Will Vaus

For one reason and another, I have been thinking much this week about one of my favorite places in the world: Binsey, Oxfordshire. The photo above was taken on a misty autumn morning three years ago along the road from the village of Binsey to St. Margaret's Church. As you can see in the photo, there are no poplars. Gerard Manley Hopkins tells us why.... Binsey Poplars felled 1879   My aspens dear, whose airy cages quelled,   Quelled or quenched in leaves the leaping sun,   All felled, felled, are all felled;     Of a fresh and following folded rank             Not spared, not one             That dandled a sandalled         Shadow that swam or sank On meadow and river and wind-wandering weed-winding bank.   O if we but knew what we do         When we delve or hew—     Hack and rack the growing green!         Since country is so tender     To touch, her being só slender,     That, like this sleek and seeing ball     But a prick will make no eye

This is a scan of a pinch pot I made in fifth or sixth grade. I tried to make it look like "The Dawn Treader" from C. S. Lewis' Voyage of the Dawn Treader . This reveals how much I was enamored with the book forty years ago. And I still love it, as this interview reveals.... Dawn Treader Interview

On Tuesday, September 24, I will be visiting the C. S. Lewis Society of Frederick, Maryland, to talk about and sign copies of my book , Sheldon Vanauken: The Man Who Received "A Severe Mercy". For more information click here:  Frederick C. S. Lewis Society  There was an interview about the book in The Frederick News Post today. To read the interview click here:  Frederick News Post

Here is the link to the lecture I gave on Sheldon Vanauken: The Man Who Received A Severe Mercy  at the Marion E. Wade Center, Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois, on September 12, 2013: Vanauken Lecture

I am once again enjoying delving into the riches of the Marion E. Wade Center at Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois. For those who don't know, the Wade is devoted to the study of seven authors and has copious archives related to each one: C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Owen Barfield, G. K. Chesterton, George MacDonald, Dorothy Sayers, and Charles Williams. I will be giving a free lecture here, open to the public, on Thursday, September 12. For more information, click here:  Wade Center Lecture on Sheldon Vanauken .

My wife Becky and I have a favorite poetic line from Robert Browning: "Grow old along with me, the best is yet to be." Little did I know that this verse was inscribed on a sun dial in our garden that was placed there long before we moved into our current home. I just noticed this the other day and it made me look up the rest of the poem.... Rabbi Ben Ezra BY  ROBERT BROWNING Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be, The last of life, for which the first was made: Our times are in His hand Who saith "A whole I planned, Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!'' Not that, amassing flowers, Youth sighed "Which rose make ours, Which lily leave and then as best recall?" Not that, admiring stars, It yearned "Nor Jove, nor Mars; Mine be some figured flame which blends, transcends them all!" Not for such hopes and fears Annulling youth's brief years, Do I remonstrate: folly wide t