barrier grated against something inside me. But then came their time in Oxford and all that came after it, and I began to understand why my friend recommended this book. Interestingly, she admitted in text to me this week that she still didn't know if she necessarily liked it either; but it's just one of those books that ought to be read, if only for the line of spiritual and theological inquiry that it opens for the reader. Once the author boiled down his conclusions in the last chapter, I found myself in harmony with his arguments--or, to be more accurate, with his questions. To be honest, that's one of the best elements of the book, and certainly the line that hit me: "Of course I do not know. I must not presume to answer, for God may have had purposes beyond my imagining. But I am at peace with the question."