Will Vaus

  Today in our journey through the 66 books of the Bible we are visiting the book of Ecclesiastes... Author   No author’s name is suggested directly in the book. However, traditionally some passages have suggested to readers that King Solomon was the author. (See Ecclesiastes 1:1,12,16; 2:4-9; 7:26-29; 12:9; 1 Kings 2:9; 3:12; 4:29-34; 5:12; 10:1-8.)  Koheleth  is the Hebrew title of the book. The word means  teacher.  This title, the author’s unique style of Hebrew, and his attitude toward rulers, suggest that the author is not a monarch. (See Ecclesiastes 4:1-2; 5:8-9; 8:2-4; 10:20.) Christians know the book as  Ecclesiastes  which means “the one who assembled”. Ecclesiastes is the Greek rendering of  Koheleth  that is found in the Septuagint.   Date   No time-period is mentioned in the book. If Solomon is the author, then the date of composition would be sometime roughly between 970 and 930 BCE. If Solomon is not the author,...

In his book, A Severe Mercy , Sheldon Vanauken writes of how he and his beloved Jean Palmer Davis (Davy) came to be married... In September as the new term began, we were secretly married — secretly because of my father’s forbidding views on early marriage, especially of people still in statu pupillari. Why, then, marry? Not, certainly, as a sanction for sex: we had known each other in the spring without guilt. There was no great reason: there might be in some emergency a legal value in our being wed. And I thought Davy would be pleased—which she was. It was not, assuredly, a desire to feel ‘married’, for we thought of marital attitudes and jokes as destructive of love; and we never did overcome   our distaste for the words ‘husband’ and ‘wife’: we said we were ‘comrade-lovers’. Perhaps we had a sense that there ought to be a confirmation by ritual of our deep vows. At all events, one Saturday morning, license in hand, we set forth to find a clergyman in some village far fro...

Glenmerle in the 1950s In 2013 I published a biography on one of my favorite authors, Sheldon Vanauken. If you are interested, you can learn more and/or purchase a signed copy here:  Signed Copy  or an unsigned copy here:  Amazon . One of the things that got me writing the book was my search for the location of Glenmerle, Vanauken's childhood home, so lovingly described in his book, A Severe Mercy . A visit to Van's alma mater, Staunton Military Academy, alerted me to the fact that Van grew up in Carmel, Indiana. Then, with the help of a local historian, we identified the location of Glenmerle.  Because Van had suggested, in my first conversation with him, that Glenmerle was destroyed, I naturally assumed that the house no longer existed. However, another one of Van's fans recently contacted me to let me know that she believed she had found Glenmerle still in existence. I was able to look up the house on a real estate web site and compare current interior p...

Yesterday I visited a friend in southern Vermont and decided to drive by the alma mater of Jean "Davy" Palmer Davis, wife of Sheldon Vanauken, the author of A Severe Mercy . Vanauken wrote in another book, The Little Lost Marion and other Mercies , that after giving birth to a child out of wedlock, "Davy was sent to a good prep school for girls." Of course, this took place long before Van and Davy "met angrily in the dead of winter". In researching my book, Sheldon Vanauken: The Man who Received "A Severe Mercy" , I discovered that Davy's prep school had been Troy Conference Academy. This prep school later became Green Mountain College which you can read about here:  Green Mountain College . Thus, being in the area, and still being fascinated with all things having to do with the lives of Van and Davy, I drove to Poultney, Vermont and snapped the photo above, outside the gates of the college. Here's a photo from my book of Davy i...

As I promised in my last post, here is the plan for evening family prayer from the 1928 Book of Common Prayer. The prayer following The Lord's Prayer was one that was most meaningful to Sheldon Vanauken and his wife as described in A Severe Mercy.... Evening After reading a brief portion of Holy Scripture, let the Head of the Household, or some other member of the family, say as followeth, all kneeling, and repeating with him the Lord's Prayer. Our Father, who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, On earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, As we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, But deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen. Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, O Lord; and by thy great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night; for the love of thy only Son, our Saviour, J...

I remember reading many years ago in Sheldon Vanauken's endearing book, A Severe Mercy , how he and his wife, Davy, after they came back to faith in Christ, would pray together morning and evening, kneeling before a wooden cross, using the Book of Common Prayer.  It was not until I got more into reading the Book of Common Prayer myself, and was doing research for my book, Sheldon Vanauken: The Man Who Received A Severe Mercy , that I realized exactly what Vanauken was talking about. In the American version of the Prayer Book (Vanauken used the 1928 version) there is a section called "Family Prayer". I believe this is what Vanauken used for his daily devotions with Davy. The form for Evening Prayer contains one of Vanauken's favorite prayers that he mentions in A Severe Mercy . We will look at that tomorrow. For now, here is the shorter form for Morning Prayer, which you may find helpful for your own devotional life as I have for mine. There is a longer form as we...

Interior of Church of St. Margaret of Antioch, Binsey, Oxfordshire As I have mentioned before on this blog, the minute village of Binsey, Oxfordshire, with its even more minuscule parish church of St. Margaret's, is one of my favorite places in the world. I am so glad I will get to visit there again. I will be going on a scouting trip in April and May to plan for a future C. S. Lewis Tour of Ireland and England.  I first learned of Binsey through reading Sheldon Vanauken's book, A Severe Mercy . I imagine that many people throughout the world have come to love Binsey because of that book, not the least of whom is Fr. Dwight Longenecker. He has written this lovely poem published in his book, A Sudden Certainty .... The Pilgrimage St. Margaret's, Binsey, Oxford You have to pass through the distressing part of this mostly golden  town to get there. You continue--pressing past Jericho and on through the desert of crowded shops, mean streets and gard...

I thought that in remembrance of Pearl Harbor Day I would share this excerpt from my book, Sheldon Vanauken: The Man Who Received "A Severe Mercy" . Vanauken was a witness to the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.... Van’s appointment the next morning was at the Red Hill Underground Fuel Depot, a storage facility that served the United States Armed Forces during World War II and continues to serve the military up to the present time. This facility, operated by the Navy, was under construction from 1940 to 1943 and remained secret until many years after the war. The Red Hill facility is on a small knoll overlooking Pearl Harbor from the northeast. As Van left Davy reading at their apartment in Waikiki and drove to Red Hill he saw few signs of life; it was a sleepy, Sunday morning in Honolulu. After arriving at Red Hill, while waiting for the man he was to see, Van read the Honolulu Advertiser. The Sunday supplement feature had an article en...

You can play a part in making the film version of A Severe Mercy  a reality. To learn more click here: "A Severe Mercy"--The Film .

I began my last day in Oxford with a visit to The Victoria Arms Pub in Marston. You may ask: "Why?" The answer is: simply because it is mentioned in Sheldon Vanauken's "A Severe Mercy" and figures in some of the Inspector Morse stories by Colin Dexter. The heavy frost that morning was especially enchanting. C. S. Lewis wrote to a young correspondent in 1955, "We had our first frost last night--this morning the lawns are all grey, with a pale, bright sunshine on them: wonderfully beautiful. And somehow exciting. The first beginning of winter always excites me: it makes me want adventures." Oxford was replete that morning with that quality which Reginald Fanshawe once called "grey magic". "Calm, cold, and sad, the soft mists brooding bathe In ghostlier glamour chapel, tower, and hall, Dome, pinnacle, spire; they clasp and subtly swathe Oxford's grey magic. Cold and calm the pall On blade and branch, as for life'...