Book of Love

Here is a book I wish to recommend to you if you are looking for a romantic read this month. A friend once told me that it was the best book on marriage that she had ever read. Let me start with a fitting quote from C.S. Lewis:

If the old fairytale ending “They lived happily ever after” is taken to mean  “They felt for the next  fifty years  exactly as they felt  the day before they were married,” then it says what probably never was nor ever could be true, and would be highly undesirable if it were. Who could bear to live in that excitement for even five years? What would become of your work, your appetite, your sleep, your friendships? But, of course, ceasing to be “in love” need not mean ceasing to love. Love in this second sense-love as distinct from “being in love” is not merely a feeling. It is a deep unity, maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habit;  reinforced  by (in Christian marriages) the grace which both parents ask, and receive, from God.   -C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

This Valentine’s Day, why not pick up a book about a romance?  Make sure it has some poetry and maybe a little C.S. Lewis, too. A Severe Mercy is one of my favorite reads, a true story that has all of these things. I read in bed every night and this is one of those books that finds me making excuses to get to bed and crawl under my grandmother’s quilt earlier than usual. As if I needed an excuse to go to bed early. (!)

The author, Sheldon VanAuken, recounts his courtship and marriage to Davy which he describes as “the Pagan Love”.   Here is the first poem he wrote for her during their courtship:

MAYTIME

The aged winter fled away

Before the bulges of the May,-

And love, dear love, arose.

But when spring’s glory goes

The lilacs of our love shall stay,

For ever Maytime sweet and gay,-

Until the lilacs close

Beneath the deathly snows.

Sheldon and Davy moved to Oxford after a few years. Here they read widely and made friends, many Christians among them. “As we read, we talked to our Christian friends, raising our questions and doubts. They answered us very patiently and thoughtfully.” (p. 85)  One night, he impulsively wrote a letter to C.S. Lewis asking questions about Christianity. These wonderful, insightful letters are in the book for us to read.

But life is not all poetry and books for the couple. Davy contracts a disease and their love – and faith- are put to the test.  It is told beautifully, will make your heart ache, and have you thinking about much more than love. As C.S. Lewis said, “Being in love is a good thing, but it is not the best thing. There are many things below it, but there are also things above it.” –Mere Christianity