Quote, passage, & poem from A Severe Mercy by Sheldon Vanauken, 'An Encounter With Light':

One day later there came the second intellectual breakthrough: it was the rather chilling realisation that I could not go back. In my old easy-going theism, I had regarded Christianity as a sort of faith tale; and I had neither accepted nor rejected Jesus, since I had never, in fact, encountered him. Now I had. The position was not, as I had been comfortably thinking all these months, merely a question of whether I was to accept the Messiah or not. It was a question of whether I was to accept Him - or reject. My God! There was a gap behind me, too. Perhaps the leap to acceptance was a horrifying gamble--but what of the leap to rejection? There might be no certainty that Christ was God--but, by God, there was no certainty that He was not. If I were to accept, I might and probably would face the thought through the years: 'Perhaps, after all, it's a lie; I've been had!' But if I were to reject, I would certainly face the haunting, terrible thought: 'Perhaps it's true--and I have rejected my God!'
This was not to be borne. I could not reject Jesus. There was only one thing to do, once I had seen the gap behind me. I turned away from it and flung myself over the gap towards Jesus.

THE GAP

Did Jesus live? And did he really say
The burning words that banish mortal fear?
And are they true? Just this is central, here
The Church must stand or fall. It's Christ we weigh.

All else is off the point: the Flood, the Day
Of Eden, or the Virgin Birth--Have done!
The Question is, did God send us the Son
Incarnate crying Love! Love is the Way!

Between the probable and proved there yawns
A gap. Afraid to jump, we stand absurd,
Then see behind us sink the ground and, worse
Our very standpoint crumbling.
Desperate dawns
Our only hope: to leap into the Word
That opens up the shuttered universe.

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I have been enjoying this book very much, so you should expect to see at least a few more quotes & such in the near future.

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