A Severe Mercy - the Heights

In the years leading up to World War II, Sheldon Vanauken met Jean Davis and the two quickly fell in love. It was a deep love that the two were determined not only to maintain, but to prosper. They were married not long after, and after a brief bout with the Navy at Pearl Harbor, they went to Oxford. There, during their exploration of Christianity as non-believers, they met C.S. Lewis.

And then Jean died.

Lewis, through correspondence with Vanauken, helped him through the tragedy of his loss, but I haven't gotten that far in the book I'm reading right now, "A Severe Mercy." Right now, I am cherishing the accounts of how these two people met, how they loved, and how they intended to protect their love. I will come shortly to the loss of Jean, but right now I am enjoying the tale of their storybook love. Vanauken himself accepted that the greatest heights must always risk the most dreadful depths, and, oh, to what heights they rose.

One thing that strikes me is how much I think I would have enjoyed meeting these two people. They loved literature and poetry, and living in a world before television left them with lots of time to read the works of many authors and poets. They also lived in a rural area of New England and spent much of their time together taking long walks by farms and fields or simply lounging next to a lake or beneath of grove of trees. In addition, one of their first points of connection was their mutual understand of how beauty can hurt. Having read Lewis's account of his exploration of joy and having experienced my own moments where I beheld something so beautiful that I was filled with a painful longing, I knew that we would have been able to connect. They were romantics, and ones dedicated not only to each other, but to their love itself. Indeed, Vanauken wrote "this book is, after all, the spiritual autobiography of a love rather than of the lovers."

Through their discussions, the couple tried to analyze why relationships went wrong and what they could do to prevent that from happening. When they began discussing the prospect of marriage, they decided on many things, such as not having children (which helped to endear them further to me, even though I entertain the prospect for myself in the distant future), restricting the pursuit of possessions, and of having total trust between one another as a remedy to jealousy. "If that trust were ever violated, even the least bit, then a quick end; for trust could never be restored," said Vanauken.

Some of you may find their decisions a little extreme, but that's part of what drew me in. The idea of two people willing to make such extreme demands on themselves in order to perfect a love was inspiring.

Their next great decision took the form of revelation. In trying to decipher what was the secret of enduring love, they came upon the idea of sharing everything with one another. "If one of us likes anything, there must be something to like in it - and the other must find it. Every single thing that either of us likes. That way we shall create a thousand strands, great and small, that will link us together. Then we shall be so close that it would be impossible - unthinkable - for either of us to suppose that we could ever recreate such closeness with anyone else. And our trust in each other will not only be based on love and loyalty but on the fact of a thousand sharings - a thousand strands twisted into something unbreakable."

And this they did. Afterwards, they named their decision to share everything with one another the Shining Barrier. It was the protection of their love against a "world where love did not endure." They then came to see separateness as another danger to love. Not doing things together. The 'us' of love becoming two 'I's. So they dedicated themselves to doing everything together. Self became to them 'the ultimate danger to love.' They decided that children would further this separateness, and reaffirmed their decision not to have them. As for a career, neither would allow one that would dominate their lives unless it allowed them to pursue it together. They also decided that should one die, the other would follow them shortly, such as taking a plane up in the air and crashing it down into the earth.

Having made such dramatic decisions about their relationship, and being strong-willed people, they would often argue. But this, too, demonstrated Vanauken's idea of 'the heights and the depths,' as every battle would be followed with a tender reconciliation. They even had a biweekly or monthly "Navigator's Council", which was a review of how the relationship was doing. Whatever decisions or changes had to be made were decided upon in the light of what would be best for their love.

They ultimately decided that the best life for them, at least for a while, would be on the sea in their own yacht. They would take the different ports as they chose, fish while at sea, write about their travels, and get jobs in whatever towns they wound up in to pay for supplies. It was a grand romantic fantasy, and I grinned while reading it.

So... I like it. They hardly seem like real people in many places, which is probably why I it touches me so much. I enjoy the fairy-tale quality of what they did, and the sheer fact that they did it. Next comes the tragedy. If what I've read so far is any indication, it will be beautiful and heart-breaking.

This was a poem they wrote together to sum up their feelings on their relationship and their 'Shining Barrier':

This present glory, love, once-given grace,
The sum of blessing in a sure embrace,
Must not in creeping separateness decline,
But be the centre of our whole design.

We know it's love that keeps a love secure,
And only by love of love can love endure,
For self's a killer, reckless of the cost,
And loves of lilactime unloved are lost.

We build our altar, then, to love and keep,
The holy flame alight and never sleep:
This darling love shall deepen year by year,
And dearer shall we grow who are so dear.

The magic word is sharing: every stream,
Of beauty, every faith and grief and dream;
Go hand in hand in gay companionship-
In sober death no sundering of the grip.

And into love all other loveliness,
That we can tease from love we shall impress:
Slow dawns and lilacs, traceries of the trees,
The spring and poems, stars and ancient trees.

This splendour is upon us, high and pure,
As heaven: and we swear it shall endure,
Swear fortitude for pain and faith for tears,
To hold our shining barrier down the years.

I don't think I will do a Year in Review for 2007. I mean, it would be pretty short: I fell in love, Charleston didn't work out, I moved to Columbia, and I got dumped. Besides, the story I'm reading now is far more interesting than my own.


Twilight out.